Kinked

THIRTEEN

Aryal could see that Quentin hadn’t yet pieced together what she meant. He looked sharp, fierce, still ready for battle, his sword gripped in one hand while he rubbed her back with the other. She didn’t think he was aware that he was doing it.

He started for the house, and she grabbed his arm. She told him, “It serves no purpose for you to go in there.”

He glared at her, jerked out of her hold and strode for the house.

She put a hand over her eyes with a sigh. Some people always had to take the hard road. Then, because she knew what was waiting for him in that still, silent house, she followed at a slower pace.

He moved from room to room, his movements angry and aggressive. Then he came to the doorway of one room and stopped with a jerk as if someone had punched him.

Fresh tears flooded her eyes. Gods, she hated crying. She walked up behind him and this time she was the one to put a hand on his rigid back.

It was a beautiful room, clearly the jewel of the entire house. Loving care had gone into every detail, from the bright treasures of tapestries that hung on the walls, to the handmade toys, the books, and the three gold and jeweled animals that sat on a shelf.

The most precious jewel of all lay in the beautifully carved cradle, his tiny body dressed in soft, embroidered silk. His skin glowed, bright ivory and peach. From his delicate, rosebud mouth to his miniscule, pointed ears, he was perfect in every way. Like all dead Elves, he looked as if he had fallen asleep moments ago.

Quentin’s jaw worked.

She said, her voice hoarse, “The door was shut. Not the door to the house—that was unlatched. This door. I think that’s why he’s still so perfect. None of the wildlife could get in here.”

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were reddened. “All of them? All of the babies are dead.”

Her mouth worked again, and two tears spilled over. Damn it. “Any child that was too young to enthrall must have been left behind, which means any child too young to fend for itself.”

She had seen horrible things in her life, but this was one of the most appalling and heartbreaking. Children were rare to the Elder Races, as if nature compensated for their long life spans, and they came most rarely to the Elves. Sometimes Elves longed for children for thousands of years, and they greeted the birth of each one with joy.

The death of any single baby or child, of any species, was a terrible tragedy. The death of all the Elven babies and young children in Numenlaur was simply unspeakable.

His chest moved, a quick, involuntary movement. He whispered, “I thought before they were crippled from everything that has happened to them. This will have cut out their heart. No wonder so many are committing suicide.”

When she had opened the door, she had been totally unprepared for what was inside, and the sight had slammed her so hard she had tried to run away from the pain. Now, she did the opposite. She walked into that beautiful room and sat on the stool beside the cradle to gaze at the baby’s face. Her face tickled. She wiped at it, and found that her cheeks were wet.

“I don’t know how to walk away from him,” she said. She picked up one of the gold animals, a frog with emerald eyes, and turned it over and over in her hands. It was small and heavy, and something in her mind told her that it meant something significant, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. “It feels wrong to leave him lying here unprotected. What if something manages to get in? And we can’t bury him. That would be stealing even more from his parents, if either one of them survived. They can’t come back to just find their baby gone.” Her voice broke. “Goddammit.”

As he had done when they had talked about the Elven horses, Quentin spun to turn his back on the room, but this time he turned around again as if he couldn’t help himself. He walked toward her, every line of his body speaking of reluctance.

She wiped at her eyes again. “It’s not that I haven’t seen bad shit before. Battlefields with thousands of dead, and thousands more injured and dying.” She barked out a dark-sounding laugh. “My gods, have I seen bad shit. I just haven’t seen this kind of bad shit before.”

He knelt beside her and looked at the occupant in the cradle. Quentin’s face was still clenched as he fought with his emotions. In a barely audible voice, he said, “I want Amras Gaeleval alive again so I can hurt him. A lot.”

She put a hand on his shoulder, gripping him tightly. His muscles were rigid. “Now you sound like me.”

He glanced at her, pain pooling in his eyes. Then in a gesture that seemed as natural as breathing, he took hold of her hand and leaned his forehead against it.

Had she really reached out to him, and had he really accepted it?

