Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess (15 page)

It was just clever enough to suit Carey. Except . . . "Zip locks?"

"Yeah, plastic bags. It'll keep the paper dry." Mark glanced at Carey's lack of understanding—Camolen had spells for such things—and said, "Never mind, you'll see. Anyway, it'd be easier to do it before dark, if you want to."

Carey glanced out the window over the sink. Another hour till sunset, maybe. "I want to get a quick look at the spell, first," he said. "Just so I can get an idea of what I'm working with." A look he'd been wanting for two impatient days, and that he didn't dare try to take until he felt clear of the fatigue and drugs of his captivity.

"I don't know how you're going to do
that
," Mark called after him as he went to get his saddlebags, also under the couch. "It's sealed pretty well."

It would be, Carey thought, dropping to his knees to fish the saddlebags out, retrieving the bow and quiver while he was at it. Fortunately, the spell that would release those seals happened to be one of the few he knew—although he doubted Arlen realized it. But it was inevitable that a wizard's top courier would pick up something of magic, over the years. And Carey had been with Arlen for . . . ten years, twelve? Ever since his adolescence. He absently thumbed the courier's ring he still wore.

He pulled the manuscript out of the saddlebags and rested it on his thighs, contemplating the idea of trying it himself, and the possible consequences. Maybe he'd use the indoor arena. He didn't think any pyrotechnics would affect an area larger than that, although the noise might alarm the horses. He ran his fingers along the edge of the thick, creamy vellum and sighed. What a mess.
You're the only one I know who will invoke that crystal
, Arlen had said. Given a second chance, Carey wasn't certain he could be trusted to do the same again.

Mark came in the family room, leaned down to look over Carey's shoulder. "See? We thought about getting into it—Jaime was going to take it to OSU, see if they could identify the language, but decided against it when they couldn't do anything with a copy of the letters on the front. But we decided we'd just rip the thing up, so we left it."

Magic, Carey had learned, was little more than a series of mnemonic devices that channeled the user's will, which in turn guided the power of the magic. That was the one problem with magic, and the reason he'd never given any thought to learning more than he already knew—any power that was used in a spell was also channeled through the magic-user's body, and the more potent the spell, the more the power. No, thank you. Fortunately, the spell for releasing Arlen's seal required little in the way of concentration or magic.

And it would tell him if he had any hope at all of employing magic in this world. With a glance at Mark, Carey closed his eyes and took the deep breath that triggered his own minor level of concentration. His fingers spelled out the short formula, and with a wash of relief greater than he'd expected, he felt the slight tug of magic pass through body and soul. When he opened his eyes, the seal didn't look any different, but it was warm putty to his fingers, and peeled right off the vellum.

Mark, still close over his shoulder, gave a low whistle. "Holy shit—it's for real!"

Carey couldn't keep the satisfaction out of his voice. "Yes, it's for real—and it's my first step home."

Well into dark of the next evening found all of the household members at work, trying to wrap up the end of a busy day. Carey ferried flakes of hay for the horses' bedtime snack—a chore Jaime
did
trust him with—while Mark fumbled around in the dark, hauling in the sacks of grain that should have come in while it was still daylight, but which had been forgotten in a day of fence mending. They were both tired, and Mark was slow—slow enough that Carey had once checked, and found him listening to the owls in the small patch of woods behind the paddocks. Carey couldn't blame him.

The third party at work was Keg, the ever-busy farm dog, who took off in his nightly rounds of the property. It was Keg who first alerted Carey to trouble, although at the time he was more concerned about his skirmish with the baling twine than he was about what Keg might find to bark at. It took a moment for him to recall Mark's warning of the previous day, and by then he'd heard the unmistakable grunts of a fight.

He flung aside the loose twine and ran outside, momentarily blind in the darkness. The dog's barking was close now, and had escalated into fury; Carey followed the noise to the front of the house, and had just made out the two figures struggling there when he was stunned by a thunderous blast of noise. Keg silenced immediately, and through the ringing in his ears, Carey shouted Mark's name.

