River Road (34 page)

I scrambled behind the large winch near the rear of the deck. The shiny white contraption glinted in the sun. It wasn’t wide, but it offered some cover.

When she finally stopped screaming, Libby sat on the deck and stared at me. “You are just a young wizard. You should not be able to hurt me this way.”

“Surprise.” That was about all the witty repartee I could muster with splinters poking out of my shoulder and my left leg and right arm bleeding freely from stab wounds. There was some cold comfort in knowing that as much as I’d underestimated Libby, she’d also underestimated me. Stupid Green Congress bitch, my ass. I had Red Congress warriors and elves in my family tree.

My right shoulder screamed in protest as I dug in my pocket for a small plastic jar of honey shaped like a bear. It was just a silly honey bear from the Winn-Dixie next to my office, only my bear had swallowed a bunch of sweet belladonna berries left over from my power-share with Rene that had been ground to a fine powder. Ten of them would kill a human adult. I’d crushed thirty, my whole supply, figuring I’d need that much to take down an Amazon-sized nymph.

I unscrewed the lid, waved the honey bear around to distribute the scent, and hoped to God the information in the black grimoire was true. Nymphs couldn’t resist honey. They considered it a food of offering for the gods, and Libby had been hanging around the mertwins so much she was probably missing it.

Her nostrils flared, and I said a silent thanks to the rogue streak in my late father that spurred his interest in the arcane and the illegal.

Libby scrambled to her feet, revealing burnt skin through her torn dress where my acid spell had seared her and limping from my shot with the staff. I hoped she hurt as badly as I did.

Where the hell was Rene? And Jake? Exactly who was supposed to be the fighter here? Last time I checked, it sure wasn’t me.

Libby slowly walked toward me as I held the jar of honey out to my left. Her eyes fixed on the plastic bear like nectar-seeking missiles.

“What was the purpose of all this, Libby?” I asked. “Your sister made her choice.”

She spoke in a monotone, focused on the honey. “I visited her after the borders opened up, and she was unhappy. The foolish wizard had made her unhappy and my people do not tolerate a slight from an inferior. So I lured him out and killed him using our sacrificial ritual.” Such mutilation gave rituals a bad name.

She’d slowed to a stop as she talked, so I waved the honey around to get her started again. “What about Jeffrey Klein? For that matter, what about Melinda—why kill your sister?”

Libby’s face hardened. “I tried to take Mellind back to our home but she wouldn’t go. She wanted to tell the wizards everything, and I could not allow that. As for Jeffrey Klein, I do not know that person.”

“The other man you killed.”

She shrugged. “He was there.”

Wrong place, wrong time. Just like Tish. I’d read the Stygian nymphs were nuts. Libby was a whole fruitcake.

Libby’s halting steps brought her within a foot of the honey, and she reached for it with both hands.

A solid, wet mass barreled into me from behind, knocking the honey loose and sending it rolling across the deck.

Robert was back, the camouflage spell had worn off, and he was really starting to piss me off.

I elbowed him in the head and managed to scramble behind the winch again. I wished for Red Congress skills. If Gerry had been here, he could have pointed a finger and summoned enough physical magic to zap Robert and Libby off the deck and out of sight. I had only a small, sharp knife that I’d pulled out of my arm, but I ran at Robert with it and buried it as deep in his stomach as it would go.

All I managed to do was surprise him and knock him off his feet for a few seconds while the nymph tried to scoop honey off the deck. Happy dining, Libs.

I jerked a piece of chalk from my pocket and drew a circle on the deck around my hiding spot behind the winch, with me in the center. I touched my finger to it and willed in as much energy as I could pull together in three seconds. I let some blood drip on it for extra oomph, seeing as how I was bleeding from multiple locations and had plenty to spare.

I wasn’t sure how long I could hold my circle, but enough to give me a couple of minutes to think. I collapsed to the deck with a thump, making sure not even a hair broke the plane of my protective cylinder.

Robert charged at me, and if I hadn’t been getting dizzy from blood loss and scared for my life his expression when he bounced off my invisible shield would have been comical. He fell on his ass and shouted at Libby to stop licking the deck. She finished the honey with one final sweep of her tongue, and finally focused on him. I could see the awareness creeping through her honey stupor as she turned glittering eyes toward me.