Wonders never ceased.

She looked at his bowed head and slumped, broad shoulders. This wasn’t fun pain. This was the bad kind of pain, and nothing about it was like brandy and chocolate. This was more like taking a knife to the gut and then watching yourself bleed out.

Something welled deep inside. She supposed it was compassion. Or maybe empathy. Whatever it was, it moved her to set the frog on the floor and reach out with her free hand to stroke Quentin’s soft, dark gold hair.

He looked at her over their clasped hands, a raw, direct look. When she met his gaze it was with a shock of connection that shifted something important inside.

Then he squeezed her fingers and let her go. “I can seal the door,” he said. “If there’s anyone with magic sense in the area, that’ll pretty much tell them we’re here.”

“If it leaves him protected, so be it,” she said. “Besides, I know we chose to be wary but I’m no good at pussyfooting around.”

A ghost of a smile played over his firm, well-cut lips. “I’m glad you saw fit to tell me, because otherwise I never would have known.”

It didn’t feel right to punch him in that room, so instead she shoved him lightly, enough to rock him but not enough to knock him over. She rose to her feet. “Do what you’ve got to do. How long will it take?”

“Five minutes.” He picked up the gold frog and set it carefully back into place with the other two figurines, then stood too.

They were quite lovely, exquisitely shaped and detailed, down to the folds in the frog’s eyes. If the set were kept together, on Earth it would fetch a fortune, especially with today’s gold prices.

She paused and cocked her head. “So we have one or maybe two people who came into Numenlaur,” she said softly. “And they are not here to loot for treasure.”

Quentin swiveled to face her, his gaze keen. “Because the figurines are still here.”

“Along with the jewelry in the first few houses we went through,” she told him. “I didn’t look at them closely, but I remember seeing some serious sparkle.”

“Which begs the question,” he said. “Why did they come here?”

“Come on.” She slapped him on the shoulder. “Do your thing so we can get out of here. It’s time we hit the city.”

He nodded, and she left him to go through the pantry supplies. They had hit pay dirt with this house. There were several wafers of wayfarer bread, along with cured meat, jerky, nuts, and dried fruit. She took everything they could carry and, chewing on a strip of jerky, she knelt outside to tuck the new supplies in their packs while the Power from Quentin’s spell built in a slow flare that snapped and disappeared, like a rubber band settling into place.

Her head lifted, and she looked around, assessing the surrounding landscape that seemed so quiet, as if she and Quentin truly were the only ones around.

Maybe one of the Elves in the missing party was a magic user and could sense what Quentin had just done. If they were still alive. Or maybe they had just attracted the attention of the trespassers, and maybe those trespassers weren’t friendly.

If so, bring ’em on. After discovering the tragedy in the house, shedding tears and suffering through pangs of empathy, she was in the mood for a little gratuitous violence.

They walked the rest of the way to the coast, both eating jerky. The sun beat down on their heads from a cloudless sky as the afternoon turned sweltering. Then a breeze picked up, blowing off the water and bringing a welcome respite from the heat.

Aryal didn’t want to look at Quentin, and she was glad he didn’t seem to be in the mood to talk. She didn’t have to glance at him to know how he walked, moving his long, muscled body with that smooth, boneless grace of his that ate away the miles like a sleek Porsche purring down a road. She could do with not seeing him at all for a couple of months, but for the moment that option wasn’t in the cards.

Her fingers kept remembering the silken glide of his short hair as she stroked him, the feeling of his forehead pressed to the back of her hand as he gripped her. The way he had come running when she had burst out of the house, his expression sharp with concern. His hand, rubbing her back. The raw emotion in his face as he stared at the tiny occupant of that exquisitely carved cradle.

She was in real trouble, all right.

She was in imminent danger of believing Quentin Caeravorn might actually be a decent man after all. Or at least part of him was, the essential part, the part that could be counted on to do the right thing when push came to shove.

Hrmph. She would rather be caught dead before she admitted that to anyone back in New York. It would completely trash whatever reputation she had. With everybody. She was quite sure right now that some of them didn’t expect both her and Quentin to return in one piece.

