Unbinding (6 page)

B
EING
jerked out of deep trance was a lot like being sound asleep and having a bucket of ice water dumped on you. Kai’s body jolted along with her mind. She blinked stupidly. Her veins sang with heat. Her heart pounded. Her mouth was dry.

The heat came from Dell. The other two sensations came from fear.

Her body thought she should be afraid? Why?

No one was leaping at her with a knife or gun or club. Dell hadn’t reacted, but it took a sledgehammer to get her attention when she was working body magic. But Nathan wasn’t alarmed, either.

Of course, it took rather a lot to alarm Nathan. She was just craning her head around to see if he’d drawn Claw when a chair crashed to the floor. “She was here!” a high, hysterical voice cried out. “Right here in my lap, and then she wasn’t! She just vanished!”

Kai couldn’t see clearly—Benedict was in the way—but there were three women at the table to her right, along with a cop. The cop was standing. One of the women was, too. She looked frantic.

“Now, now,” the cop said. “She must’ve climbed down and you didn’t notice. She can’t have gotten far. We’ll find her, don’t worry.”

“Your little girl’s missing?” Nathan asked sharply. “Two or two-and-a-half, short red-blond hair, dark shorts, white shirt with a yellow cartoon duck on the front?”

“Yes, yes, that’s her. Do you see her? She was in my lap, then all of a sudden she wasn’t. Cammy!” she called suddenly, straightening. “Cammy, Mommy needs you to come here. Cammy!”

All around them, people were exclaiming. Some of the sitters stood; some of those already on their feet started to move.

Benedict’s voice boomed out. “Everyone, listen up! Stay where you are. We’ve got a little girl missing. She’s two or two-and-half—no, dammit, I said
stay put
. The little girl’s name is Cammy. She’s wearing dark shorts and a white T-shirt with a duck on it. Look around you. Look under your table.”

The marvel was that they did. Not quietly—everyone seemed to be asking everyone else if they saw her, how old did he say she was, what had happened, and a dozen more pointless things. But they stayed where they were and most of them looked. It must be nice, Kai thought, to have the kind of deep voice people instinctively associate with authority. The voice wasn’t the only reason they did as they were told, though. Benedict was used to being obeyed.

There were a couple of people who didn’t stay put. Ackleford, for one. The police lieutenant for another, unfortunately. Kai did not like Lieutenant Jenkins.

“What’s going on?” Ackleford demanded.

The cop at the next table attempted to answer. Cammy’s mother spoke right over him, saying pretty much what she’d already said. And the heat in Kai’s veins turned searing. She gasped at the pain and gasped again at the sudden dazzlement of color washing over the room. Dell was finished—and her Gift was back, full-force.

Hastily she dialed it down. That seemed to work like it was supposed to. She checked quickly with Dell, who sent a complicated wave of nonverbal information that meant Dell had fixed the problem with the eye drops. The burn in Kai’s veins eased to a gentle warmth. Dell released her hands . . . which were unblemished. They didn’t itch, either. She didn’t itch anywhere, thank all the Powers.

She did feel the weight of her familiar’s exhaustion and the edginess of her hunger. That had been a major amount of work. Kai sent her gratitude, along with an apologetic
eat soon.
Not yet, but soon.
Dell leaned back in her chair, looking very bland. That wasn’t at all how she felt. It was hard to be around all that lovely blood when hunger bit deep, but the chameleon was nothing if not practical. She accepted the need to delay her meal.

Nathan leaned down and spoke near her ear. “If Dell’s finished—”

A startled wail cut through all the voices.

“Cammy!” The redhead stooped, then shot upright again holding a bawling toddler in navy blue shorts and a white shirt. “She’s okay,” the woman assured everyone, though she didn’t sound convinced. “You’re okay, sweetheart, it’s all right, there now, love . . .” While she murmured reassurances to her daughter, she ran a hand over the little girl’s arms and legs to reassure herself. “She’s okay,” the woman repeated, this time with real relief.

