Awakenings

Thom wrapped his arms around Marin, exhaling a heavy sigh as he gently tugged her away from Phelan’s side, letting Jacqueline fill the gap again.

“What did she do?” Jacqueline asked in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

“She gave him his soul back,” Neve said, her heart giving a painful squeeze. “His anima. I could sense it.” She bit down hard on her lip. But if she did that, why isn’t he awake? “Does he have a fever, Jac?”

“No,” the other woman said softly. “No, he doesn’t seem to. But then, if the Greys got their claws into him, it wouldn’t surprise me that he doesn’t. Those stupid gremlins…”

Neve’s gaze flicked toward Thom as he snorted softly. “They’re near enough to turn your blood to ice,” he murmured. “You’ve seen them, but they’ve never touched you.”

“No,” Neve agreed as she started with the mortar and pestle again, staring at the herbs that were pulped in its bowl. “Truth be told, I count myself lucky.”

“Good call,” Thom said. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m taking Marin and going back to bed. I’ve had enough excitement for one night. I think you guys can handle Seamus and the Wild Hunt and…all of that?”

“Yeah,” Cameron said quietly. “We probably can. You need help?”

“Not this time,” Thom murmured, lifting his wife with a wince. He stumbled toward the hall leading toward their cubby. Neve bit her lip as she watched them go.

I sure as hell hope we can handle them—handle all of it. She exhaled a quiet breath and looked at Cameron, whose eyes drifted from Thom and Marin, to Phelan, and then finally to her. He gave her a brief, brave smile that faded a moment later.

“I should make sure that Sif has Thesan well in hand,” he said. He glanced at J.T. “Can you hold down the fort?”

“Something tells me the girls are doing that well enough,” J.T. said quietly. “I’ll come with you.”

“Jay?”

The men paused at the sound of Jacqueline’s voice. She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, not looking at anyone or anything but Phelan.

“Don’t let her anywhere near him,” she said firmly. “Not unless you want me to kill her myself. Understand?”

“Crystal clear,” J.T. said. “And for the record, I don’t blame you one bit.”

Cameron cast one last look at them before he and J.T. walked away. Neve reached over to touch Jacqueline’s arm.

“He’ll be fine, Jac,” she whispered. “You’ll see.”

“I hope he is,” Jacqueline said. “Because I don’t know what I’ll do if he’s not.”

She sucked in another breath and went back to tending her lover’s wounds, her expression a mask to hide her suffering. Neve’s heart broke for her even as her throat tightened.

You can’t stop fighting, Phelan. You’ve finally found her. You can’t stop fighting now.

Something out in the arboretum exploded.  White light spiked toward the heavens, briefly turning night to day before the brightness faded.  J.T. blinked against sudden blindness, swearing and pushing to his feet.  “What the–”

“They were out there,” Thordin said a second before he sprinted for the bridge.

Who was–oh. Oh. Oh shit. “Sif, can you handle her?”

“I’ll have to,” she retorted, then pointed toward the bridge.  “Go, Jameson.  Someone’s got to bail the lot of them out of trouble and it seems to me that mayhaps you’re the best equipped right now.”

“If one of the others–”

“I’ll tell them where you’ve gone and decide from there.  Now hurry before that lunkhead gets himself killed.”

Well, now I know who the brains of that operation was way back when. J.T. sucked in a sharp breath and ducked after Thordin, running as fast as he dared toward the head of the bridge.  Thordin was halfway across the bridge and still running by the time J.T. hit the span.

“Thordin, slow down, dammit!”

“No time!” he yelled back, glancing back over his shoulder toward J.T.  “Whatever just happened, it wasn’t good!”

It’s never good when something explodes like that. Story of our freaking lives.  J.T. sighed and barely stopped himself from swearing again as he picked up the pace, realizing that running off without his medical kit was probably not the smartest decision he’d made lately. I’m going to need that if this is bad and I’m not going to have it. Idiot.

A dozen yards beyond the end of the bridge, Thordin stopped dead in his tracks and swore heartily in what J.T. guessed must have been some old Nordic dialect.

“What is it?”

“Go back to the ruins,” Marin croaked.  She and Thom leaned against each other.  She clutched something bundled in her coat in her arms and she was shivering even as Thom struggled to stay upright, pale in the predawn light.  “Seamus and Leinth might need your help getting back.”

“Fuck that,” J.T. said, moving to tuck himself under Thom’s arm and taking his weight off of her–she didn’t seem much steadier than her husband and her lips were already blue from what he could tell in the dim.  “What just happened?”