And well, as far as that went, it was early days yet.

The curving road followed along the coast just on the other side of barrier dunes. She couldn’t contain her curiosity and had to jog over the dunes to taste the water, which was salty. From the shore, she could see a few more details of the blue land in the distance. It looked like an island. A dun-colored line at the water hinted at sand, and a glimpse of green trees on a sharply rising slope rose from the water. Through the trees on the slope, she could see some kind of building.

She made a promise to herself to fly over the next day to explore it, or at least take enough time to make a quick pass over it from the air. She had kept herself grounded for too long, and she was beginning to feel it as a jittering in her bones.

As they reached the shore, the temple on top of the promontory became larger and clearer as well. The figures, along with the pillars that interspersed them, were easily fifty feet tall and dominated the landscape. There were three statues along the side of the temple that faced them, and from the shoreline she could see the profile of the figure facing out over the water. It was male. Was that the god Taliesin, and would the other half of the figure be female? The pattern would make sense if there were three statues on the other side of the temple. One statue for each of the seven Elder Races gods.

Quentin had joined her at the edge of the shore.

“The water is salty,” she said to him. She nodded at the temple. “Have you heard any stories about whether or not the palace is part of that temple?”

“No,” he told her. “ But making a guess right now, I’d say not. I think that’s the palace.” He pointed, and she followed the line of his arm to the long building that hugged the top of the hill where the promontory reached the mainland.

Built of limestone, with four marble pillars at the front, the building glowed golden and white against the green foliage and blue skyline. An immensely long staircase was cut into the hill and lined with stone.

She sucked a tooth and made a small grimace. “Yeah, that looks palacey all right.”

He grinned. The lines of it creased his lean face. “Come on. No time to lollygag and play in the water.”

She followed him over the barrier dunes, watching as his powerful body and long legs made short work of the slippery sand. Some contrary impulse made her say, “You know, just because we’ve sexed it up a couple of times and shared a bad moment over—back there—doesn’t mean I like you very much.”

He turned to face her, blew out a huge breath and rolled his eyes. “Whew, that saves me from having to ask you to back the fuck off. For a while there on the walk, you were getting a little clingy.”

Internal pressure built. She tried to swallow it down. Then their eyes met, and they both burst out laughing.

It felt a lot like the camaraderie she had built up over the years with the other sentinels, not quite the same, but it felt good. He looked great, tanned and blue eyed and bathed in sunshine. He was the very picture of the kind of man who’d had the world laid at his feet by every female he had ever met.

He could have anyone he wanted, anytime he wanted. He was sexy, alpha, secure in himself, and the world adored him for it. He was only messing around with her because there wasn’t anybody around, and if they wanted to go back to their jobs, they were stuck with each other’s company for at least the next week and a half.

Hell, it was the only reason why she was messing around with him too, wasn’t it? She might have found him … okay, sexually intriguing … back in New York, but she would never have acted on anything, especially when she had been so suspicious of him.

Her own feelings confused her. She hated when they did that, almost as much as she hated to cry. Complex, confusing feelings felt like she had a crowd of strangers in her head, and they were all shouting for attention in some foreign language she didn’t understand.

She cut her laughter off abruptly and scowled at him. That only made him laugh harder, and of course that made her feel prone to violence.

Which made her feel better.

Gods, she was a fucking mess, sometimes.

She waved a hand in the air and stomped off. The last five minutes had become meaninglessly complicated. For good measure, she flipped up her middle finger and was rewarded with a guffaw. Oh, screw it all, anyway.

But as much as she didn’t know what to call it, and try as she might to deny it, something had happened back in that beautiful, terrible nursery. Something indefinable but important had shifted between them. She just wished she knew what it was.

Then they reached the center of the city, and she put it all behind her.

By modern standards on Earth, it wasn’t very big. The entire area was easily reached by walking. Many of the large buildings looked like spacious homes, while the rest appeared to be perhaps government buildings, and some looked like shops. Given the size of the Numenlaurian army that Aryal had seen, that would mean many of the Elves must have lived scattered across the land.