"Son of a bitch!" Mark yelped in way of an answer, and by then Carey had found his night vision, and could see Mark struggling with a larger man he'd nonetheless managed to get partially pinned. "On the ground, Carey—get the gun!"

It was a dark moon and the gun was invisible on the dark grass; not until a car drove by and its headlights glinted off the steel did Carey see it, and then they all three dove for it at the same time. Carey's hands closed around the warm barrel and he rolled away and up to his knees, brandishing the weapon even though he had no idea how to use it. Three wary figures stared at one another for the merest instant as they each deciphered who was who, and then Carey pointed the gun more accurately and advised, "Stand fast, Derrick."

"You don't even know what a gun does," Derrick sneered, nonetheless following instructions.

"I saw enough of those movies you watched to tell me exactly what it does," Carey said, mostly bluff. "I know what you're after, Derrick, but you might as well forget it. I don't have the spell anymore."

"You think I'm going to believe that?" Derrick scoffed. "I'll get it, Carey—if not tonight, another day. Getting that spell is the only thing on this world that I care about."

"Life's a bitch," Mark muttered without sympathy.

Carey said bluntly, "I lost it. Lady and I were separated when I fell, and she didn't have any idea how important it was. You want the spell? Fine. Go look in the woods—I already have."

"No," Derrick said, his head shaking, barely visible in the darkness. "It's a good story, but too easy for you. It's here somewhere. It took me a few days, but as soon as I remembered where I'd seen that woman's face, I knew you—and it—were here."

"Fine," Carey shrugged. "Then how about I just kill you and get you out of my way."

"Um . . ." Mark said, "Carey . . ."

"I don't think so," Derrick said, his voice full of smug certainty. "I've still got your stone—but it's not on me. Without it you've got no way home."

"If I were you, I wouldn't count too heavily on that." Carey readjusted his grip on the gun and it was enough to spook Derrick; he dove into the shrubs in front of the porch, and the only sign of him after that was footsteps on pavement until, far down the road, a car started and squealed away on abused tires. Keg gave one last indignant bark and went to Mark, whining anxiously.

"I thought Derrick shot him," Carey said with some relief.

"No, gunfire scares him. I'd say he's been hiding." Mark rubbed the dog's ears and stared down the empty road. "That guy's provided us with two guns. I think tomorrow before Jaime gets home, I'll go get some ammo."

Carey thoughtfully hefted the weapon in his hand, then held it out to Mark. "When you do, maybe you should show me how to use one of them."

Mark gave a single guffaw, and slapped Carey's unsuspecting shoulder. "Bluffed him out, did you? Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll show you how to use 'em—provided they aren't so fancy I can't figure 'em out myself."

Jess sleepily lifted her head as the tire noise and feel of the road changed; it was well after dark on the day Jaime called Sunday—as if the sun wasn't out the other days of the week, too—and they were just moments from The Dancing. She stretched and yawned hugely, and Jaime moaned, "Oh, don't start," right before she gave in to the yawn Jess had inspired.

"Almost home," Jess said encouragingly.

"Right," Jaime agreed. "Where we have to unload Sabre and Silhouette, and haul in our things—"

"Mark and Carey," Jess interrupted decisively. Her self-confidence had taken a great bound upward this weekend, which she had negotiated without attracting undue attention, and without making any errors that left Jaime in the lurch. Armed with a watch and a simple written schedule, she had had the horses tacked up on time, groomed to perfection and ready for several classes each. In between her duties she had plenty of time to wander around the show grounds and soak in the people, their behavior and language. She'd proudly decided that very few of them knew horses as well as Jaime, or for that matter rode as well. And on that score, she decided, she was as well or better equipped to judge than anybody else, even if she was new to this world and this body. She yawned again, big and satisfied, then clapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

"Never mind," Jaime said. "Here we are!"

Suddenly Jess was wide awake, and had somehow managed to forget that she hadn't yet defined her new relationship with Carey. After all, the only reason she'd left him again so soon after his liberation from the hotel was her disturbing confusion about who and what she now was to him—and what he was to her—and her reluctance to face him without Jaime's support.

