Cool Hand (45 page)

“Fine,” Amaral said. “We concede the Gold Hill claims. Larimer gives me an ironclad guarantee on safe passage. They do the ritual.” He pointed a finger at O’Neill. “But if it doesn’t work, you agree the Confederation will force the crossing and push any Were on that side back far enough for me to issue the Convocation. I’m not going to hold everything up for nothing.”

“Agreed,” O’Neill said.

Taggart said, “Even if this farce works, how do you know Larimer will really share it with you? It seems that he’d gain more from keeping it to himself.”

“It doesn’t matter,” O’Neill said. He returned his gaze to me, cold and calculating. “If it works, I’ll get it, one way or another.”

Of course. He’d be thinking I went with the ritual. Regardless of what Amaral had in store for me, O’Neill had no intention of letting me go.

I didn’t care what he thought, as long as Naryn arrived in time.

O’Neill spoke into his radio. Evans was recalled to hide what was happening behind the scenes, and the rest of the Gold Hill pack were quietly detained.

“I’d film the ritual, if I were you,” Taggart said, looking contemptuously at me. “Even if he doesn’t lose his position immediately, Larimer’s credibility will be destroyed.”

And you’ll have another weapon against shamanic workings. No wonder Chatima was on the run.

“Fine,” Amaral said. “It’s nearly time. O’Neill, you’ll need to keep Evans in line when we go back down.”

O’Neill nodded. He knew what he needed to do.

Amaral turned to me. “Remember, Diana’s life is on your head. Don’t do anything that would jeopardize that.”

Evans came scrambling back into the gorge and he couldn’t believe his luck. The alpha offered him a position in the Wind River pack.

He forgot to jerk my arm as we returned to the parley area.

He was still a bonehead. I doubted he’d last the night, whichever way it went.

“We agree to your proposals, with conditions,” Amaral said. “O’Neill…”

The alpha went through the sequence.

Something had happened during the break. Felix had become edgy. Don was nervous. And Tullah was there—standing in the shadows with an escort of Denver Were.

What the hell?

Mary was watching me. Choosing a moment when Evans was distracted, I mouthed,
Naryn?

I got the tiniest headshake in return.

What then? Had Weaver tried something on Tullah?

Felix was nodding. They’d come to an agreement, both sides lying through their teeth. This part of the delaying tactic was over.

“What do you need?” O’Neill asked. I could feel the excitement and anticipation building in him. The Confederation must be really suffering from new wolves inability to change—or he was even more power hungry than I’d thought.

Felix gestured at me.

“A dozen, maybe fifteen others.” My teeth were chattering so I could barely speak. I tried to concentrate, but all I could think of was a warm fire. “I need a bonfire in the meadow,” I said. “And everyone else to clear the hell away.”

“I’ll be observing,” Taggart said. “To verify the authenticity of the working.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. It wouldn’t matter—I only had to fake it until Naryn showed up. It couldn’t be much longer.

“The necklace, of course,” I said.

“Of course,” sneered Taggart. “We’ll need to inspect it before you do the ritual.”

“Fine.” I turned to Felix. “Who’s the candidate?”

He looked into my eyes. “Olivia Todd,” he said quietly.

I barely caught myself. He’d been adamant that Olivia wouldn’t be put through a fake ritual. Unless…

“How close to crisis is she?” I tried to sound cool and analytical, but my wolf was scrabbling inside.
Help her. Help her.

Felix’s voice was clear and steady, but I could see the effort. “She’s very close. If she doesn’t change within the next couple of hours, she’ll die.”

But I had a couple of days to work on it
, I wanted to shout. This was supposed to be a fake. I wasn’t prepared.

“Who else do you need?” Felix asked.

I had to get myself together. I had to figure this out. I’d promised Olivia. Everyone was depending on me. Diana, Skylur, Felix. Now Olivia.

“Ricky.” I said, my voice strained.

Felix nodded. He’d expected that.

Who else? Maybe I could really try something with eukori?

“Yelena. Nick.”

Someone to comfort Olivia. And one for backup.

“Martha. Tullah.”

One more. One who’d shared something with me.

“Ursula,” I said. “And about a dozen cubs,” I added without really knowing why. It felt right.

Felix frowned. He’d expected me to ask for the best fighters, to get them closer to Amaral’s camp. And I would have, if this had been fake. But now it was real, and something deep inside prompted me.

“She’ll need to be freed to do the ritual,” Mary said.

Amaral strode across to me.

“You know what will happen to Diana if you run,” he said.

I nodded. I had no intention of running away.

At Amaral’s curt nod, Evans cut the rope.

For all my determination not to show any pain, there was no hiding it. As my shoulders were released from their unnatural position, I groaned. My back and arms felt like every joint was made of broken glass. I slumped down while Evans hacked the hobbles from my ankles as well.

