Jaguar Night (28 page)

Carter recognized the vial’s significance as well. “Damn.”

Gausto brandished the thing. “Now that my resources are…
expanded…
did you really think I’d let you walk away from here with information about the
sceleratus vis?
Once I know what you’ve done with the book—”

“The book?” Ruger gave Carter a puzzled glance. “We don’t have the damned book.”

Gausto glared at Dolan, who mustered a halfhearted shrug. “I lied. Sue me.”

“Then you’ll live somewhat longer than the others, if not much. It won’t take long to get the truth from you.” And he lifted the vial in a completely unnecessary dramatic gesture, focusing on it with a glower. “Support me, Meghan.”

And Dolan thought he heard a whisper of response, a coyote’s child leaping on her prey, jaws snapping shut.
You asked for it.

Power surged through the room; Ruger and Carter barely had time to exchange alarmed expressions at the magnitude of it before Gausto loosed it at them—

And cried out in astonishment, recoiling from the vial—stiffening, quivering and slowly slumping to the floor, his expression dazed with incomprehension.

Hit with sudden understanding, Dolan laughed, short and hard—it was too much, and doubled him over in a cough. Carter grabbed his shoulder, shook it. “Straighten up, Treviño—what the hell—?”

Dolan cleared his throat, spat old blood and laughed again. “She did it. She did just what he asked. The strongest possible wards. Nothing gets in…
nothing gets out.”

Carter looked over at Meghan, brows raised. “Damn,” he said. “You
are
your mother’s daughter.”

“He could always tell her to drop the wards,” Ruger suggested, sounding very much like Briar Rabbit.
Go ahead, Gausto. Drop the wards. Do it…

But Dolan was watching Meghan, listening to the bare whisper of her indirect thought, filtered through the earth to him. “I’m not so sure…” He looked at Gausto, who dragged himself up the wall to stand again, if unsteadily. “Go ahead,
Drozhar.
Ask her. Ask her if she can. Better yet, ask her why she
can’t.”

Gausto’s jaw worked, resisting the directive—but not for long. “Explain, Meghan.”

Her voice, freed, rang clearly in the cellar. “You asshole. You told me to make it as strong as possible, and I did. That means the
aeternus.
Those wards are unbreakable. I tied them to
your
life.”

“You—” Gausto struggled with her words, couldn’t seem to understand them. “You—”

“You’ll never touch anyone else again. Any power you use will bounce back on
you.
You
lose,
you freak—”

“Silence!” he shouted.
“You
are the ones to lose! I’m walking out of here—with
her
—and you can do nothing to stop me.”

And Meghan instantly complied—but now Dolan could see the spark in her eye, the defiance. He caught that spark, held it…made it to his hands and knees, never releasing her gaze from his.
Fight it, Meghan. Fight it now!

Success.

She’d taken what she’d learned in these scant days, taken the time Dolan had given her to prepare, and she’d woven the very wards Gausto demanded of her. And even if he still compelled her…he’d also given her access to the earth’s power. To Dolan through that power…to her friends.

She reached for it, that pure connection to the land. Down through flagstones to the earth beneath, through the earth to Encontrados. Reached for the roiling purity of the power that welcomed her—recklessly, desperately opened herself to it. Hunting just enough to burn away the dark ugly bands tying her to Gausto…to free herself.

And
it burned.
It rolled through her like a tsunami, scouring and flooding
and it burned
—

Meghan screamed, a sound that cut through her from the inside out as her eyes rolled back and her body stiffened and jerked, and then she lost everything but the power and the burn and the power and the flood and the pure white incandescent flash that blinded her inside and out and left her lost and drifting.

Meg.

Wave upon wave of it, bright burning power…

Meghan, love. I’m here.

And the faintest flicker of sanity—

Meghan. Meg. I’m here. Come to me.

And the faintest flicker of self—

Meg. Come back to me.

Dolan?

Here, Meghan.

I can’t
—

You can. Come back to me, Meg.

Dolan?
The bright haze thinned, dimmed to the reddish haze of wards…pulsing, alive…free.

Still here.
A brighter spot in that haze, steady and comfortable.
Here, Meg. To me. I’ll take you back.