Naturally everyone started talking again, with those closest telling the others that the little girl had been found, looked like she hadn’t been missing after all, she’d been right there all along.

“She wasn’t, though,” Nathan said softly. “She was gone. Now she isn’t.”

What in the world was going on? Flowers that turned into bloodsucking butterflies. Toddlers who vanished then reappeared.

“You’re okay now?” he asked.

“What? Oh, shit, I forgot. I mean yes, I’m fine, but I’m not sure about everyone else.” Fine, but blithering. Sometimes it took a while for her brain to come fully online after she’d tranced deeply. She looked around. “Where’s Cullen? You said he was coming with you.”

Benedict said, “Headed this way.” He gave a jerk of his chin to indicate the direction.

Kai stood and peered through the crowd until she spotted a cinnamon-colored head moving toward them, or maybe for the table next to theirs, where Ackleford was talking to the mother newly reunited with her child and Lieutenant Jenkins was talking into her lapel mic.

Cullen Seabourne was unlikely in several ways, but the most obvious was his appearance. Beauty isn’t all that rare. Sunsets achieve it all the time. But if Cullen Seabourne were a sunset, he’d be the one that slowed rush hour traffic because drivers kept wanting to look. The people he was moving through wanted to look, too. That might have bogged him down if he hadn’t applied liberal doses of his personal antidote to beauty: sheer rudeness.

Nathan said, “Kai, I need you to go to the Ladies’.”

“Now?” She turned to him, surprised. “Why?”

“Because if I do it’s likely to upset people.”

“Yes, but—” She stopped. Her spine prickled, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Even without the return of her Gift, she’d know what Nathan’s expression meant. He was utterly calm. Utterly focused. And his thoughts swam in an amethyst sea.

Nathan was on a Hunt.

Oh, this was going to be interesting. “Can it wait? I need to tell Cullen what Dell did. Others may be in danger.”

Dell shoved her chair back. “I go.”

Accustomed to translating for her familiar, Kai explained that Dell meant she’d check out the ladies’ room while Kai spoke to Cullen.

“Good.” Nathan nodded at Dell. “I need to know if someone is in there.”

Dell headed for the door with the skirted icon. Nathan went with her, though he stopped on this side of the door. Now, where was Cullen? Oh, there he was, next to Ackleford. Before Kai could head his way, someone else stopped her with a hand on her arm.

This time it was Benedict. “Hunter’s right. The little girl was gone. I didn’t see her return, but I smelled it when she did.”

“I imagine Nathan did, too.”

“Something changed with him just now.”

She tipped her head, curious. “Does he smell different?”

“I don’t know what’s different, but something is. I want to know what.”

“You do realize he can hear you, don’t you?” Not that Nathan seemed to be paying any attention to them. He was leaning against the wall beside the restroom door that had closed behind Dell. “Benedict, I need to talk to Cullen. It’s important.”

He frowned but released her, his gaze fixed on Nathan. Benedict’s colors were calm enough, but a deep reddish violet was spiking through the wary pewter that dominated at the moment.

Oh, yeah, this would be interesting. Kai shook her head and started again for Cullen. Arjenie followed her, so Benedict did, too.

“What just happened?” Cullen demanded of Ackleford.

“Hell. I was hoping you could tell me.”

Cullen shook his head. “Something happened. I know that, but it was over too fast. All I saw was a flash of power. The little girl’s okay?”

“Seems fine. There’s some confusion about whether she really disappeared or not. The officer here says—”

Kai broke in. “She really disappeared. Cullen, you need to check her for magical contamination. The others who were bitten, too.”

Piercing blue eyes zeroed in on her. One more unlikely thing about Cullen—when all his shields were up, she couldn’t see his thoughts. Kai had only met four beings who could completely shield their thoughts from her, and three of them needed a few thousand candles on their birthday cakes. It made no sense that Cullen would have shields on a par with the Eldest and the two Queens, but he did. All Kai had to go on with him were the things everyone else could see and hear.

Right now, he looked and sounded irritated. “Why?”

