Truthseeker

Thirty-Three

“What are you—” Lara fumbled the words, tongue too big for her mouth as she stared up at Ioan. He was gore-spattered, black smears across his golden skin, and he bared his teeth at her half-asked question, though his extended hand remained steady.

“I have been trying to follow you for hours. The worldwalking spell is difficult even for an adept, and I have very little practice with it. It was only when I heard your call for help that I was able to open a door at all. Will you stand?” He spoke with impatience so polite Lara hardly recognized it. She put her hand in his and he drew her up, then brought his sword to the ready as Kelly approached with the tire iron gripped in both hands.

“Lara, who is this? What’s going on?”

The trooper drew their attention by amending her question to, “What the fuck is going on?” He was crouched behind his open car door, a shotgun balanced in the rolled-down window, so all that was visible were wide eyes and a double barrel.

Lara sensed, more than saw, both Kelly and Ioan cede the right to answer by taking half-steps backward. The right to answer and the position of responsibility, she thought a little wryly, and stepped forward. “We’re the good guys.”

“You’re wanted for assault!”

Incongruous hope slammed through Lara’s chest. “Just assault? Detective Washington’s alive?”

The shotgun wavered as the trooper raised his head a few more inches, staring at her incredulously. “‘Just’ assault? That carries a fifteen-year prison term, lady! Whatever you did to him was bad enough that the whole damned East Coast is on alert, looking for you three.”

“We didn’t do anything to him. It was creatures like these ones.” Lara nodded toward the shriveling nightwings, then took a second look and swore. “They’re disintegrating.”

“Not entirely.” Ioan nodded at the largest of the nightwings, which twitched like a lizard’s tail, life gone but nerve impulses remaining. Its body changed shape more than withered as Ioan spoke again. “Whatever sustained them will be left.”

“Something sustained them?” Lara said horrified. Then, more urgently, she added, “Nobody’s going to believe any of this without a body. Do you have a camera, Officer? Ioan, can you, I don’t know, can you put a stasis spell on one of them or something, so it doesn’t disappear?”

Both men exchanged glances, but the trooper, looking like he wasn’t sure why, exchanged his shotgun for a cell phone and approached the largest dead nightwing to take pictures. He muttered, “The camera in the car will have caught the fight, too,” somewhat dubiously.

Lara shared his uncertainty: it seemed somehow unlikely that magical creatures could be caught on videotape. On the other hand, Dafydd had spent years as a TV weatherman, so maybe there was hope. “Ioan?”

He shook his head. “Any spell I cast would only last as long as I remained here, and I have no intention of staying to explain any of this. We’re weaker here, Truthseeker. Legend said we have always been. No one from Annwn stays in your world long, not if they can help it.”

“Fairy tales,” Kelly whispered. She’d knelt at Dafydd’s other side and looked up now, eyes shining with worry. “In fairy tales if the fair folk stay in our world it’s usually because they’re trapped somehow and aren’t strong enough to get away. Like Tam Lin except in reverse.”

“And it was mortal love that saved Tam when he rode back into this world with the queen’s host,” Ioan said. Lara looked between them, bewildered, though Kelly’s expression said she knew the story. “Had Janet come to Annwn to rescue him, she never would have been able to free him. We’re weakened by this world,” Ioan said again, “and Dafydd is weaker yet than he might have been, because his link to the Barrow-lands has been stolen from him.”

“How did you—?”

“Know? Because no denizen of the Barrow-lands would be so wasted unless he’s been cut away from the source of our power. Was it you?”

Lara nodded miserably. “I was trying to stop the nightwings from coming through a breach between the worlds. I closed it. I was afraid they’d take on a life of their own.”

“As they would have. Or stolen many, more likely.” Ioan frowned at the largest nightwing, which the trooper stood over, still filming. It had nearly reverted to shape, and bile rose in Lara’s stomach as she recognized the shape.

“It’s Officer Cooper. Oh my God.” Her hands went to her mouth, half shock and half holding back illness. “Oh my God. This is the man the nightwings … took refuge in. Hid in. Oh my God, Ioan, what happened to him?”

“They required a host. Sustenance, so they could survive. Their maker would have been able to control a man infested by them, Truthseeker. Not easily, perhaps, but in time, with such an infection, the purveyor of disease would inevitably dominate the host. And the host’s perception of himself as an individual being would have permitted the nightwings to act in concert the way we saw.” Ioan sounded admiring. “It would take a magic user of great skill to accomplish all this.”

