WarriorsApprentice (22 page)

Huon was dying.

* * * * *

Night had fallen by the time they reached Belgium. The fuel
gauge showed empty and Judie pulled into yet another service station, this one
inside the town limits, surrounded by brick buildings, cobblestones and
concrete. Useless for Huon’s needs but unavoidable. She grabbed her purse and
shut the door.

“I’ll be as quick as I can. I have to go to the toilet and I
need coffee.”

Tybor looked at Huon, who stirred and nodded. “I’ll be
okay.”

The big man got out of the car and accompanied Judie into
the building. A blue bug-zapper light hung at the door. A moth, lured to the
bright lights at the center, flew into the insect-control device just as the
two travelers passed under it. There was a flash of blue light, an electronic
sizzle and an arcing crackle. Before she had time to realize what was
happening, Tybor grabbed her and shoved her behind him while he stood poised on
the balls of his feet, muscles tense, knees bent in combat stance, a ball of
energy already out of his pocket and held loosely in his hand, his other
holding her firmly in place.

“What the fuck?” A motorist who had followed them into the
complex stopped and stepped back rapidly to avoid crashing into them.

Judie squirmed and wriggled, trying to get free. After a
moment Tybor’s stance relaxed and he loosened his grip.

“It’s safe,” Tybor said.

Judie slid to the side, then looked around. The motorist was
not the only person staring at them. In the café, the three or four other
bleary-eyed patrons watched the incident with expressions that ranged from
puzzled to concerned to very wary.

Judie made a big play of dusting herself down. “Sorry,
sorry. I stumbled and my friend managed to catch me.”

She gave what she hoped sounded like an embarrassed laugh
and flashed an apologetic smile in as many directions as she could. She had no
idea if anyone in the café spoke English, but her pantomime must have worked
because shoulders dropped, eyes looked away and the low murmur of normal
conversation resumed.

“Judie, I…” Tybor began to explain, dropping the
uncompressed ball of chemicals harmlessly into a trashcan, but Judie shushed
him with a gesture.

She turned to the counter but said over her shoulder, “If
nothing else, it achieved one thing. I don’t feel tired and sleepy anymore.
I’ve got enough adrenaline surging through my system to keep me awake for
hours.” Judie smiled at Tybor. “Thank you for trying to protect me.”

“If anything happens to you, Huon dies,” Tybor muttered.

“I don’t think that’s the only reason you put yourself
between me and danger,” Judie argued. “I think you are more protective than you
want to admit. I think you care. About me
and
Huon.”

“Believe what you want,” Tybor snapped. “It doesn’t matter
to me.” And without another word he stalked back to the car. Judie sipped a cup
of hot and bitter black coffee as she followed him.

In the small car, Tybor seemed to smolder, like a
subterranean fire, needing only the application of oxygen to leap into life.
She kept her eyes on the road and watched the lights slip by, mile after
monotonous mile, in silence. An occasional grunt and the sound of soft snores
behind her told her Huon still slept.

Her back ached. She shifted on her seat, trying to ease the
ache tingling in her buttocks, numbness paradoxically sharp and painful
radiating down her legs.

“Lean forward.” Tybor’s voice, breaking the silence after so
long, made her jump.

“What?”

“Lean forward,” Tybor ordered. “I’ll massage your neck and
shoulders.”

Like a well-trained soldier, Judie obeyed. Tybor’s large
hand slipped behind her and his fingers dug into her flesh hard enough to cause
pain, but it was an exquisite ache that unknotted tight muscles, loosened
nerves that had spasmed and forced the blood to flow again. She rolled her
shoulders and sighed.

“That feels wonderful.”

“Mmph.” His rhythm didn’t falter.

Relaxation spread outward from the point where he kneaded,
the softening making her limbs feel heavy and taking the pain away.

His hands withdrew at last and she felt like weeping at the
loss. Then she jumped, and the car veered for a moment before she straightened
it out again.

“What are you doing?”

“Lean toward the door,” he said. “You’re still hurting.”

“Yes, but…”

She hurt all right, but the pain was overwhelmed by the feeling
of his hand cupping her butt, squeezing and massaging and inching underneath
her to do the same to her upper thigh where it flattened against the seat.

