Tempest Reborn (26 page)

‘Aren’t you a hot mess of issues,’ I marveled, walking toward our bound captive. Anyan and Ryu had raised the back of the gurney up so it was more like a chair than a bed, and they’d left the ball gag in for now.

‘You torture people in the way that you want to be tortured? Is that it? Orchestrating the pain you want to feel yourself?’

The Healer’s eyes, radiating a combination of fury and fear, blinked wetly at me.

‘Maybe you think they enjoy it, too?’ I mused. I was genuinely curious. It wasn’t often one got to question a true sadist.

‘No,’ I said after I’d thought through the issue. I took a step forward, studying the pink human flesh of the Healer’s face and the eyes that bulged at me over the ball gag. ‘You know they don’t want it. And that’s part of why you love it so much. At the end of the day, you’re an imperfect victim. Not only do you want the pain, you can only let it go so far before your self-preservation kicks in. But when you hurt another person … they can take whatever you give them, because you don’t care if they die.’

Our eyes, locked on each other’s, shared something then. And that something was … nothing. I would never understand the Healer any more than he would ever understand me. I don’t know what made one person so eager to hurt others, and another willing to help, and I could study a hundred Healers and never be any closer to the answer.

I moved out of spitting range first, then nodded to Anyan. ‘Take the gag out.’

The barghest did so, using his power to keep the Healer’s head back against the gurney’s headrest. It was a reminder to the Healer that it wasn’t the ropes binding him that really kept him there; it was the fact that every single one of us in that room was far more powerful than he was.

I reveled in watching him squirm, and I know I wasn’t the only one. We all loved Iris like a sister, except for Caleb, who loved her in another way entirely, and we all wanted revenge for her kidnapping and abuse. Our motivations were far from pure, although I didn’t feel too sullied by wanting the Healer to feel just an ounce of the fear he’d made others feel.

‘Listen, you,’ I began, ready to put the fear of God into the Healer. I raised the labrys to emphasize my point, assuming we were going to have a tough time getting anything out of one of Morrigan’s closest acolytes. ‘If you don’t tell us what we want to know…’

‘I’ll tell you everything! Anything you want. Absolutely everything, just let me live…’

For a second, I thought I’d misunderstood the Healer’s strong Scottish accent.

‘You’ll what?’

‘I’ll tell you everything. Anything. Just ask. What do you want to know? My secrets for my life.’

I couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed. I’d had a whole Evil Spiel ready about how we would cut off his appendages, and I mean all of them, and I’d been working on some ‘descaling like a fish’ ideas, but instead he just folded.

‘What is Morrigan planning next?’ Anyan asked, since I was sulking like a disappointed child.

‘Nukes,’ the Healer said promptly. ‘She’s sending her people in to commandeer a nuclear submarine. She’ll fire on whatever target they’re set for.’

The news hit all of us differently. Caleb gasped, clearly understanding the full implications of such a threat. I just shook my head, wondering if we really were in a Bond film. Everyone else looked suitably serious.

‘Which sub? When? How?’

For the next twenty minutes, the Healer told us everything. Ryu took notes on his phone. We also got some good info on just how many troops Morrigan had, what their general feelings were about what they wanted from their affiliation with the Red (which ranged from wanting Armageddon to wanting a place in the New World Order), and where Morrigan/the Red was mentally.

‘You’ve killed her soul,’ the goblin halfling said, his eyes flicking at me. ‘The Red is broken without the White, although just as powerful. And Morrigan’s more Red every day, and vice versa. I think Morrigan helps keep the Red going at this point, and the Red’s wrapping Morrigan up in her grief over the White. They’re not wholly separate, but not wholly together, either.’

The others looked confused at this information, but I remembered my own symbiotic relationship with the creature right after Anyan had been taken, and I understood.

‘Well,’ I said, looking at Anyan. He nodded. ‘That’s enough for tonight. We have what we need, but you’re coming with us, buddy. Only sans diaper. Where are your clothes?’

‘There are lockers by the door,’ the Healer said, not meeting my eyes. ‘I’m number 69.’

‘Of course you are. Sit tight while we get your clothes.’

We filed out of the room, Caleb leading us back down the hallway. We left the Healer where he was so we could talk, Ryu slapping a binding of power on him on top of the ropes already holding him in place. None of us were reading any power signatures from anywhere nearby, as none of the Healer’s cronies knew he was in danger. So we took advantage of the opportunity to discuss in peace what to do with him.