Martha was first to arrive, and she massaged my shoulders gently.

Then the others I’d named came, one by one, until finally Tullah moved to join the group.

Taggart blocked her way.

Could he sense Kaothos?

A wisp of voice came to me.
He cannot sense me, Amber Farrell. He feels something, but there are none so blind as will not even look.

A hiss of laughter.

“Give that to me.” Taggart held his hand out for the necklace.

Tullah offered it up and he snatched it away.

He ran his fingers over it.

Best of luck.

“This isn’t a talisman,” he said, sneering. “Not even an heirloom. It’s dime store junk.” His voice slowed. “Though…”

My heart thumped against my throat.

“Someone has imbued it with workings.” He frowned, rubbing the beads between his fingers. “They have no structure, no form. Meaningless shit, that just—”

“It can’t change Were?” Amaral interrupted him.

“No. I told you, that’s ridiculous. This junk is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be destroyed, along with the people who made it, and the mumbo-jumbo they peddle. It’s dangerous using the energy with so little grasp of what it might do.”

I could see energy coiling around him, ready to attack what he could not understand.

“Break it and the deal is off,” Felix said.

“Taggart,” Amaral said.

The Adept leader threw the necklace back at Tullah in disgust, and she plucked it out of the air.

Careful.

“I will need everyone who’s not participating to clear the area,” I said, and made signs for Mary and Liu to stay.

Taggart and Amaral whispered urgently. Amaral was shaking his head.

“You didn’t say those Adepts,” Amaral said. “They can’t stay. We don’t know what workings they might try under cover of the ritual.”

“I need them,” I said stubbornly, “I’m still in training.”

“You can’t need them both,” O’Neill said. “Speaks-to-Wolves worked alone.”

Damn. He did know about her. I should have known that’d come back to bite me.

I needed Mary and Liu, close enough to work on Diana’s lock.

Mary stepped forward. “You only need one of us to help you,” she said, and she turned to Amaral. “I’m willing to offer myself as a hostage, to ensure the others’ good behavior.”

I had to admire her balls—and her strategy. If they took her up to the camp, she’d be right where she needed to be.

I could see Taggart liked the idea of having Mary under his power. O’Neill didn’t argue. He’d see the benefit of another captive.

But Amaral refused the bait. “No. I’m not having an experienced Adept in my camp.”

He looked at Tullah instead.

“This is the woman you had with you in New Mexico?” Amaral asked me.

We froze.

Shit. What now?

I nodded.

“Someone you care about. I’ll take her,” he said.

“No!” Mary strode forward and suddenly the air was charged with violence.

“Stop!” Tullah leaped in front of her. “It’s all right, Ma.”

Did Mary know I’d freed Kaothos? Was this acting?

Calm.
Kaothos’ voice whispered in my head. Liu reached out and pulled Mary back.

At a sign from Amaral, Evans took Tullah’s arm and led her up toward the top of the hill.

“I’ll take good care of her,” he hissed as he passed me. “Maybe she’ll like it enough that she won’t want to go back.”

Tullah handed the necklace to me before letting herself be taken.

The necklace felt smooth and heavy in my palm. Still hot from Tullah’s touch.

I put it on and sank down until my head touched the ground.

Don’t take Tullah.

I had to press my face into the rocky surface, concentrate on the sharp edges cutting into my skin. Roll my shoulders. Anything to get the pain to blot out my thoughts and stifle my hysterical laughter.

Oh, no. Don’t take Tullah and Kaothos right into the middle of your base. Oh, hell, no.

“Amber.” Martha touched my arm.

I looked up. There was a group of about twenty young Were, led by Ben.

I blinked. I’d said I needed some, but I’d forgotten what I was thinking.

My hand came up and stroked the necklace.

What had I been thinking in the dungeon beneath the convent? That most of the problem with changing happened when the pack didn’t believe a halfy could change.

That’s
why I needed youngsters.

They hadn’t had as much time to get into the negative mindset.

Ben was grinning and nearly bouncing on his toes. No negativity there.

“My sister,” he introduced the Were behind him, and she was looking at me with a sort of wide-eyed hero-worship. No negativity there either.

They were perfect. I pointed them across to join Olivia.

The next three I rejected. Two Denver pack, one Cheyenne; I tasted their minds with eukori and found doubt. And most of the rest. Four more from Denver, three from Cheyenne and one more from Cimarron in the whole group of cubs were what I needed. Young, fresh, willing to believe.

Gullible
, snarked Tara.
Only joking, sis.

I guided them up to the meadow and got them gathering pine needles and broken branches to make a bonfire.

My fingers traced the necklace.