The only way Gaeleval could have ensnared them all—or at least the majority of them—was either by patiently combing the countryside, or by casting the enthrallment at some point when the Elves would have gathered here en masse, either for a holiday or some ceremony. Given the location of the bodies they had discovered, Gaeleval must have walked the length of Numenlaur, harvesting people across the land like wildflowers.

They quartered the streets and walked down all of them systematically, looking up at the buildings and inspecting blind alleys. Even though this area was the most developed they had seen since they’d crossed over, there was a symmetry to how the buildings aligned with the countryside, and how the streets and paths followed the natural curvature in the land. Houses nestled into groves of trees, and flower gardens flourished everywhere, overgrown now with weeds.

Skeletons lay strewn in the streets. Scavenging wildlife had made short work of the bodies left out in the open. At one point, Quentin bent to gently pry a sword from a skeleton’s grip. It was a long, lethal piece of loveliness. An Elven-made sword, she knew, was a true joy to wield, slender yet strong, perfectly balanced, and with an edge so sharp it could slice a single hair.

She watched as he wiped it off carefully and inspected the length. Then he swung it back and forth, spun around and lunged with it, testing its mettle. He looked like he was floating as he moved, a Fred Astaire of death. His prowess with fighting had been quite clear at the Sentinel Games, but the Games were unarmed combat and this was something else entirely. With a few skillful moves, he showed just what an accomplished swordsman he was, and he was mesmerizing to watch.

She dragged her gaze away from him and walked over to the skeleton. It still gripped the empty sheath. The Elf must have barely gotten the sword unsheathed before dying. She wiggled the sheath out of the bony fingers and inspected it. It was simple and elegant, the artistry wholly in the sheer beauty of how well it was made.

She wiped it off and handed it to him. “You should take it. The sword looks like it was made for your hand.”

He hesitated, then sheathed the sword and buckled it at his trim hips. “We should get one for you too,” he said. “And I want a longbow if we can find one.”

Not many people could wield an Elven longbow, which was six feet long and a powerful long-distance weapon. She stood as she admitted, “I wouldn’t mind a longer sword.”

“Keep on the lookout,” he told her. In contrast to his hoarse reaction in the nursery earlier, his voice was even, analytical. He’d clearly found a way to box his emotions. “Their owners can’t use them anymore.”

It didn’t take very long to find another sword for her. After they had cleaned it off, they continued inspecting the city. The day had begun to slide away from them, the sun starting its journey to the horizon. Shadows lengthened on the cobblestone streets.

The complete stillness in combination with the well-maintained streets and buildings was creepy, like some kind of Elder Races version of The Walking Dead. When they weren’t talking to each other, the only sounds she heard were their footsteps, the occasional cry of seabirds and the sound of the waves hitting the nearby shore. It was a completely different experience than exploring an area filled with ruins. Ruins graciously gave one a sense of the passing of time, blurring disaster and tragedy into a distant thing.

This—this gave her a sense that someone was going to walk around the corner at any moment, but they didn’t. Or that someone was watching them from the windows of nearby buildings. Which they weren’t.

Were they?

She walked in a large circle, studying shuttered windows, corners of buildings, hiding places in the shrubbery. And saw nothing.

Still, the nape of her neck prickled, as a sixth sense insisted that someone, or something, was watching them.

Quentin noticed her behavior, and his attitude sharpened. She liked that he didn’t nag her with pointless and distracting questions, but that he simply adapted his behavior to match hers. They were learning how to respond to each other like a fighting unit.

“I want to go up to the palace,” she said. She wanted to go to high ground and study the scene. If someone—or something—was in the city with them, sooner or later they would give themselves away.

He said, “Let’s go.”

They had followed a small side street that led to several houses set against the backdrop of a hillside. The hill was terraced and beautifully landscaped with a profusion of flowering trees and bushes that perfumed the air. Many of the flowers were strange to her, which made the scene seem even more otherworldly.

