Unbinding (32 page)

He had one example to base that on. Despite its name, trade-tongue didn’t involve the tongue at all. It was perhaps too crude to be considered a true language, consisting as it did of only sixty-five signs. Those who traveled between realms often learned those signs in case they needed to communicate with someone who spoke a language they didn’t know and for which they lacked a translation charm or spell. Many of the lower classes learned it, too, since they usually couldn’t afford the charms.

The point was, they did have to
learn
trade-tongue. No one had ever been able to devise a spell or charm to acquire it without effort.

Teaching Cullen trade-tongue had been out. It hadn’t changed much in millennia, so Dyffaya probably knew it. And Nathan didn’t know American Sign Language—but Benedict did. Nathan had seen him training Nokolai fighters, using sign to direct them. What he hadn’t known was whether Cullen knew ASL, too.

Thank God he did. At least, he knew the alphabet, which was all Nathan wanted to use. That was a way of hedging his bets. They’d be signing English words, so, effectively, they’d be using a new alphabet, not an entire new language. The god might well have a trigger to alert him if they started speaking a different language. Nathan didn’t know if it was possible for a trigger to detect an unspoken language like ASL, but better safe than sorry. Besides, it would be easier and faster to learn just the alphabet.

He wished he’d thought of this sooner. He hoped it hadn’t occurred to Dyffaya, that the god wasn’t even aware of the ASL alphabet. He hoped even harder that Dyffaya hadn’t been watching them just now. That was the biggest risk—that while Nathan learned the ASL alphabet, the god would learn it right along with him.

Nathan had an idea for how to lessen that risk. It was time to find Dell, who was by Dyffaya’s side so much of the time. Who would know when the god was engaged in sex, and hopefully preoccupied.

K
EVIN
called for José. Kai knelt beside Doug and ripped open his shirt. She couldn’t clearly see the entry hole, but she saw where blood pumped up with each heartbeat—not the chest, she realized, but just below, and dead center. No telltale air bubbles, so probably the lung wasn’t involved.

Her hands knew bodies better than her mind. She used one to trace musculature and bone and narrow down the possibilities. “Probable damage to the diaphragm, possible damage to the liver, possible damage to the spine. Depends on what the bullet did after it entered. Internal bleeding—”

“That won’t last,” Kevin said quickly. “Bleeding’s the first thing our healing deals with.”

“That will help.”

Doug groaned. His eyelids fluttered as his thoughts shifted to a new pattern—one she’d seen several times now. “I think he’s trying to Change. Should I stop him?”

“What?” Kevin looked at her in alarm. “You can do that?”

“I can make him sleep.”

“Do it,” José said as he skidded to a stop beside her.

Kai reached out in a way that had nothing to do with the hand still resting on Doug’s chest, yet required that contact. Doug’s face eased as he fell into sleep. “It’s regular sleep,” she warned the others, “not the healing sort that Nettie uses.”

“Will he wake if we talk?” José asked.

“No.”

“How long can you keep him asleep?”

“Hours, if I stay in contact.”

“Good. That will help. Kevin, call Isen and report.” With that, José faced out once more. He’d drawn his gun at some point and held it loosely now, his eyes scanning the area.

“I’ve called it in,” Karin Stockman said. She was slightly winded. “Ambulance on the way. How is he? Can we move him? We’re not secure out here.”

“No. There may be spinal damage.” Kai repeated her earlier guesses about what might have been damaged.

“Huh. You sure? You’re not a doctor.”

“Physical therapist. I know where the parts are and how they fit together.” Plus, she’d had some hands-on experience with wounds in the past eighteen months, her own and others’. “José, did you see anyone in that car?”

“No,” he answered without turning around. “It was pretty damn weird, too. Even when I got close and the car took off, I could have sworn there was no one in it to steer.”

“Shit. Well, that explains why Doug said the shooter wasn’t human. Looks like my biases nailed it, after all.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Stockman demanded.

“There’s an elf right here on Earth who’s trying to kill me.”