“You have to drive. I can’t help you with that. I can ease
your pain.” While he spoke, Tybor’s hand continued to flex underneath her.

Judie rolled to one side, resting her shoulder on the door. The
numbness receded and the hot streaks of pain searing down her leg faded.

Tybor withdrew his hand and pushed himself back into the
seat. “That’s enough. It’s too dangerous,” he said, and Judie didn’t know if he
meant too dangerous for driving or something else, and she didn’t have the
courage to ask.

The silence closed in again. In the dark, with the constant
glare of red taillights ahead of her and the flash of headlights in the rear
vision mirror, her eyes grew dry and gritty. She rubbed at them and yawned.

“Night driving is hard.”

“My people spend our lives in darkness lit only by
artificial light,” Tybor’s voice whispered out of the darkness. “To me, the
night feels safer, more like home.” His sigh sounded too soft for a man of his
rock-hard nature. “I’m not meant for the surface world. I’m a warrior, too old
and set in my ways. I’m not meant for light, and ease and comfort.”

Slowly, tentatively, because she feared breaking the tiny
gossamer thread of connection, Judie replied, “You could learn. If you wanted
to. Huon loves it here.”

“Huon is different.” Anger or some other emotion made his
voice tight.

“Huon is Dvalinn, like you.”

“Huon is not like me.” The words rang with denial. “He is
strong, adaptable and his courage comes from within, not forced on him by years
of duty and training.”

“You…” Judie stopped and swallowed past a lump in her
throat. “I know you believe you don’t feel love, but you’re wrong.” She spared
a moment’s attention from the road to look at him compassionately. “I’ve seen
the way you look at him, with your eyes full of longing, longing that you use
all of your considerable strength to suppress.”

He made an inarticulate sound and she paused and waited, but
he said nothing. She took her courage in her hands and told him the truth. “You
cannot bear for him to die. You love him.”

“No.” Tybor’s anguished whisper detonated in the quiet
atmosphere of the car like a bomb. “I don’t love him. I
can’t
love—not
Huon, not you.”

Surprise made her stiffen. “Me? We’re talking about Huon.”

“Why not talk about you?” Tybor sounded rough and
aggressive. “If you’re so damn sure what I feel for Huon is love, what is it I
feel for you?”

Her heart began to beat a rapid tattoo and her hands
clenched around the steering wheel until the knuckles turned white. “I don’t
know what you feel for me, Tybor. Sometimes you are protective, I know you feel
lust, but sometimes I think you hate me.”

“Lust, yes.” The words gusted out on a heavy breath.

He shifted in the seat. When he spoke again, his voice
sounded distant, as if more than the gap between the seats separated them. “I
used to visit the cabal of occult intellectuals in Venice. I never understood
the importance even these academics, philosophers, challengers of traditional
thinking put on emotions. They talked about the role of love and fear and
sorrow in the human psyche. I listened to them, but I felt so superior. I
subjected their foibles to my dispassionate judgment and found them wanting.”
He turned his head and looked out of the window at the darkened landscape. “And
now I fear I am as foolish as they were.”

“Because of Huon?” she asked.

For a long moment Tybor said nothing. “I would die to save
Huon,” he said, his voice rough with pain. “The thought of living in the world
when Huon has gone out of it is…intolerable.” He swallowed audibly. “The Dvalinn
live a long, long time and I…” His voice cracked, the sound shocking from one
so hard, so self-contained.

“We aren’t going to let Huon die,” Judie whispered. “You and
I will keep him alive.” She turned her head and looked at him. “I don’t think
your
life will be the same, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

She drew in a deep breath. Now was the time to be honest, to
tell him what she really wanted, what she felt. To tell him she wanted Huon and
him, alive and in her life in whatever way she could get them. To tell him that
her life would never be the same either, and that she had no more idea of how
to deal with it than he did.

Before she could speak, Tybor said, “What you and I and Huon
have done changes nothing.” His words twisted in her chest like a blade.
“Humans are still our enemy.”