‘Did he tell us everything he knows?’ I looked at Anyan, who shrugged.

‘Probably not,’ the barghest said. ‘But maybe. I don’t think their organization is all that organized in terms of a master strategy. The Red doesn’t work that way, and Morrigan’s goals can only go so far, especially now that we know they’re so blended in her body.’

We sat down in the entryway chairs as we hashed over our initial findings, figuring out who (in terms of Alfar, humans, et cetera) needed to know what now and what we should leave for later. When that was done, we had only one more issue to confront.

‘So what do we do with the Healer?’ asked Anyan.

‘First of all, we put him back into his pants,’ said Ryu. ‘His locker’s right over there. I’ll get his stuff.’

‘And then what?’ I said.

Anyan shrugged. ‘Hand him over to the Alfar?’

‘’Cuz they do an awesome job keeping prisoners,’ I said bitterly, remembering the moments before Anyan had been turned into the White, after both the Alfar and rebel security had failed spectacularly.

‘What if we had the creature apparate him to his cave?’

‘He’d probably hump its eye. And I don’t want the creature wasting that much power.’

‘Well, let’s get him back to base and we can think of something. Maybe just leave him with the humans?’

‘They’d be sitting ducks if Morrigan tried to rescue him.’

‘Will she even notice he’s gone? She seems a bit preoccupied at the moment—’

‘Here’s his clothes,’ Ryu interrupted, coming down the hallway holding up a bundle. ‘No more diaper for him…’

‘Where’s Iris?’ I asked, suddenly realizing we were missing somebody.

We all did a weird little shuffle as we flung ourselves around to look.

‘Where the fuck did she go?’ I repeated, my voice cracking with anxiety.

My heart was in my throat, thinking she’d been kidnapped again, until I saw Caleb. He didn’t look at all panicked. He looked guilty as hell.

‘Caleb,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Where’s Iris?’

The satyr’s eyes betrayed him, shifting to where the Healer waited, tied up like a sheep for slaughter, in his room.

‘Shit,’ Anyan said, running down the hallway with a fluid motion that had him halfway to the room before I could blink. We took off after him as we watched him gain the doorway.

‘Shit,’ he repeated, sliding to a halt. I gurgled when I saw why.

‘Sorry, I had to do it,’ Iris said from where she was calmly washing her hands at the sink. She didn’t sound sorry at all. In fact, her voice was back to its original, pure sexy sweetness.

When she was done cleaning her hands, she washed the knife she’d used to cut the Healer’s throat. Iris must have been standing well behind the goblin halfling when she’d done it, as her clothes were pristine but the room was literally covered in blood. I learned that day that arterial spray is called ‘spray’ for a reason. The knife now cleaned, Iris replaced it in her large handbag.

She must have hidden in another of the closed rooms while we questioned the Healer, and then waited till we were back in reception to sneak past us.

The Healer was already very dead, his human face ashen white and his goblin scales gone dull. After a long minute of stunned silence spent alternately gazing at the dead body and Iris’s clean-up efforts, Caleb went to go to the succubus, but he slipped on some of the blood sprayed throughout the room. His hooves scrambled to regain purchase, a weirdly slapstick moment that made the whole scene all the more surreal.

The satyr finally regained purchase and then led Iris out of the room, although he was the only one who looked upset. Either he hadn’t known she was actually going to kill him, which I doubted, or seeing the aftermath was different than he’d expected. Because Iris looked as serene and angelic as she used to, before her stint at the Healer’s mansion.

A year ago I might have seen such an event as proof that the supes were anything but human. Now I saw it as proof we were all one and the same. An eye for an eye, and all of that.

Anyan and I exchanged glances. Eventually, he spoke.

‘At least they have a hose.’

‘Are you sure you’re ready for this?’ Anyan asked me, adjusting the straps across my wetsuit. I didn’t need it for the cold water, but unlike the ancient Picts that peopled this island, I wasn’t about to go into battle naked.

‘As ready as I’ll ever be. And I have Trill,’ I said, nodding at the kelpie, who stood, happy to be naked in her human form, watching the sea. The creature had apparated her in at my request. I thought the use of its power was worth it as I needed some watery backup.

‘I still don’t like this,’ Ryu grumbled, his face pinched with nerves.

