Lost (23 page)

The fight
turned into the kind of battering match that I knew at the start I
wasn't likely to win. Neither of us was getting anything vital with
the blows that we were landing, but we were still each bleeding from
a couple of dozen spots within seconds.

I kept trying
to back away and get myself room to maneuver, but he stayed right
inside of my reach and kept landing blows on me at the rate of three
for every two hits I managed. He landed a particularly vicious blow
to the right side of my chest towards the end of the second minute
and something snapped inside of me.

The lamia I was
fighting pulled his hand out of my chest and then threw a short,
hooking slash at my neck. All of the hours of training with Set
hadn't been enough to wire enough reflexes to go toe-to-toe with a
consort using nothing but their preferred fighting style, but it had
been enough to make a couple of very elementary blocks reflexive.

My elbow
slammed into his arm with enough force to make his arm go numb, and
then I rammed another elbow home into the side of his neck. It was a
telling blow, the kind of hit that would have brought most lesser
foes to their knees, but my opponent was already bringing his other
arm around for a shot at my kidney.

I couldn't
match him in a straight-up contest of strength, but rather than
backing away in an attempt to get out of his range, I charged forward
with everything I had left. It shouldn't have worked, it probably
wouldn't have worked if not for the fact that I bit down on the side
of his neck a split second before I crashed into him.

I could feel
his shock, feel the way his body tensed up as my teeth latched onto
him. It only lasted for an instant, but it was enough. He was off
balance and unprepared when my full weight crashed into him.

I've never
particularly liked biting as an offensive tactic, but my beast was
enough in control of me this time that I didn't even notice all of
the blood other than to thrill at the fact that I'd hit something
important. I knew it was only a matter of time before the lamia would
bleed out, but until then I needed to stop him from doing more damage
to me.

I had hold of
his wrists, but he was just too strong for me to control like that.
His claws were shredding my back despite my best efforts.

Instead of
continuing to battle where I was weak, I spun around so I could get
my legs into the fight. I sank my talons into his left arm, and then
once I had that arm immobilized I moved my left hand up to his right
wrist. Even he wasn't strong enough to out muscle me when it was just
his arms against nearly every muscle in my body.

Despite my
advantages, I could feel myself tiring. He was strong in the way that
a werewolf was strong, and between that and the amount of blood that
I'd already lost, I knew he would eventually wear me down enough to
break free.

I clamped down
even harder on his neck, trying to exert enough pressure to snap it,
but in the end simple blood loss did what all of the rest of my
efforts hadn't been able to. I pulled myself up to my feet and
stumbled towards the mouth of the cave.

I knew that
later on I'd regret the fact that I'd been forced to kill yet another
lamia for no good reason, but right then I just felt numb. Even the
normal high I'd grown to expect from surviving a fight to the death
was absent. I made it less than two steps into the valley before I
collapsed to the ground in a slowly growing pool of blood.

Isaac Nazir
The Lamia Enclave

For several
days I drifted in and out of consciousness. Celeste must have been
taking care of me, but I couldn't remember any of that. Mostly there
was just the black oblivion of deep sleep interspersed with dreams
about training with Set. Even in my dreams he was a harsh taskmaster.
I ran through everything he'd ever shown me—even things that
I'd thought I'd forgotten from the first training session.

It didn't make
for restful sleep and I was grateful when the void finally started to
lose its grip on me. Nobody else was in my room when I opened my
eyes, but there was a cup of water and a small melon on one edge of
my bed.

The water went
down my throat like pure joy. I couldn't remember any other time when
I'd been as thirsty, or when the taste of clean, slightly warm water
had been quite so satisfying. I'd pulled myself up to a sitting
position to drink the water, and from there it seemed silly not to
test out my legs.

I grabbed the
fruit—my curiosity was stronger than my hunger, but that didn't
mean that I wasn't starving—and swung my feet down onto the
soft carpet. It turned out to be a good thing that the bed wasn't
very far from the wall. I almost fell down after just my first two
steps and it was only the presence of the wall that allowed me to
make it the rest of the way to my door.

I pushed
through the heavy green curtain and found Set standing only a couple
of feet away. The sight of an enormous lamia waiting just outside of
my room should have freaked me out. Celeste was standing over by the
fruit vines and she seemed plenty unnerved by having Set in our
rooms, but for some reason it didn't bother me at all that he was
there.

"Welcome
back to the enclave, Isaac Nazir. Will you make a full recovery?"

Somehow I'd
forgotten to check myself over for injuries. I wanted to blame it on
being fuzzy after having been asleep for so long, but I didn't think
that was the answer. The first thing out of my mouth should have been
a question as to how long I'd been asleep, but I already knew that it
had been approximately two days.

That wasn't
something that I should have known, but I let that question drift
away and instead patted myself down in search of bandages. I could
feel them on my back still, and there seemed to be a lot of tape
across my stomach and the right side of my chest, but the fact that I
was standing there, with all of my appendages still working, was
pretty good evidence that I was going to eventually be back to full
strength.

Set wrapped his
hand around my arm, propping me up as I made my unsteady way towards
the vegetation-covered slab of rock that served as our couch.

"Thank
you, Set. Yes, I believe that I'll be okay. How did you know that I
would be getting up today?"

"The queen
told me it would be today that she let you return, and I could see
your sun glow strengthening again."

I looked over
at Celeste, confused. Had she been drugging me? I didn't remember
seeing anything in any of the first-aid kits that would have been
capable of keeping me out for more than a few hours.

Set shook his
head. "No, not your queen, my queen."

"Set, how
would your queen know that I was going to wake up now? I haven't been
anywhere. At least not under my own power."