“I’m still trying to figure it out myself,” Thom said, wavering and out of breath.  J.T. winced. Had his friend somehow popped another rib?

“Just keep moving,” Marin said, clutching her bundle to her chest.  “We have to hurry.  We have to get back.”

“Marin–”

“Don’t ask.”

She kept walking.  Thom swallowed hard, straightening slightly as if to follow her, then groaned and sagged against J.T.’s shoulder.  J.T grimaced and glanced over his shoulder toward Thordin.

“Can you handle Seamus and Leinth?”

“If I have to,” Thordin said.  “Go.”

“Right,” J.T. said, barely suppressing a sigh.  “Going.”  He glanced askance at his friend.  Thom sighed.

“I don’t know,” Thom whispered.  “I really don’t know.”

J.T. stared into the darkness, toward the bridge and the fading sound of Marin’s footsteps.  “Why the hell do I keep thinking that things just went from bad to worse?”

“Because I think they did,” Thom said.  “I think that maybe they just did.”

It took a few minutes before he realized he really could feel her soul and it was nearly enough to stop his heart in his chest right then and there. Ghosts he could handle, but this?

“Don’t be afraid,” Ériu’s voice whispered in his ear.

“Jesus pancake-flipping Christ,” J.T. whispered. It was hard to breathe and his hands were shaking now. “I never—I haven’t—” He sucked in a sharp breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Jay, are you all right?” Thordin asked quietly.

J.T. shook his head. “No, I don’t think I am.”

“You ask too much of him,” Sif murmured. “Untested, untrained. You ask too much.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” J.T. said, another shudder wracking him. He laid his hands on Thesan’s still form again. Show me, Ériu. Show me what I need to do.

“It works by feel,” she said. He felt the chill of her presence settle closer still. Her spectral hand brushed against his temple and it was all he could do not to flinch away. “Trust me, Jameson.”

“I do,” he murmured. “It’s myself I don’t quite trust.”

It was like wrapping her soul in a blanket, like swaddling a newborn. That was the sense he got as he let Ériu guide him. It felt strange, left his skin crawling slightly. He didn’t like it.

“Never ask me to do this again, Thordin,” he said firmly as he finished, limbs feeling like jelly. “It doesn’t set right with me.”

“Hopefully, we’ll never have to,” Thordin said, lips a thin, pale slash. “Is it done?”

J.T. nodded mutely, sitting back against his heels. As done as I can make it.

“You did well, Jameson.”

He didn’t bother to suppress his shudder. Once and never again, Ériu. Once and never, ever again. It’s a good thing I can shave without looking in a mirror, because I’ve got no idea how I’m going to face myself after this.

The chill of her embrace enfolded him and he sagged, glad that at least one of them understood.

Thesan’s shrieking laughter was almost enough to pierce eardrums. Sif clocked the woman over the ear soundly, mercifully cutting off the sound before it could reach glass-shattering levels. She dropped the slender girl in a heap in the snow, glowering.

“Well now you’ve gone and done it, haven’t you?” Sif shook her head at Thordin. “You and your over-large mouth.”

“Oh, shut up,” Thordin grumbled, reaching for Thesan. “Help me here, J.T.”

“Help you do what?” J.T. asked as he moved to help Thordin restrain their prisoner. “And what the hell are you talking about, putting Phelan’s soul back where it’s supposed to be? What happened out there?”

“It must have been when he went down at the line,” Thordin said, accepting a coil of thin rope that Sif produced from beneath her jacket. He started to bind Thesan’s wrists behind her, his expression locked in a grimace. “His head wasn’t here when it happened. He was trying to get a sense of something—said something wasn’t right. Then he just went down like a sack of rocks like I’ve never seen before.”

J.T. muttered a curse and shook his head. “I saw it, I was here, remember? Damn it all, I want to know about this soul shit.”

“If I had much of an explanation for it, I’d share it,” Thordin said, moving on to binding Thesan’s ankles. “She somehow stole it and was using it to blackmail her father—and if blackmailing her father with it didn’t work, she’d planned on turning it over to the Hecate.”

J.T. stared at her, abruptly sick to his stomach. “What?”

“Are you going to make me repeat that?”

J.T. shuddered and shook his head. “No. No, I guess not. I heard you, I just…how am I supposed to take that?”

“As bad news,” Thordin said. “Now get over here and see if you can somehow bind her soul.”

J.T. shuddered again, bile creeping higher in his throat. “I don’t know that I like the sound of that request.” Something feels wrong about it.