“And a lot of innocent lives,” Lara snapped. Ioan had the grace to look slightly abashed, as Kelly slowly came to Lara’s side, looking down at the contorted dead man.

“No wonder it took awhile for him to catch up with us,” she whispered hollowly. “Cooper would have been fighting for control over his own body.”

“And losing,” Ioan said without pity. “You’re fortunate he had the strength of will he did, else you might have been destroyed hours since. And you are equally unfortunate that there was such corruption in his soul that he was susceptible at all.” He fell silent a moment, looking at Cooper’s body. The police officer looked tortured, Lara thought, and as though he’d aged years in the hours since she’d seen him last. Black threads stained his skin, like the blood vessels were filled with poison, which wasn’t, she imagined, far from the truth.

Ioan finally turned his attention back to her. “You probably saved your world from an infestation, Truthseeker. And no wonder, then, that I had such trouble crossing over, with the path so thoroughly closed. Following you took everything I had, and even now I’m uncertain how it was accomplished.”

Lara curled her fingers around the staff she still carried, reluctant to suggest it as the source of power Ioan had sent her searching for, or as the conduit that had allowed the worldwalking spell to work again. He only knew that he’d wanted a weapon, not what it looked like, and she had no intention of giving it up. Instead, after a moment’s silence, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, does it? You came, and you saved us.”

“As I would now save my brother. I would return him to the Barrow-lands, Truthseeker.” Ioan’s voice cooled, as though he expected a challenge, and Lara for once found herself glad to meet that expectation.

“Why would I let you take him anywhere? As far as I know you’re the one who killed Merrick and started this whole mess.”

For a sudden moment she saw what Emyr might have looked like if he’d ever displayed a sense of humor. It cut through Ioan’s face, biting but true: “I have done no such thing. I have, indeed, done my best to protect him. He faced some manner of trouble on the battlefield, Truthseeker. That was why I usurped his power and thrust him back to this world in the first place.”

“You what? You laid the compulsion?” She hadn’t expected her suspicions to be confirmed so easily, but Ioan’s voice rang out over hers, strong and angry.

“No. I stole his power, Truthseeker, but not his will. I was watching you during that battle, through my silver pool.”

Lara, under her breath, said, “I thought scrying was an ice spell.”

Ioan, unexpectedly, interrupted himself to answer that. “Ice is only frozen water, and water is my gift. I was watching,” he repeated. “To find you, but Dafydd rode close to you, and so I watched him as well. I saw him struggling with the compulsion, and I saw his lover bind him so he could drive himself away into the heart of the Unseelie army. I took the only path I could see to keep him safe. I wrenched his own magic away and forced the worldwalking spell he held at the ready to be cast, sending him back to your world. But he is dying now, Truthseeker. He will die if he stays here.”

Lara’s ears turned scarlet and she bit back a heated denial of the term Ioan had used for Aerin. He’d spoken only truth, and she knew it. Knew, too, that Aerin had been Dafydd’s lover, but she hadn’t allowed herself to put it into words, and was surprised how much they stung when voiced.

It wasn’t a sting she could allow herself to pursue right now. Not with the truth of Ioan’s words rushing over her. “Then, take me with you.”

Ioan made a sound outside of words, a breath of regret and helpless humor. “I can’t. The Barrow-lands will tolerate one passenger when the worldwalking spell is used, but I cannot force it to more. Much as I need a truthseeker, Dafydd is my brother, and dying.”

“I can’t just let you take him!” Fingernails on chalkboards, screeching untruth in her protest. She could; she would have to. Lara knelt and curled Dafydd’s hand in her own, squeezing like she could waken him by force of will. “How can I trust you?”

“You’re a truthseeker,” Ioan whispered. “Ask your questions, but do it quickly. He has very little time.”

Dafydd’s hands were warm in hers. That seemed wrong, when he was the one lying so close to death. Lara stared at him dry-eyed and, dry-voiced, said, “Did you, Ioan ap Caerwyn, called ap Annwn, by any action or inaction of your own, force Dafydd ap Caerwyn’s hand to murder Merrick ap Annwn?”

Soft, ferocious: “I did not.”

Lara nodded once, a stiff ungainly motion. “Do you mean Dafydd ap Caerwyn any harm?”

That same sound again, the unhappy breath of laughter. “He’s my brother, Truthseeker. I mean him no harm.”