“You hate me?” Judie’s disappointment tasted bitter. She had
thought him above that, thought she had proven her worth above any prejudice he
had against humans.

“I don’t hate you, Judie,” he spoke somberly. “But I won’t
let this lust I feel blind me to the truth.” In the dark cocoon of the car, his
voice sounded distant. “I have lived over eight hundred years. If I’m not
killed in battle I can expect to live another eight hundred. Huon is the same.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“How long will you live, Judie? Eighty years, ninety, one
hundred?”

“If I’m lucky.”

“I know what you want from me, from Huon,” he said gruffly.
“But you haven’t thought about what it would feel like to grow old and wrinkled
while we remained young. How would your emotions deal with that? Would it make
you happy?” By now his voice had grown louder, full of tension. “If you had
your way and Huon and I learned to love you, your life span would be a mere
moment in our time. We would have to watch you age and die. You would be gone
and Huon and I would be left to deal with the loss.”

“There must be a way…” The words broke as she said them.

“How can there be?” The sound and fury died away, leaving
only the quiet throb of despair. “Even if I believed in love, I wouldn’t give
my heart and soul when I know for how short a time I would have you.”

Judie gulped down the pain that speared into her like a
crystal-cold stiletto. “If you cannot let yourself love me, love Huon. Someone
should be happy.”

“How would that make either of us happy?” The pain in his
voice ripped at her heart. Here in the darkness, the quiet broken only by the
humming of the engine and the low murmur of his words. “I have lived my life as
a soldier, fighting to protect the Dvalinn way of life. To love Huon, I would
have to turn my back on all I am, all I have ever been, and be an outcast from
my own people.”

“Like Huon has been most of his life,” Judie responded. “Yet
when the Dvalinn had need of him, he responded. You can change—the Dvalinn can
change. You’ve proven your bravery in battle. Now prove it again. If you don’t
act, if you don’t do something about this tension that simmers between you,
then you are a coward—and a fool. You don’t want me because we will have too
short a time together and you won’t take Huon because you are afraid of what that
might mean.” She thumped the steering wheel, her anger and her frustration at
her inability to make him understand making her inarticulate. The words she
needed to make it clear to him refused to come. “Can’t you see? You could have
something but you keep choosing the path that gives you nothing. How can that
be better?”

“Nothing?” he sneered. “I had you. Do you count that as
nothing?”

“I count what I had…have with you as something amazing and
precious. You’re the one who insists it was purely sexual gratification and
nothing more. You’re not being honest with yourself and you’re getting tangled
up in lies you don’t believe yourself.” She drew a breath and glanced into the
rearview mirror.

Anything else she’d intended to say fled from her mind.
Behind them, approaching at speed, were the flashing blue lights of a police
car.

“Oh shit! They’re after us.”

Tybor swiveled around and stared out of the back window. “Oh,
fuck!”

“Wha…?” Huon’s sleepy voice muttered. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the police,” Judie whispered. “They’ve found us.”

“Go faster,” Huon urged.

“In this?” Judie laughed scornfully. “The Belgian police use
Porsche 911s on the highways. We’ve got no chance. I’ll have to pull over.”

“No.” Tybor’s voice cut through her panic. “Keep going. If
we were innocent travelers, we wouldn’t think they were after us because we
haven’t committed any breach of the Highway Code. When they do stop us, that’s
the way we’ll play it. Bewildered tourists who have no idea why we’ve been held
up.”

Though the blood thundering in her ears made it hard to hear
the approaching sirens and the shaking in her hands made driving difficult, she
carried on, eyes flicking nervously to the mirror, wondering what would happen
when the police car caught up with them. She didn’t have long to wait. With a
powerful roar, the car drew alongside them. The sleek lines of the sports vehicle
filled her window and then pulled ahead. She waited for the cop to indicate
that she should pull over. When he didn’t she slowed a little, prepared for him
to swing into the lane in front of her to block her progress.

The police car rushed past her, lights still flashing,
sirens screeching. She watched the red glow of its taillights shrinking in the
distance and only then did her breathing begin to return to normal.

“He wasn’t after us. He didn’t even look.” The shaking in
her hands worsened as relief stole the rigidity from her muscles.