“Dell had to remake my blood. That’s why it took so long. I couldn’t tell what she was worried about, and she was in too much of a hurry to wait until I sensed it, too, but there was something in my blood she considered dangerous. That same something might be in the others’ blood, too.”

“Dammit.” Cullen turned his frown toward Cammy’s mother, who wasn’t paying attention to anything but her little girl. One of her friends was arguing with the police officer, insisting Cammy had truly disappeared. The officer now seemed to think Cammy had been there all along. Amazing how people could remake their memories to fit what they thought must be true.

Cullen studied mother and daughter for a moment, then sighed. “I can’t tell without a closer look. If I find something, I’m going to have to look at all of them, and that is going to take time. Time I ought to be spending studying the residue, dammit. How many people were bitten?”

Ackleford answered. “Lieutenant Jenkins tells me nineteen have reported being bitten, but that may not be a complete count. There were forty-four people on the patio.”

“Are they all still here?”

Lieutenant Jenkins didn’t like being left out. “Damn straight they are. My orders were clear.”

The next voice was Nathan’s. He’d joined them so quietly Kai hadn’t noticed. “Some orders can’t be followed. At least one person is missing. Someone was in the ladies’ room ten minutes ago. It’s empty now.”

The lieutenant curled her lip at him. “People
do
leave the restroom.”

“There’s only one exit. She didn’t use it.”

They didn’t believe him, of course. No one here had any idea what a Hound could do, and it didn’t look like Nathan meant to tell them.

How could he be positive there’d been two people in the ladies’ room if he hadn’t seen them enter?

He heard them.

Benedict accepted that. Kai’s fellow humans looked skeptical. Even if Nathan was right about what he’d heard, he hadn’t been watching the ladies’ room the whole time, had he?

He hadn’t been looking directly at it, no.

Then he couldn’t be sure both occupants hadn’t both left the usual way.

Yes, he could. He’d been guarding Kai and Dell.

Naturally they didn’t consider that proof of anything. They had no idea what it meant when a Hound set himself to guard. At least Ackleford decided to check out Nathan’s claim instead of dismissing it altogether. He raised his voice. “Anyone here aware of someone who isn’t accounted for?”

That generated a lot of uneasy looks and an uneasy silence. Kai opened her Gift up a bit . . . she couldn’t be sure, not with so many people whose colors all crowded each other, most of them agitated, but . . .

—
hungry!

Kai glanced at Dell, who stood next to the ladies’ room door. The chameleon’s hunger was becoming a problem if she made the effort to send a word. The crowded conditions were bugging her, too. Crowds were never Dell’s favorite thing, but when she was hungry they were more of a strain. If she’d been in her other form, her tail would’ve been lashing.
Okay
, Kai sent, along with a wave of reassurance. She spoke quickly to Ackleford. “See that dark-haired young man in the blue shirt standing near the serving counter? I think he’s missing someone.”

Ackleford’s brows drew down. “I thought you didn’t really read minds.”

“I don’t. I’m interpreting what I see. When you asked about someone being missing, first he was alarmed, then this big, gray doubt oozed over the alarm, trying to smother it. He doesn’t want to think what he’s thinking.”

“What’s he thinking?”

“I don’t know. Talk to him, okay?” She looked around for Nathan—ah, there he was, talking to Benedict. Kai moved closer so she could keep her voice down. Arjenie was sitting next to the two men, but she had her laptop out and was working away at something. “Nathan, Dell’s getting seriously hungry.”

“Eh.” He glanced around. “It’s crowded here. That doesn’t help. I guess we can use the men’s room.”

“Wait a minute,” Arjenie said, looking up. “
You’re
going to feed her? Is that safe?”

“Sure. She won’t take more blood than I can afford. It won’t make a full meal for her, but it should help her settle.”

Benedict rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “She’s got good control, then, if she’s that hungry.”

“Nathan has given her blood before,” Kai explained. “Once Dell accepts blood-gift from someone, he or she isn’t prey. Ever.”