“You fool, break through it,” she shouted, then began coughing. Just a single cough at first, and then a strangled series of them. She held on to the rail, one hand on her burned stomach, and looked at the honey jar on the deck, then back at me as suspicion dawned. “What have you done, wizard?”

I smiled as Robert beat on the protective shield that surrounded me. Thank God she looked to be one of the mortal nymphs, or at least susceptible to poison. “Just a little belladonna cocktail, Libs. Did you like it?”

She charged at me, knife raised. It didn’t pierce the shield, but every blow made it harder for me to maintain. I fed more blood into the circle and prayed for the belladonna to work faster. Robert would fold like a pleated fan if Libby went down.

The nymph panicked. When she couldn’t break the plane of my circle, she screamed for Robert to do it. When he couldn’t, she went after him.

The focus of her rage centered on him. I reached out to stop her, but some spark of self-preservation made me jerk my arm back before I broke my own circle. She grabbed the knife I’d left next to Robert and arced it straight across his neck, sending a spray of blood running down my shield, onto Libby herself, and across the deck.

Robert fell, wide-eyed, and his shock and dismay flowed out of him and washed over my empathic senses as the enthrallment broke and he felt the hard slap of reality. He really hadn’t believed Libby would hurt him. I couldn’t find it in me to feel sorry for Robert, at least not yet. But knowing what Rene would see when he got here broke my heart. I could feel his presence in my head, frantic and getting closer.

Libby dropped to her knees, panting. The belladonna was working. Her hands and fingers spasmed, and her pulsating pupils dilated. Which would all be well and good except my magic was failing and I wasn’t sure how long I could stay conscious. I needed my freaking staff.

I let my circle drop, hoping Libby would be too far gone to notice, and scanned the deck again. It remained on the far side, near the wheelhouse. The damn thing had been following me around since I found it. Mahout had picked a fine time to abandon me.

Glancing to make sure Libby was still sitting near the wheelhouse, I pulled the chalk from my pocket again and drew a small summoning circle in front of me, quickly sending a ragged spike of magic into it and concentrating on the staff. I wasn’t sure it would work with an elven object; summoning enchanted objects is dicey. Still, the staff had claimed me. It might work.

My movement caught Libby’s attention, and she began crawling toward me.

The staff reached me first, sliding across the deck. Breaking the circle, I grabbed the staff, whipping it toward her and willing my few remaining shreds of energy into it.

Strong red ropes of flame flew out of the staff and wrapped around Libby’s arm as she reached for me. She screamed, or tried. Her voice was failing and the sound was little more than a hoarse whisper. She didn’t retreat. Even with her arm burning under the fiery threads, she grabbed the end of the staff and jerked it toward her. We each held an end of it, pulling in a weak tug-of-war that propelled us against the rail.

Even dying, Libby was physically stronger than me, and she knew it. She laughed and gave the staff one hard jerk that sent us both tumbling over the rails and into the cool, muddy water of the Mississippi.

I tried to hold on to the staff as I hit the water, but Libby was too strong and I’d spent too much of my energy. She dragged me with her as she dove toward the riverbed, until finally the currents from a passing barge swept us away from each other. The staff was gone, Libby was gone, and I was alone.

I struggled toward the surface, adrenaline propelling my arms and legs, panic causing me to want to gulp water in a bid for air. My lungs screamed for release, but there wasn’t any. Light shimmered through the water’s surface and I reached for it, but then I took a watery breath and everything began to fade.

I’ve heard a person’s life flashes through his mind when he dies, that he sees his loved one’s faces and a fast reel of special memories, both good and bad. I’ve heard a shining light beckons you to let go and be at peace.

I only felt cold, and saw nothing.

CHAPTER
34

Burning. Pain. Choking.

Somehow, I was alive. My lungs burned as they rasped air in and out, an elephant sat on my chest and crushed it with pain, and I choked and coughed out water. Then, to make sure I was as miserable as possible, someone slapped me hard enough to jar my teeth.

I have teeth.
I’d barely had time to register the presence of molars before someone rolled me roughly to my side and pounded on my back. I coughed out more water, gasping to fill my lungs with oxygen minus the two parts hydrogen.
I’m breathing
.