*   *   *

H
OSPITALS
did not all look the same. The one in Aléri was planted in a huge tree. Literally planted. While elves sometimes built homes in trees, those were considered temporary fancies—something that might last no more than fifty or a hundred years. They liked to grow more permanent structures out of the tree. Kai had also seen a hospital that looked like a lumpy meadow, the “rooms” nothing more than dips in the ground. She’d stayed in one that had been carved from rock by gnomes, deep underground.

This wasn’t the first time some elf had decided he preferred her dead. Fortunately, this one kept missing. Thanks to the lupi. “That’s twice.”

“Hmm?” They were in the ER. She stood on one side of Doug’s narrow bed. José stood on the other. For once he wasn’t faced out, looking for threats. Instead his gaze stayed on his friend’s face.

“Twice you’ve saved my life.”

He snorted. “I didn’t spot the shooter. I didn’t have a clue she was there. You did. I didn’t stop her, either. She got away clean.”

Touch of bitterness there. Understandable. “When you ran straight at her
like a damned idiot
, you spooked her into firing at you instead of me.” Which was why Doug lay in that bed, sleeping soundly, with her holding his hand to make sure he stayed that way. The two shots Kai had heard had been snapped off more to dissuade José than truly aimed. It was pure luck one of them had hit anyone.

Bad luck, for Doug. The bullet had taken out a chunk of his spine. If he’d been human, he’d be paralyzed for life. As it was, if he made it through the surgery he’d probably do fine. “It’s a debt I can’t repay, not to any of you, but I won’t forget it.”

“There’s no debt.”

“You may see it that way. I don’t.”

He shook his head, looking at her the way her sixth grade teacher used to when she got conjunctions and prepositions mixed up. “Is Pete indebted to you for the help you’ve been giving him? How about the others messed up by Miriam and that damn knife—do they owe you for your help?”

“That’s different. Mindhealers don’t ask for or accept payment.”

“You did what you could because it was needed. So have we.”

“Listen to José,” a deep voice rumbled from out in the hall. A second later Isen strode into the tiny room, leaving some of his men in the hall. The Rho would, of course, be guarded. “He’s right. You’re
ospi
, you and Nathan. Clan-friends. Which means Nokolai is allowed to help you. It’s very elfin of you, you know, all this talk of debt.”

She smiled in spite of herself. Isen knew exactly where to aim. “Maybe the elves aren’t wrong about everything.”

“A remarkable concession. So.” Isen moved up and José stepped back, allowing his Rho to look down at his wounded man. Isen laid a hand on Doug’s shoulder and spoke to the sleeping man. “I’m here now. You’ve done well, very well. You’re needing surgery, they tell me. Nettie is discussing it now with the surgeon. You’ll do well with that, too, and I’ll stay by you to be sure of it.”

“Wow.”

Isen glanced at her. “You observed something?”

“His thoughts calmed down so much. Our minds don’t shut down when we sleep, but sleeping thoughts look different from waking thoughts. His have had a lot of pain and agitation, and he kept trying to wake up. Only now he isn’t.”

It was, she gathered, a big deal for Isen to leave Clanhome. Normally his heir had hospital duty when that was needed, but Rule was on another continent. José had assured her Doug would do much better once his Rho arrived. She hadn’t understood why. Nettie, yes—clearly Doug needed her skills, both as physician and as healer. Anesthetics didn’t work on lupi, and they had a habit of attacking people who cut them open. Sometimes Nettie operated herself, but more often she took the place of the anesthesiologist, holding her patient in sleep, advising the surgeon on the quirks of operating on someone whose body would try to heal the incision during the surgery.

But Kai would keep Doug asleep until Nettie took over, so how could Isen’s presence help? Doug wouldn’t even know he was there.

Except that he did. Sound asleep, he’d responded to his Rho’s voice by relaxing like a babe held close in his mother’s arms. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you did.”

“Sometimes the best thing we can do is show up.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“They’ll be coming to prep Doug for surgery shortly. Before they do, I’m hoping you’ll explain why you’re convinced the shooter is an elf. Kevin’s account lacked some details.”

Change of subject. Okay. “Because the shooter was invisible. That’s an illusion only elves and a few half-elves can cast.”

“You believe it was an illusion, not what Arjenie does?”