Thordin sighed. “Then try to bind her magic, at least. If she’s got enough to suck out Phelan’s soul from a distance, I don’t even want to think about anything else she’s capable of.”

J.T. took a slow, deep breath. “Right,” he murmured.

He knelt in the snow next to the prone woman, took another breath, and got to work.

“Hold her!” Thordin roared. His hands shook, even as he gripped the haft of his axe tightly. Sif’s arm was locked around the slender woman’s neck and her other arm held her captive’s hands pinioned.

“Who the hell is she?” J.T. asked, feeling ragged already. The fight had been brief, but it had been enough to leave him trembling and sweating. The girl was still smiling a too-crazy smile even as Sif held her still. “You hear me?” he asked, turning his attention to their captive. “Who the hell are you?”

“I don’t have to answer you,” the girl said in a lilting, musical tone. “Bring him to me.”

“Bring who?” J.T. asked even as Thordin snapped, “No.”

The girl twisted in Sif’s grip, snarling as the warrior woman held her tight. “Let me go, war-bitch. You have no reason to bind me so!”

“Maybe I don’t, but he does.” Sif jerked her chin toward Thordin. “And I trust him. I don’t trust you, Thesan, especially not after what you’ve done.”

“What did she do?” J.T. asked, feeling his heart start to beat a little faster. I already don’t like where this is going. I really, really don’t like where this is going.

“Shut up, Jay,” Thordin said. He turned his attention back to the girl, who was grinning manically at them. “Where is it, Thesan?”

“I don’t have to answer you, dead man. If you think I do, you must be some kind of bloody fool. Turn me loose. I’ve business with the Ridden Druid.”

At least that I recognize. “He’s got no business with you,” J.T. said. “Answer Thordin’s question.”

The girl bared her teeth and hissed angrily. “I don’t have to. I don’t have to tell. I stole it fair and square and it’s mine. Now they’ll have to find it and hope that she remembers how to fix what’s broken.”

J.T. barely suppressed a shudder. This one took the train to crazy town a long time ago.

“Damnation,” Thordin growled. “Knock her cold, Sif. She’s not going to be any help. Jay, I’ll need your help with the bindings for her, and maybe Neve’s. We don’t want her going anywhere until we’ve gotten Phelan’s soul back where it belongs.”

J.T. froze. “Wait, what?”

Thordin closed his eyes and swore softly. “Dammit. I didn’t mean to say that.”

What the fucking hell is going on here?

“That didn’t sound ominous at all,” Mat said, crossing his arms and glaring back through the darkness toward the tent’s flap, toward the ravine where the others were. “Are you going to tell us more, Neve, or should I not bother asking?”

Neve sighed and shook her head. “It’s complicated and I’ll tell you later, but what I want to know is why the hell she’d be looking for you.”

“Something tells me that the only one who even might know the answer to that question just walked away,” Cameron muttered.

Tala tugged on Matt’s sleeve. “C’mon. Let’s get those blankets before Jac goes sideways.”

“Please do,” Jacqueline said, her voice just barely on the gentler side of a snarl. The wounds looked bad, worse in the light than they had in the dim, oozing dark blood sluggishly to track in purple-red rivulets down Phelan’s shoulders and back.

“Claws,” Neve said. “It must have been. If I know them both, Phelan tried to do something idiotic and heroic and Seamus had to rescue him. It’s par for the course when it comes to the men in my bloody family.” She eased a dribble of water from the kettle into the mortar and kept working. “I’m sorry, Jac, I really am.”

“It’s not like it’s your fault,” Jacqueline muttered, quickly cleaning the wounds and trying not to bite through her lower lip while she did it.

He hasn’t moved. He hasn’t even made a sound. That never happens. What’s going on? She sucked in a rasping breath and struggled to master herself again. God, Phelan, don’t do this to me. You promised.

Damn you, you promised.

Thordin’s sudden roar shook all of them. Cameron nearly dropped the lamp, his head jerking up.

“That didn’t sound good,” he said.

“Not at all,” Jacqueline whispered. “Go. Find out, come back—or stay if they need you. But hurry.”

She didn’t need to tell him twice. He was gone a heartbeat later, leaving the lamp flickering silently by her knee.

Neve met her gaze with a worried one of her own.

“This is worse than I’ve imagined, isn’t it?” Jacqueline asked with a terrible, sick feeling growing in her stomach.

Neve swallowed hard and looked down into the mortar. “Déithe agus arrachtaigh, I hope not, Jac. I sure as hell hope not.”