I will…

Martha dropped an armful of branches on the growing pile and put her arms around me.

“You have a duty here, Amber,” she said.

I sagged against her, shivering.

“I don’t know—”

“No path is known until you reach the end,” she murmured, and gave a breathy chuckle. “Amaral has done his unwitting best by picking us a sacred area. Whatever it was that she did, Speaks-to-Wolves always took to these places.”

“Is it really?” I said. “This place is sacred?”

“Shh. Listen…” She held me, rocked me gently. “Listen with your whole heart.”

The wind hushed through pine and teased little snowtrails. It was like a song, like an old memory of something heard in passing. A meaning that always just escaped me.

My fingers traced patterns in the necklace.

The rest danced away from my fingers. The beads spoke a language that murmured words in my head. The second pattern felt similar to the first. The same start. Then different words for the same thing?

I will... I will…

“The song is strong tonight,” Matha whispered. “Many are called.”

It’s just the wind.

I will choose my path.

That was the first of the patterns that Chatima had laid in the necklace. I’d chosen. I’d taken one step after another that led me here. And I could feel the cost of my choices wheeling above in the night sky. Death and sorrow and pain and loss hung like vultures circling above me.

My fingers tried the second pattern again.

I will…

Chatima had faith in me. She thought I could do this ritual.

The embers from one of the braziers were dumped in the pile and the fire caught. It was low and smoky, but it felt right, and I needed the warmth.

Martha left me while I warmed up. She moved across to Olivia, looking worried.

I could get them to dance. That felt right.

Olivia was trembling now, even more than I had been earlier.

I had no time left. I went to her side. She was wheezing with pain, tremors shaking her whole body.

“Too late,” she groaned. “Kill me.”

I flashed back to Alex showing me through eukori what had happened to his girlfriend, Hope. She’d screamed, tearing with her nails at her flesh, bloody foam bubbling out of her mouth and nose.
Kill me
, she had screamed,
please kill me
.

No. That will not happen.

I held Olivia’s head in my hands and forced her to look right into my face. “No. Trust me.”

She did. Half blind with pain, she still reached out to me with her trust.

Pain. Something in the necklace.
Need
pain?
Want
pain? It wasn’t in the patterns; it lay beneath, a shadow swimming in the depths.

I reached blindly to the people supporting us.

Ursula was there, solid and dependable. She trusted me too. It was like having a harbor wall shielding me from the storm. And beneath that, another heavy responsibility on me. A secret of hers that I knew. I hadn’t made a promise to her like I’d promised Olivia, but still...

I pulled her into a hug and rested my forehead against her for a second, breathing in the steady thump of her heart, the odd familiarity of her marque, caught half-way between Felix and me, between what she was and what she wanted to be.

On the other side, Martha. Light to Ursula’s darkness. No burden of expectation to place on me, simply a willingness to help, and a deep well of compassion.

“I need your help, both of you. Just hold Olivia for the moment, calm her. Let her go, Ricky.”

Should I send him back? I could feel the despair leaking out of him.

No. Keep him.

“Yelena, I need you next to Olivia too. I need us to touch even if we get far apart.” I tapped my head and sent a sliver of eukori toward her.

She looked surprised, but she nodded.

They were half-believing. Even Ricky kept a tiny spark of belief. It was buried deep in their minds, underneath what they knew from what had happened so many times before, but it was there.

I just needed something to divert their thinking minds, hide the disbelief away and let the belief catch and flare, like the bonfire.

I will…

“We’re going to dance,” I said.

Puzzled looks. But not from Nick; a slow, thoughtful breath from him, steaming into the cold air.

“Do the Chippewa dance, Skinwalker?”

He grunted. For a second, the image of his bear seemed to suck up the darkness of the night and hover around him.

“We dance,” he said.

“Then dance me a spirit dance, Skinwalker. Dance the stars down, dance the earth up into the sky, dance the spirits out of the air.”

He grunted again, a deep sound. His head lifted as he tested the cold air.

He turned, shucked his clothes and began clapping and stamping.

“Yelena.”

She laughed. “I am Dancing Girl. Yes.” She looked at me. “I dance. I get naked too? This is like club in Denver? They put dollar in my g-string?”

I gave a tired smile. “No g-string allowed in Were dance.”

She laughed and pulled me in to kiss my forehead.

“You will do good,” she said, giving me the strength of her belief in me.

Then she shed her clothes and spun away to begin stamping and clapping behind Nick.

The cubs stripped and joined in. Lightness in their step. Strength in their youth.

The wood on the fire had too much green. Smoke billowed out around us, but at its heart, it burned.

Olivia was staring into the flames, shaking. She seemed past caring what happened to her.

Martha and Ursula took their clothes off. Olivia allowed herself to be undressed. They pushed her gently into the group. She stumbled, but managed to catch a little of the rhythm of the dance.