‘Neither do I,’ Anyan said. It was rare those two agreed.

‘Why would the Red do something in your element?’ Caleb asked for the umpteenth time. ‘You’re already the champion, and this just panders to your strengths.’

I sighed. ‘I know. It doesn’t make any sense. Plus she has to know something’s up since the Healer never returned home. So it’s probably a trap. We’ve established this.’

‘So why are we sending you in again?’ Anyan said, still unnecessarily adjusting my wetsuit.

‘Because we have no other choice, as we discussed already,’ I said gently, gathering his hands in mine. ‘We can’t risk the Red getting a nuclear submarine. And what can the trap be that’s so bad? She’s got no power in the water. It’s not her element. She’ll have to rely on her followers.’

Anyan frowned. ‘We already know she had a kappa on her side. She probably has others. For all we know, she has an army of water elementals waiting to attack…’

‘She doesn’t have an army of water elementals,’ I said to the barghest soothingly. ‘Trill would have gotten wind of that if she did. Or the creature would have. It’s hard to hide an extra army, and we’ve already seen the army she has, which didn’t include any water elementals.’

‘But you’re going in alone…’

‘Anyan, I’m the champion. And I have Trill. I’m not going in alone.’

‘But I’m not with you…’

I sighed. So that was it. I led the barghest a little ways off, so I could speak to him privately.

‘Anyan, honey, you can’t swim. You’ve had one lesson.’ The barghest turned a bit red, probably more out of frustration than embarrassment, but what I said was the truth. ‘If you came with me, I’d spend more energy and concentration keeping you afloat than I would doing my job. And you can’t connect with your elements underwater. You’ll be totally cut off from earth and air.’

Anyan’s eyes wandered over to where Ryu waited, also in a wetsuit. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

‘Ryu can swim and he’s used to functioning with only his reserves of magic.’ As a baobhan sith, Ryu got his power from essence – which was basically a form of concentrated magic that humans passed off in their blood and bodily fluids. Humans were surrounded by the same elements we used for magic, but couldn’t use them like we could. That said, the elements still permeated them, and like anything foreign in our bodies, they had to get rid of them somehow. Essence was potent stuff, making baobhan siths usually very strong. But it was also finite, in that you had to go out and find someone to harvest essence from every time you needed a top-up. Elementals like me or Anyan, or the majority of supes, just had to be in contact with our element. For Anyan, being cut off from his elements of earth and air was a near impossibility, so he wasn’t used to rationing his power. He just charged in, blasted away, and topped up as he went. If he did that in the water, with no way to recharge, he’d be weakened and vulnerable in minutes.

‘But I hate not being there with you.’ Anyan actually pouted on that one. It was sweet, and adorable, and frustrating. Everything I liked about him really. But he had to get over this.

‘Anyan, I wanted nothing more than to get you back fighting at my side. You’re everything to me, you know that, right?’ The barghest nodded glumly. ‘But you were also a dragon for quite a while, and I learned to do things for myself. And this is something I have to do by myself. Also with the whole huge team of people over there wearing wetsuits that are going to help. Many of whom helped me get you back, remember?’

Anyan sighed. ‘I know. I just hate the thought of you going it alone.’

‘We all gotta do what we gotta do,’ I said, but I leaned in to kiss him to mitigate the harshness of my words.

When I pulled back enough to meet his gaze, I saw that his left eye was twitching. He really hated me going in alone.

‘Hey, I’ve got a good team,’ I said, nodding to the group of assembled, wetsuited figures. It was quite an assortment, as we were working closely with the Alfar and the rebels of the Great Island on this one.

The Alfar leadership had volunteered a few of their more adventurous soldiers, and for once they were all fellow Alfar. Normally the Alfar had a tendency to stay well behind the lines, offering up scads of lesser elementals as cannon fodder before joining in the fray. But because the Alfar had access to all elements, and pureblooded water elementals tended to stick to themselves in the sea, they had to step up themselves for this one. So we had their small, elite team of what were sort of supernatural Navy SEALs, used for the rare situations in which a water elemental had to be brought in for some reason or, more commonly, because there was an out-of-control supe on a boat or an island or something. That said, the Alfar would only have access to water, since that’s what they’d be surrounded by, so they wouldn’t be anywhere near as powerful as they were normally. I knew this to be the case as I’d captured Phaedra by cutting her off from the majority of her elements.