I opened my eyes and saw the world tilt as I was rolled on my back again, and the image of Libby’s face came back in full Technicolor. I tried to pull away but my arms and legs were heavy and I couldn’t move.

“Be still, DJ. You hear me?”

I frowned, and focused on the face. Not Libby. Rene. He knelt over me, water dripping off his skin. He nodded, and I couldn’t tell if the water trailing down his face was from the river or his own tears. I opened my mouth but my voice was gone.

“You’ll be okay, babe
,
just keep suckin’ in air. Saw you go over the side with that bitch Libby, but you got swept in a ship’s current.” He smoothed the hair away from my face, and pried one of my eyes open. “Stay awake on me. You want I should call an ambulance? I found the staff and put it here by you.”

I mouthed the word no, but couldn’t get any words out.

“Where’s Robert? Did he shift?”

Oh, God. Robert. I thought Rene knew from our mental exchanges that Robert was dead. Maybe he wasn’t, though. Maybe there was a chance he was still alive. “Boat.”

“He’s on the
la Mer
and didn’t go in after you? I’ll kill the sonofabitch.”

I managed to shake my head, or at least I think I did. “Hurt. He’s … hurt.”

Rene disappeared. I tried to turn my head to see where he’d gone but couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength.

I don’t know how long I lay there, concentrating on pulling air in and pushing air out. I heard cicadas behind and around me, and a ship’s horn passing on the river. The sun seemed low, and then it was dusk, and I couldn’t stop shivering. I thought I heard someone crying.

Time passed, and I managed to roll to my side again. I opened my eyes to see a man standing among the trees at the edge of the clearing beyond the cinderblock building. Long blond hair, good cheekbones. What the hell was Eugenie’s boyfriend doing here? I closed my eyes as a spasm brought on another coughing jag. When I opened them again, he was gone. Great. I was hallucinating a hippie landscaper.

I sensed someone on the pier behind me and tried to sit up. I couldn’t do it, not yet. A sharp pain in my belly took my breath away as I rolled onto my back again. When I looked up, I tried to scream.

A huge wolf, red fur thick and bristly, stood over me. His eyes were a bright yellow-gold, and I knew them.

“Jake?” I coughed again, my voice no more than a whisper.

The wolf looked at me again and bared its teeth. This wasn’t like Alex when he was Gandalf. I wasn’t sure how much of Jake was reachable in there. Maybe it would help to touch him. I lifted my left hand as slowly as I could; it shook from the effort. The wolf growled and snapped at it, a sharp
click
as his jaws clamped shut. I snatched it back, which sent another sharp pain into my gut.

“Jake!” Alex’s voice boomed from somewhere behind my head. Oh, God. Jake would kill him. “Jacob Warin. I know you can hear me. Move away from her. This doesn’t have to go south, man. Back off.” The sound of his chambering a bullet seemed impossibly loud. I knew the bullet was silver.

The wolf’s upper lip curved away from the sharpest, whitest teeth I’d ever seen, and he took a step toward my head, toward Alex’s voice.

“Jake, it’s okay,” I whispered. “Run. Let Alex take me home.”

The wolf turned his head and looked down at me. The high-pitched whine seemed absurdly small coming from such a large animal.

“I’m okay.” I tried to breathe without coughing and startling him. “You go home now.”

He lifted his head at the sound of approaching sirens and ran toward the woods.

Footsteps crunched behind my head and Alex leaned over me. “Sounds like an ambulance—I don’t know who called them. You going to come out weird on blood tests or anything?”

Crap. “Yeah, call Zrakovi,” I whispered. The Elders would have to send a Blue Congress team to fuzz up hospital tests and falsify medical records. “Help me sit up first.”

He slipped an arm behind my back and lifted me to a seated position. Pain shot through me in sharp waves, and I cried out before I could stop myself. He lowered me again. Cool air hit my skin as he jerked up the bottom of my sweater. “Shit, you’re bruised to hell and back. Wouldn’t be surprised if you have broken ribs.” He pressed on my abdomen and I jolted from the agony. “Did someone do CPR?”

I tried to think. Rand was in the woods … no, I’d imagined that. “Rene,” I rasped. “On the boat. He needs to get out of here before—”

The ambulance siren died and vehicle doors slammed. “Just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking,” Alex said. “Your assault is now part of an ongoing FBI investigation.”