He and Mark were out in the horseshoe-shaped driveway before the truck had stopped rolling, and she hopped out of the truck to greet them, uncertainties forgotten for the moment. "We did good!" she announced, grabbing both of Mark's arms in her excitement and using him as a human pivot.

"He-ey!" he said, a laughing protest, as she left him to give Carey a snatch of a hug, there only an instant and then gone to one knee to greet Keg.

"We did good, Keg!" she told him, as he solemnly offered his paw.

"Lady, you'll bounce yourself all the way up to the fifth heaven if you aren't careful," Carey said, still looking a little stunned by the hug.

She stopped short, cocking her head a little, the gesture that had evolved from her attempt to prick her ears. "You used to say that to me," she realized. "When I was . . . when I was . . ."

"Full of yourself," Carey supplied. "When you ran up to me in the pasture at a full gallop and stopped right up in my face."

"Did you like that? I did."

Carey shook his head, but it was in amused agreement.

"C'mon, guys," Jaime said, climbing stiffly out of the truck. "Horses to unload. Gear to carry in. More excitement than you've had all weekend, I imagine."

Mark laughed out loud, and Carey gave him a grin as the two shared some secret joke.

"What?" Jaime asked blankly.

"Later," Mark said, moving around the back of the trailer to swing the doors open. "It's a short story, but I think you'll want to give it all your attention."

With four sets of hands and legs, the unloading went quickly, and by the time they were finished, so was Jess' burst of energy; Jaime sent her into the house with their suitcases while Mark and Carey moved the truck and she herself put the horses to bed.

Jess dumped her suitcase in her room and Jaime's at the bottom of the stairs, and collapsed on the couch in front of the television Mark had, as usual, left on. She automatically changed the channel to one of the several stations that often ran nature shows and sat there, grateful to be back and just then realizing she'd come to think of this place as home.

But
home
, she told herself, was a completely different place, where she was a completely different creature. She closed her eyes and was instantly drawn into intense visions, of running free and of taking Carey from wizard to wizard, feeling the power in her sturdy limbs. Then, relieved to find she could still draw so easily on those memories, she just as quickly left them behind and her attention focused on the strange new object on the coffee table.

It was heavy and metal, and it had a sharp, acrid smell to it. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands, recalling that Mark had named another similar thing a "gun." It was a weapon, she thought, from the way they'd all reacted to it at the hotel, but she couldn't see the threat in it. It wasn't sharp, and it wasn't a very good shape for throwing. But it was here, on the coffee table, where it hadn't been before.

With sudden alarm she wondered if Derrick had been here. He was the only one she'd ever seen with one of these things. She sniffed the gun without thinking, but her puny human nose—so inadequate it didn't even have
whiskers
—told her nothing more than she already knew. She frowned at it, in such intense concentration she didn't realize she was no longer alone.

"Jess!" Mark said, lunging after the gun just as she grew bold enough to explore its various moving parts. He snatched it from her, and she was so startled she sprang away from him, eyes wild, ready to bolt.

"Lady," Carey said evenly from behind Mark, command in his voice; she huffed, relaxing back into her more human reactions.

"Why?" she asked pointedly.

"It's dangerous," Mark said, pushing out the middle part of the gun and shaking out the pointed cylinders within. "Jess, we've got two of these things in the house now. I want your promise that you won't touch them."

Why could they touch them but she was not allowed? Though the question instantly came to mind, Jess swallowed that small rebellion and instead asked, "Promise?"

"It's easier to tell you about
breaking
promises," Mark said. "If you tell me you'll never touch this gun, and then you wait until I'm gone and you pick it up, that's breaking a promise."

"It's a Rule," Jess offered uncertainly. "Carey teaches me no kicking, and I don't ever kick. You tell me don't touch, and I don't ever touch. If I say I promise, then I mean I'll follow the Rule."

"That's about right," he said, which
should
have given her a sense of accomplishment for having mastered yet another concept of this perplexing world. Instead she wasn't sure she wanted Mark to have this power over her. She wanted to argue, and swish her tail, and paw her front hoof against the ground; one bare foot came up and rested briefly on its toes, tapping ever so slightly.