And suddenly she was there, beside that warm presence, and she was looking at the inside of her eyelids to boot, her back against the cot and her body still clenched and trembling, but Dolan’s arm around her shoulders and his hand stroking back her incorrigible hair. She pried her eyelids open and found him close, half on the cot and half kneeling beside it, his face streaked with dried blood and his eyes haunted, and he, too, trembled from what they’d been through. “Dolan,” she whispered, and he nodded, a barely discernible movement, his gaze still fastened on hers. She smiled, a mere exhausted twitch at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t…call me Meg.”

And he laughed, and he kissed her good and hard, and held her so close she could barely breathe—and that’s just the way she wanted it.

Chapter 24

D
olan rested his head back against the low adobe wall that arched around the natural landscaping of Gausto’s rented headquarters—former headquarters—and tightened his arm around Meghan’s shoulders. Her head rested against his collarbone, where—with a little help from Ruger—she slept. Recovering from the day.

Captured. Tortured. Killed. Resurrected into slavery. Used as a power conduit…and nearly lost in a flood of it as she broke her bonds.

Yeah, busy day.

Ruger had brought her out here, carried her effortlessly while Dolan staggered along behind, and leaned her up against the retaining wall, even as he declined to ease Dolan’s wounds. “You wasted the last healing,” he’d said, actions belying his hard words as he helped Dolan sit on the narrow strip of grass bordering the
short wall, where the low sun turned the shadows long. “Now you can do it like anyone else.” But he’d hesitated long enough to narrow his eyes and give Dolan a careful eye. “Though we’ll want a better look at you. Later. Right now, you just be here when she wakes up.”

He’d cleaned up, at least—made use of washcloth and bathroom while Ruger worked on Meghan, so when she did open her eyes she wouldn’t find the same bloodstreaked horror that had confronted him in the mirror. And now, while Carter and his team cleaned up the house, removing all signs of the activity that had gone on there, Dolan sat out here on the grass with his knees propped up and Meghan tucked under his arm, floating in his own achy exhaustion.

Sceleratus vis.
Just say no.

Meghan shifted slightly. Her hands, resting limply on legs folded to the side, moved—finding him. First his chest, then his thigh; she took a deep, slow breath and rested one hand there, detouring only to tuck her hair behind her ear in a futile gesture. “I would have been lost,” she murmured. “I
was
lost. If you hadn’t come for me—”

He said nothing. He briefly tightened his hold on her shoulders, and he kissed the top of her head.

After a long silence, she pushed herself up—still tucked in beside him, but more upright, leaning against the wall on her own. “I must have passed out. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t pass
on,
when I broke Gausto’s hold on me. We don’t have any idea what he did to…to bring me back.”

He looked away from her, not quite able to face that possibility so soon. But he admitted, “You’re right. But if it was going to happen…”

“It would have,” she said, trying to convince herself. “Dolan, your voice—!”

Gravelly, strained…the voice he’d been left after Gausto’s handiwork. “It’ll get better,” he said, but then had to admit, “I think.” And he kissed her forehead for good measure.

“Did it hold? What I did with Gausto’s wards?”

Dolan grinned, and made no attempt to make it a nice one. “Steady as she goes.”

She twisted around to look at the house, barely visible beyond the curve of the wall. “Where is he?”

“Gone.”

“Gone?”
She pulled away from him to look at him more completely, to take in their circumstances and their lack of company.

Dolan shrugged. “He’s untouchable. We can’t get in; he can’t get out. He can’t do anymore harm with the
sceleratus vis…
and Carter never meant to keep him in the first place. As the region’s
drozhar,
he’s pretty much got diplomatic immunity. He even took his men. One of Carter’s team is escorting them out of the area.”

“After all
that—”

Dolan shook his head. “It’s okay, Meghan. We got what we came for—we got more than what we came for. Gausto is neutralized, and he still has to face his sept’s prince. And we have all of his materials on the
sceleratus vis.
Notes, history, formulas.” In the background, footsteps approached. Silent to anyone else…loud enough to Dolan’s ears. “Carter,” he said out loud. “Maines.”