Nick completed a circle of the bonfire, picking them up in his second pass.

Stumbles wove their way into the step. Nick stamped and twisted and wheeled. Buffalo, bear, eagle, wolf, salmon, cougar, elk. He started chanting. The words were Chippewa, and I doubted anyone else understood them, but it wasn’t the words they needed.

The rest of them joined in, carrying the sounds.

I felt a storm of derision from Taggart, a hundred yards up the slope. Flickering disbelief and hope from across the gorge. It didn’t touch the dancers. It wasn’t directed at them. It was directed at me. I let it pass through me.

And behind it, I welcomed in the beat of the spirit dance.

It unwound its way through my head.

The heart beats forward: da-DOM, da-DOM. Nick’s chant turned that around: HEY-ya, HEY-ya.

I will…

I joined the dance. Every step jogged my shoulders, and the pain built and built until it seemed the sky was red and I forgot myself. Beyond the pain, I became clumsy, calm and dreamy.

Nick led on. We stamped and spun through the drifting smoke and the flickering firelight like phantoms of an earlier age.

The spirits weave in and out of the world. An eagle wheels through the clouds; a ghostly wolf chases the shadow through the forest. The bear leads them. Their steps are thunder, their breath is the terrible wind that bends the trees.

A dancer changes. A human lifts a foot, a wolf strikes the earth with a paw. I hear the song of his change and it rings through the circle. His mind brushes against us, fevered with hunting, running and fighting.

Hold. Hold. Not yet.

Olivia was lost. She moved like a stick on the rapids, her eyes unseeing. She was carried only by the power of the dance, flowing through the weaving pattern of phantom wolves, and the deliberate tread of bears.

I felt Yelena’s eukori pulling me, allowing me to reach Olivia, increasing the strength of my connection to her.

Now all I needed was something to send.

What had Noble said when I asked about the first change?
Imagine your wolf running.

She feels what I feel. Our hearts beat together. I remember for her. She sees what I see; herself, her wolf, racing through the forest. Faster and faster.

Flying. Running. Closer and closer.

Energy crackles through me.

Pain-Pain. Pain-Pain. Pain-Pain. Can’t think. Feel.

Wolf and bear. Wolf and bear.

My hand pressed the necklace against my skin. The beads felt hot, painfully hot.

The pattern in the beads.

I will master my way.

That’s what it says! That’s the second truth. Burned into my body.

I screamed it into the night with words that felt strange on my tongue. Words I did not know I knew.

I will master my way.

Wolf and bear.

More wolves change.

Dive like the hunting eagle. Down. Down. Down.

SLAM into the running wolf.

I smacked into the ground. I hadn’t even felt myself falling.

Dizzy. Too much smoke.
My eyes streamed. There was too much noise to think straight.

I crawled away from the fire and the wind changed, drawing the smoke away.

All the wolves had changed. I staggered to my feet, my legs uncertain under me. The wolves were leaping; not around the fire, just in one spot, one huge ball of struggling, tumbling fur right in front of me.

Olivia! Oh, my God. NO!

I’d failed. This was the mercy of the pack. They were killing her.

“NO!” I screamed. I stumbled forward, grabbing the wolves nearest me and hurling them back.

I was bitten, again and again.

Their bodies cannoned into me, buffeting me from side to side, as they snarled and spun and jumped into the air.

I wasn’t being killed. The bites weren’t breaking skin. They were nothing more than excited nips. Not a mercy killing.

The wolves were dancing.

The tangle of furry bodies parted and I fell onto my knees.

In front of me stood a beautiful red wolf. She swayed unsteadily, looking startled and proud and self-conscious, all at the same time.

I threw my arms around her neck and hugged her to me.

“Olivia,” I sobbed into her fur, letting my heart open to the soaring song in the Call that told every Were for miles around what had happened. An explosion of joy answered from the far side of the Toltec gorge.

And then from the swirling smoke, monstrous shapes emerged, rumbling a sound so deep I felt it rather than heard it.

A large, cold nose was pressed into my side.

I blinked. My sight seemed to come and go like a faulty light. Was I seeing double?

Two
Kodiak bears.

Wolves swirled around them, binding them into the celebration. None of the wolves cared that they were bears. Or skinwalkers.

Ursula butted me with her shaggy head.

The secret that she’d kept from the pack for so long: an aching certainty that she was more inside her, something different.

“This wasn’t me,” I stuttered.

She butted me again.

“I can’t show you what I don’t know.”

But I had formed some kind of bridge. My experience in changing to wolf had gone to Olivia. Had I channeled Nick’s experience of changing to bear through to Ursula?

Whatever had happened, it had left me a shambling wreck.