Lara nodded again, still jerky, then forced her gaze from Dafydd to his brother. He was beautiful, more beautiful than Dafydd, a perfect creature cut from amber and garbed in night. She wanted to hate him, and could find nothing other than fear to knot her heart: fear for Dafydd, and fear that her gift might somehow fail her and she might be sending him to his doom. “Do you know a way for me to get back to the Barrow-lands?”

A spasm crossed Ioan’s sharp-etched features. “Find the one who’s done all of this to us. He must be in your world, Truthseeker. With the world walls closed, there’s no other way he could have controlled the nightwings. He’s here somewhere, and must himself be able to work the worldwalking spell. Find him, and maybe you can return.”

Lara pressed her lips together, nodded a third time, and climbed to her feet. Her stomach was a solid mass, tight and heavy inside her, and her own expression felt like a stranger’s, a mask of ill-concealed rage and frustration. She stepped back, giving Ioan the space he needed to kneel and lift Dafydd’s body. When he’d straightened again she said, “Ioan.”

“Truthseeker?”

Stranger’s face, stranger’s words; Lara had never said anything like what she said now. “If anything happens to him, Ioan, I will kill you.”

Ioan ap Annwn afforded her the scantest bow, all he could manage with Dafydd’s weight in his arms, and said, very softly, “I believe you.”

Sunlight wrapped them, and they were gone.

Power erupted from the staff again as the walls between the worlds closed. Lara staggered, planting the weapon against the ground for support, and felt a shudder beneath her feet. Kelly bellowed in dismay as the earth lurched. “Pick it up, pick it up!”

“Pick what—?” Lara heard her own voice distantly as she took a few hopeless steps forward, dragging the staff with her. Overwhelming weariness drained all other emotion away. There was no lingering doorway, no break in space that might permit her to follow the two elfin princes. Visions shattered behind her eyes with each beat of her heart, pictures of the fanciful world she imagined every time she thought of Dafydd ap Caerwyn. A life with a man who grasped, instantly, what she was; a world beyond her own to explore. Now the color drained from those dreams, leaving them remote and cold.

“The staff, the goddamned staff, Lara!” Kelly slammed against Lara’s side, bringing her back to herself enough to stare uncomprehendingly first at her friend, then at the ivory rod she herself held. It took long seconds to understand Kelly’s alarm.

Worldbreaker. And it didn’t seem to care what world it broke: Lara’s own was as good as any other. She yanked it up, breaking its connection with the earth, but the ground continued to rumble threateningly. “This is New England!” Kelly wailed. “We don’t have earthquakes here!”

“It’s not an earthquake.” Lara glanced upward, half expecting the sky to boil with clouds and lightning. It didn’t, but a foreboding sense of not yet came over her, and she knotted her hands around the staff, holding it parallel to the earth. “You’re done for now,” she whispered to it, and exerted effort to put truth into the words. “This is my world. I don’t care how much power I might wield through you. I won’t let you destroy my home.”

A length of ivory couldn’t, in any logical way, be sentient or opinionated, but a sense of resentment built up from the staff regardless. Lara tightened her hands around it, aware that such fragile-looking bone should shatter beneath her grip, but never dreaming it might actually do so. “You waited for me for centuries. I’ve found you now, and I’m your master. A mortal master, at that. Oisín carried you a long time. You should know by now mortal masters can’t be tempted the way Seelie can.” The truth came from within her, absolute with conviction, though where it stemmed from, Lara had no idea. Oisín might know, if she ever had the chance to ask him.

Sullenness flared, but the building power retreated. With it, so did the tremors, and Lara stood breathing heavily and wondering at her own strength of will.

“I oughta arrest you both.” The trooper sounded uncertain, but his voice took Lara’s attention from the staff. She’d forgotten about him and everything he represented, caught up in Dafydd’s weakness and the staff’s living hunger to wreak havoc. There were innumerable other things to think about, and she latched on to the first one that came to mind.

“Detective Washington. Is he okay?” Speaking propelled her into action. There were injured people, perhaps dying people, who needed attention, and the trooper’s indecision suggested he wasn’t likely to follow through on his threat.

“Last thing anybody mentioned he was stable,” he said after a moment. “Serious condition but stable.”

“Thank God for that.” Lara crouched by the ranger, whose eyes were wide open. She breathed through her teeth, fingers pinched against the asphalt, but she was alive. That was two, Lara thought. Washington and this woman, both survivors. It was more than she’d hoped for.