To reach the palace, they had to turn back to the main street. As she turned, something black flashed at the corner of her eye.

Something too black for the rest of the lengthening evening shadows. Something that moved independently of any breeze.

She spun toward it, staring. And saw nothing. She looked up at the sky and at the rooftops of buildings. Nothing moved from above. Easing her newfound sword out of its sheath, she strode over to where she had seen the shadow, at the corner of a waist-high, fieldstone wall that bordered one of the houses.

She looked both ways, along the wall. There was no quick-moving black streak. No scent. Everything about the scene appeared just as it should, except now she wasn’t buying it.

Quentin said, “I’m starting to feel like I’m color-blind or tone-deaf.” He sounded amused, yet when she glanced at him, she saw that his body was taut and his eyes never stopped moving. He had drawn his sword too, and while the point was casually lowered, he had clearly stepped up to high alert. He asked telepathically, What did you see?

Same thing as last night, she said. She stood on the balls of her feet, ready to move fast if needed. She tilted her chin back and forth, stretching her neck, and shook her arms to loosen the tension that had built up in her shoulder muscles.

Quentin strode toward the open archway in the stone fence.

Thirty feet beyond him, something black streaked between two buildings. He whirled toward it before Aryal had a chance to call out. He said, “I saw that one. But I don’t know what I saw.”

“I don’t either,” she said, walking rapidly to the area between the two buildings. The cobblestones were worn, the ground uneven. It was the opening to an alley that ran parallel to the main road, and it led to another side street. “I don’t think it’s physical. There’s no scent. There aren’t any tracks.”

He joined her, looking down the alley. “If it isn’t physical, what is it?” he asked quietly. “Some kind of ghost or spirit?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

The cobblestones were pebbled with the different colors of stone, and the warm brown-gold of the buildings was deepening with the growing shadows. Sunshine still shone directly on the other side street at the opposite end of the alley, topped with the white and blue of a cloud-dotted sky.

A black streak ran across the mouth of the alley, left to right.

Aryal and Quentin raced toward it. They plunged onto the street, looking in the direction it had gone. It had vanished from the sun-drenched scene.

She wiped her hot forehead as she turned to look at the surrounding area. This little street led to a park with stone benches and shade trees surrounding a shallow reflective pool. She glanced at Quentin, who was scratching the back of his head. He was scowling and he looked as frustrated as she felt. Then she looked back at the alley they had just exited.

Two black shapes were in the alley, moving toward them.

She smacked Quentin’s arm with the back of her hand. He jerked around.

The shapes were long and waist high, and they moved like shadows, except they were unattached to any corporeal body. Her mind kept insisting it could make sense of their shapes if she stared long enough at them. She caught a glimpse of legs, a narrow muzzle.

“Now I can sense them,” Quentin said. “Faintly, anyway.”

“They look like some kind of animal,” she said. The shadows crept closer, black in the darkening alley. She cocked her head. “Are they stalking us?”

“It does look that way.” Quentin narrowed his eyes. “I wonder what they can do if they catch us.”

Movement flickered at the corner of her eye. She looked down the street, in the direction of the park. More shadows approached them, pouring across the ground with intent. Recognition struck. She said, “They look like wolves. Very big wolves. Some of the Wyr wolves can get that big.”

“Aryal,” Quentin said.

When she looked at him, he pointed in the opposite direction. Even more shadows crept closer. There were twelve shadows altogether, and they were acting in coordination with one another, moving just like they would if they were a real pack. And now they had her and Quentin surrounded.

She turned and put her back to Quentin’s so that they both faced outward. “We don’t know that they can do anything,” she pointed out. “Weird shit sometimes happens in the magic of Other lands. They really might be animal ghosts.”

“Let’s try to break through their circle and get to the main street,” he said.

She didn’t bother to argue with that idea, mostly because she was curious to see what the shadows would do.

Together they turned and sprinted toward the shadow wolves that stood between them and the main street.

The wolves attacked.