“If it had been someone with Arjenie’s Gift in that car, I’d never have noticed her thoughts. When Arjenie’s using her Gift I can see her thoughts if I put enough effort into it, but I have to be looking for them. I noticed the shooter’s thoughts without trying, so it wasn’t some version of don’t-notice-me.”

He nodded. “You refer to the shooter as ‘she.’ Can you distinguish male from female from the way their thoughts look?”

“No. Doug said the shooter on the church roof was female and not human. It’s possible we have more than one elf shooting at me, but the simpler explanation usually fits. Which would be one shooter. A female elf.”

“It’s an assumption, then, but one with solid footing. If we—” He broke off, frowning. “Let him pass, Rick.”

A moment later, Derwin Ackleford strode into the room. “My apologies, Special Agent,” Isen said. “The usual rule when I’m away from Clanhome is to discourage those who aren’t clan from getting too close.”

“Never mind that shit.” Ackleford scowled at Kai. “The city cops have arrested Stockman. I don’t know who gave that damn order, and it won’t stick, but untangling it will take time we don’t have. Not when there’s a warrant being issued for you, too.”

“What?”

“The four wits, the ones that damn god’s got compelled and beguiled and whatever the hell else. They’re gone. Some asshole is blaming Stockman. I don’t know what they think they have on you. Come on. We need to be gone thirty minutes ago.”

“I can’t leave yet. As soon as Nettie can take over—”

“Artie, bring me the sleep charm,” Isen said, then to Kai, “Cynna provided one, just in case.”

“I didn’t think lupi could use spells or charms. Except for Cullen, that is.”

One of the men squeezed into the little room and handed Isen a flat silver disk the size of a half-dollar. “Cullen makes these so non-spellcasters can use them. Go,” he told her—and licked the charm and set it on Doug’s forehead, leaving his hand over it.

A spit-activated charm? That was . . . ingenious, she decided. Cullen kept having to reinvent the wheel because there weren’t any elves around for him to learn from and copy. The results were intriguing. She wanted to ask him how—

“Come on,” Ackleford said impatiently.

Right. She did not want to be arrested. “Where are we going?” she asked as they hurried from the room. “Should I—wow. Six of you?” she said to one of the men who were obviously Isen’s guards. They took up a lot of room in the hall.

“Twelve,” he said laconically. “The other squad’s patrolling.”

How did you patrol in the emergency department? She didn’t ask. No time. As they left the cluster of men behind, however, one stayed with them. “José, what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer out loud, but his expression managed to convey entire sentences. He was assigned to protect her. She was leaving, so he was, too. What part of that was hard to understand?

She huffed out a breath.

“Turn off your phones,” Ackleford ordered. “Both of you.”

“I’ve read,” José said, “that they can track a cell phone even when it’s turned off.”

“Those assholes at the NSA, maybe, if they’ve inserted a Trojan. SDPD can’t.”

They’d reached the double doors where ambulances unloaded their patients. Fortunately, since Ackleford didn’t seem likely to slow down, no one was being brought in at the moment. “Car’s over here,” he said, veering right.

“Isn’t it illegal to park in the ambulance zone?”

He ignored that. “How come just one of you?” he asked José.

“Kevin’s not good in small, closed spaces.”

“I’m not crazy about jail, either.”

“He’s
really
not good in them.”

“Might not come to that. Michalski isn’t a fugitive yet.” He clicked the locks on his car.

José climbed in back. Kai got in the front. The car smelled like an ashtray. “You haven’t said where we’re going. I’ll need some privacy. I have to trance lightly to set the charm. A restroom would work.”

“What charm?”

“The Find charm, of course. I’m not Cynna. I can’t just Find someone.” Ackleford hadn’t come and whisked her away because he was worried about her. He wanted her to Find the missing witnesses. “Not that you’ve asked if I can do it, but if you had, I’d say that yes, I probably can, but it may take a lot of driving around. The charm only reaches about three miles.”

One corner of his mouth kicked up a fraction of an inch in an Ackleford-style grin as he pulled out of the illegal parking spot. “I’m beginning to like you, Michalski.”