That earned me
another frown, almost as though I was a particularly dense student
who'd just failed some kind of test.

"Not
here," said Set as he tapped me on the forehead. "Down
here." He pointed at my chest, at my heart, for several seconds
until I nodded. I didn't understand, but I had a feeling that further
questions at this point were only going to frustrate all of us.

I wasn't sure
if it was a breach of etiquette to eat around the lamias, but by that
point my hunger had gotten bad enough that I couldn't stop myself
from taking a bite from the fruit that Celeste had left for me.

Set waited
patiently while I chewed and then sat down on another chunk of rock
that served as the lamia equivalent of an easy chair.

"You were
the victor in your last fight. I've come to ask you what boon you
would like to ask of the men here in the enclave."

Somehow I'd
forgotten that I still had that coming to me. I looked over at
Celeste, hoping that she would give me an idea of what she thought I
should ask for, but she steadfastly refused to meet my gaze.

I knew that
things had been tense between us before my last match, but I couldn't
put my finger on what had set us off. Even if I'd had a clear memory
of whatever it had been that had set us off, I got the feeling that
it wouldn't have seemed important now.

I almost said
something to her right then despite the fact that Set was there, but
I bit back the words at the last second. Internal divisions might
cause the lamias to take us less seriously, but the very act of not
saying anything just increased the bitterness that had been preying
on the back of my mind for days.

It was bad
enough that I was stuck in some kind of weird pocket dimension where
I was forced to fight for my life every few days. I was surrounded by
creatures I didn't understand and my friends were still both in
comas. To top it all off, the only other one of my kind here was
refusing to talk to me.

Celeste was the
one person I should have been able to talk to. Even if we didn't like
each other, this experience should have brought us closer together
rather than setting us at each other's throats.

In that moment
I wanted nothing so much as a friend, but that was the one thing that
nobody could give me. Set couldn't compel Celeste to stop ignoring me
anymore than he could magically get past the cultural and species
barriers that kept him and me from truly becoming friends.

I had an idea
that I thought might get me what I wanted, but it felt like a waste
to use the gift that I'd fought for, that I'd killed for and very
nearly died for, on something so simple. It would just be giving into
the weakness inside of me, weakness that had driven Jess away from
me.

"Set, if
I'm unable to think of something I desire right now can I wait to
name the boon?"

"I'm
sorry, Isaac Nazir, but that is not how honor works. If no boon is
named now you will forfeit the opportunity and we consorts will
consider that we've done our duty in easing your stay here."

"Very
well, then. I'd like to have my electronics work here so that I'll be
able to call home. I have family and friends I'm worried about,
people who are likely worried about Ash, Kristin and me. I'd like to
be able to talk to them as soon as possible. I don't know if that is
within your power or not, but that is what I want."

The responses I
got from Celeste and Set were both baffling. Celeste looked like
she'd just been told that her family had all been killed in a hit and
run accident. She closed her eyes and grabbed the table to stop
herself from collapsing.

I opened my
mouth to ask her what was wrong, but she opened her eyes and shot me
a look that told me in no uncertain terms that she wasn't going to be
answering any of my questions.

As odd as that
was, Set's response was just as atypical. He looked confused. I would
have said that it was a language problem again, but after just a
couple of seconds he held his hand out and asked for my phone.

"I'll get
it."

Celeste
disappeared into my room and was back a short time later with not
just my phone, but also my tablet.

"You did
say that you wanted your electronics to work."

Now it was
Set's turn to look unhappy, but he nodded and took both devices. He
didn't seem to be doing anything with them. He just sat there in the
chair with his eyes closed, one hand on my gear, the other on the
'arm' of the chair he was sitting in.

Five minutes
later he opened his eyes and put the tablet on the arm of the chair.
I started to ask him to be careful, but the words died in my throat
when I saw that the charge light on the tablet was glowing. It was
impossible. I'd seen cable-free chargers before, but none of my
electronics was set up for that.

There was no
denying my eyes though or the fact that as he set my phone down on
top of the tablet that it also lit up with the glow of an active
power feed. If I'd still had any doubt as to the fact that the lamias
were capable of astonishing things, that would have cured me of my
disbelief then and there.

Set handed me
my phone and when I turned it on it was showing that it had a
network. A huge grin split my face right up until I remembered the
issues that Ash, Kristin and I had experienced on our way across the
continent.

"Set,
there isn't any way to trace this, is there? We have powerful enemies
and I wouldn't want to have them track us back here and create
problems for you."

Something
flashed across Set's face, almost too quick for me to catch. In a
human I would have said it was bitter irony, but I didn't think that
Set had spent enough time around humans to have absorbed our
mannerisms to the point where they would become unconscious like
that.

"I normally wouldn't have brought this up, Isaac Nazir. It
stinks of dishonor, of giving a boon and then trying to take the boon
away, but your concerns have moved me to talk. Your enemies won't be
able to use your phone to find you while you are here, but your use
of the phone will make it easier for our enemies to find us."

"the
Consumed?"

Set nodded.
"the Consumed is always searching for us, always trying to find
a chink in our armor that it can use to come here to the enclave. The
phone by itself won't cause problems and therefore honor demanded
that I grant you that request, but along with other…factors it
makes it that much harder for the enclave to remain hidden."

Apparently I
wasn't the only one whose mind was whirling as it tried to absorb
what Set had said…and what he hadn't. Celeste couldn't remain
silent in the face of such a juicy piece of information.

"Wait, who
are the Consumed and why is one of you talking about them in the
plural and the other in the singular? Are there multiple Consumed or
is there just one?"

Set nodded.
"Yes."