For a moment the staff felt warm in her hand again, as if offering potential power. Healing power, perhaps: that was what Lara had wanted it for, after all. The potential caught her off guard, and a sensation of triumph spilled from the staff. Lara jerked to her feet, narrowly avoiding casting the staff away in revulsion. No inanimate object should offer impulses like it did. Even if she knew how to control its power properly, the idea of doing its bidding seemed dangerous. There were humans who could affect healing much less esoterically than the staff’s unknown magics might, and with only predictable side effects. “Officer, can you call for more paramedics?”

“A lot more,” Kelly said unhappily from near the ambulances. “Two of these guys are dead.”

“We saw it.” A new voice spoke as the back of one of the ambulances opened. A paramedic climbed out, followed by a white-faced woman clutching her arm. She nodded to the station wagon the ranger had fallen by. “That’s our car. We saw … those things … that you fought. We were afraid to get out.”

Shocked relief shot through Lara. She’d forgotten there had been injuries in the car, that their delay had been due to the paramedics arriving and transferring people to the ambulances, and hadn’t considered that anyone might have been hiding there. “That was the smartest thing you could’ve done. And probably getting back in and waiting for more paramedics is the smartest thing you can do now.”

“Are they gone? Those things? What were they? What was it?”

Lara exchanged a look with Kelly, who said “Bats” without any conviction. It shivered tunelessly down Lara’s spine, neither true nor false; bats were the closest equivalent to the nightwings that she could think of, too.

“Bats,” the woman repeated, almost angry. “Bats don’t do what those things did. That thing. It changed. It—they—turned into a … a …”

“Dragon,” one of the paramedics supplied, then flushed as everyone looked at him. “Looked like a dragon to me.”

“Little-known fact,” Kelly breathed. “Bats and dragons are closely related.”

That did run sour over Lara’s skin, but she laughed anyway, a short sharp sound. “They were called nightwings. They’re not bats and they’re not dragons. They’re more like demons, and they come from fairyland.” She put truth into the words, knowing everyone would hear it. Knowing, too, that they wouldn’t believe it for long, but she couldn’t do anything about that. “The man who rescued us was an elfin prince,” she added. “Thank him in your prayers, if you pray.”

The woman stared at her a long moment. “I think I will tonight.” She climbed back into the ambulance and closed the door with a resounding crash that ended all conversation for a while. Lara trailed back to their car as the trooper called for more help. Kelly joined her, earning an uncomfortable glance from the cop, though he made no effort to stop them.

“So now what?” Kelly asked eventually. “Do we let him arrest us or what?”

“No,” Lara said as she got into the car. “I’m going to do what Ioan suggested. I’m going after whoever did this.”

“I kind of thought so. Okay. How?” Kelly asked as she, too, got into the car.

“I’m not sure, but he’s somewhere nearby. He has to be. Us killing the nightwings hurt him, I saw it. So if he needs the same things Dafydd did, he’ll be in the woods, somewhere quiet and green where he can regain strength. I just need to concentrate and open a true path.” Lara relaxed into the hum of truth in her own words.

Kelly cleared her throat. “Lara?”

“What?”

“I get that this whole truthseeking magic path thing is just how you roll now, and I hate to be all pragmatic …”

Lara frowned. “But?”

Kelly gestured at Lara’s clothes. “But you’re the one who pointed out you weren’t exactly wearing hiking gear. If we’re going chasing through the woods after bad guys, maybe we should do some shopping first.”

Lara glared at her pretty, impractical sandals. “No.”

“Lara, you’re the one who said—”

“That was before. Besides, we’re on the far edge of nowhere. There’s probably not a J. Crew for forty miles.”

“You’ve never worn J. Crew in your life.”

“That’s not the point!” Lara banged her palms against the dashboard. “The point is that before, we were just trying to get Dafydd somewhere quiet and safe so he could recover. Now he’s almost dead and my last chance of getting back to him and making sure he’s all right is out there somewhere. I’m not going to let whoever’s been controlling the nightwings have an extra few hours to rest up while I find sensible shoes!”

A drawn-out silence, long enough to make her feel guilty, met Lara’s tirade. She looked away, trying to summon the energy to mumble an apology, but Kelly said “Okay then” in an unoffended tone. “Let’s pretend I suggested that first so my second idea would seem more palatable.”

“What’s that?”

“Do your truth-path-seeking thing somewhere else.” Kelly pointed toward the trooper. “And right now, let’s bug the hell out of here before he gets up the nerve to arrest us after all.”