Meghan stiffened slightly in surprise, and relaxed as the two came into view. Carter had a burnished aluminum briefcase; he set it on the driveway gravel and
regarded them, more bemused than anything else. “I should probably say something official here,” he said. “Admonishment, scolding…whatever. Truth is, Dolan’s right. We have more than we came for. I can’t work up any interest in picking apart the how of it. Except—” and he fixed his gaze on Dolan, light green and penetrating “—I want the location of the book. And I want
it now.”

“Oh,” Meghan said, waving the matter away as if it was of no consequence. “Doesn’t everyone know that by now? It’s at the outhouse. My mother put an illusionary ward on it. You’ll find it masquerading as oldfashioned toilet paper.”

Carter made a choking noise; Lyn Maines widened her eyes. “I knew I felt something!” she said. “I just couldn’t pin it…” She stopped, shook her head. “Your mother was a woman of astonishing skills, Meghan.”

Meghan seemed to absorb that for a moment, and then she nodded. “She was. I guess…maybe…she left me more than I thought.”

“Speaking of that…” Carter said, and Meghan stiffened, her hand tensing on Dolan’s thigh. He put his hand over hers, and sent silent reassurance.

Carter saw it all. “Ease up, you two. It’s obvious that brevis made an inexcusable error in shutting Meghan out. We can’t fix that now, but she does need training—not so we can use her, if that’s not what she wants, but so she can stay safe and the people around her can stay safe.”

“I can keep her safe,” Dolan growled. It was especially effective with his current voice; it even widened Lyn’s eyes slightly. Good.

“Maybe,” Carter said, clearly not agreeing…but
leaving it at that. “Consider yourself invited,” he told Meghan. “Whenever you’re ready. I think you’ll find it to be sooner rather than later, but it’s up to you.” He caught Dolan’s gaze. “And you,” he said. “I should retire you from fieldwork immediately. Talk about a loose cannon—” But he waved away Dolan’s glower. “Not yet. But I think you should come with her.”

Dolan considered the words; they sounded more like a suggestion than an order, and that didn’t quite fit. “To brevis?”

“I told you,” Lyn said. “If you understood more about what’s been happening—”

But Carter silenced her with a look. “If he’s interested, he’ll come.”

Dolan snorted. It hurt. “You think I’m that easy to play?”

“It’s been a while,” Carter said. “Doesn’t seem as though you have any right to judge brevis if you don’t keep better track of us.”

“I know what I need to,” Dolan said, as hard as ever. Brevis had a leak—the one that had renewed the Core’s interest in this area in the first place. Brevis had a history of hesitating at just the wrong moment, leaving its field agents hanging. Brevis had lost its focus, its collective goal.

But when he eyed Carter, hunting deception, he found only honesty. And Carter had joined his attack on Gausto—
joined
him, not stopped him. Since his arrival, he’d backed Dolan’s intentions…even though it had sometimes looked coerced. He’d still done it, when he could have fallen back on brevis stuffiness and made things worse.

If only he’d gotten here earlier…

Lyn watched him, giving him a strange and piercing look. A little bit hope, a little bit disappointment…as if he’d already largely fulfilled her expectations, and not in a good way.

There was something to be found out, there at brevis. What was behind Lyn’s expression, for one. What was behind Carter’s carefully tendered invitation.

As if he’d let Meghan go into that literal lion’s den alone anyway.

Carter nodded, short and decisive, and picked up the briefcase. “We’re just about done here. Plan is to take you back to the ranch, let you sort out your people…take some time to recover.” He glanced at Dolan. “You’ve got a field report to file, but you can do it from there. Ruger also wants to spend some time with you.”

Right. To see what he could glean of the taint of the
sceleratus vis.

“Tell him to bring work boots,” Meghan said, just a little too sweet. “All of our guests are working guests.”

Carter grinned, an unexpected expression. “I’ll do that.” And he lifted his chin at Lyn, a little
let’s go
gesture, leaving Dolan and Meghan alone again for the moment.

Meghan’s chin went up. “If they think they can force me to—”

Easy, love.
He sent it out between them, saw its impact. “I don’t trust them, either, but…”