“Déithe agus arrachtaigh,” Neve said suddenly from the other side of the fire. “Jacqueline, what happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” Jacqueline murmured. “I don’t know. What the hell’s out there, Neve? What did this to him?”

Neve dropped into an awkward position next to her, leaving her enough room to work but edging close enough to get a good look at her cousin. She shook her head slowly, lips thinning. “The gremlins were coming,” she said quietly. “He and Seamus were holding the bridge so Leinth and I could get away.”

“Leinth didn’t come back into the tent,” Tala said.

Jacqueline froze. “Wait a second—Seamus? As in your brother Seamus? The one who’s supposed to be dead?”

“Yeah, that one.” Neve mustered up a smile from somewhere. “Not so dead. Here, give me that. I’ll pulp the herbs while you have a closer look at the bleeding.”

Numb to her core, Jacqueline handed Neve her mortar and pestle. Neve pulled Phelan’s bag close and rifled around in it until she found the appropriate herbs. She filled the bowl of the mortar and got to work as Jacqueline struggled to get her bearings.

What is going on out there?

If she wasn’t so damned worried about Phelan, she’d have gone to check it out herself.

A shrieking laugh shattered the sudden silence and all three women jumped at the sound. Tala swore heartily and Neve shuddered. Jacqueline’s hands tightened on the wet rags in the basin, the ones she’d been reaching for, to clean more of the mess from Phelan’s wounded back.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jacqueline said quietly. “Not at all.”

“None of us did.” Tala settled her daughter back into her basket. “You two stay here. I’ll find out what that’s all about.”

“Matthew, you get your arse over by that fire and you bloody well stay there, you hear me? She’s coming after you.”

Matt glared at Thordin as the bigger man propelled him toward the fire and the women clustered there. “How the hell are you so sure of that?”

“Because I heard it from her own damned lips. She knows you’re here and she wants you. You heard her.” Thordin glared over his shoulder toward Cameron. “Make sure he stays put.”

“What’s going on out there, Thordin?” Neve asked, her voice faint and frightened.

“What happened to Phelan?” Jacqueline asked at the same time.

Thordin put up a hand. “Thesan and you don’t want to know. Just make sure he doesn’t bleed out and make sure that Matt doesn’t go anywhere near the damned wards.” With that, he spun on his heel and headed back toward the wards, where he was probably needed.

“What is he talking about?” Jacqueline asked. “What is going on out there?”

“A mess,” Matt snarled. “That’s what. I should be out there with them. My sister’s gone out hunting god knows what and I’m stuck back here.”

“Settle,” Cameron said. “Jac, do you need another lamp?”

“Please,” Jacqueline muttered, setting her jaw. “Do you know what’s actually happening?”

“Not much more than you.” Cameron exhaled a frustrated sigh and brought over another lamp. “I wish there was something to tell, Jac.”

She shook her head, wincing as the light revealed some nasty bruising around the marks on Phelan’s back. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, then. I need blankets, Matt.”

Matt stared her for a moment, then sighed. “Right. I’ll get on that.”

“Tala, go with him,” Neve said without looking up. “Make sure he comes back.”

“It’s so nice to be trusted,” Matt muttered.

The shrieking laugh sounded again, closer now, followed by a woman’s sing-song. “Come out, Ciar! I know you’re near; come out and see me!”

“Oh damnation and hellfire,” Neve whispered. “This doesn’t end well.”

“Who was that?” Matt asked.

“Someone who sounds exactly like her mother, that’s who.” Neve shuddered. “And knowing what I know now, that’s bad for us all the way around.”

One of the twins started crying almost as soon as Tala walked away, but it was an attention-seeking cry, not a hungry or dirty diaper or discomfort cry.  Jacqueline bit down hard on her lower lip and ignored the sound as she unzipped Phelan’s jacket and peeled him free of it.  She tugged the hem of his shirt free of the waistband of his jeans and her hands slid up under his shirt.  Her hands were cold and she watched his face for any sign of a flinch, a twitch—he always reacted somehow when she touched him with cold fingers.

Nothing.

“Dammit, Phelan,” she whispered.  “Don’t do this to me.”  Operating by touch, she checked for injuries that might have been hidden by his shirt.  One side of his body was ice-cold, as cold as the snow outside.  The spot started from a couple inches above his hip and stretched down beyond the waistband of his jeans.  Jacqueline sucked in a breath.

The Greys, maybe. Nothing else seemed to be wrong.

She reached for the button of his jeans as Tala dropped both kits next to her.

“Are you going to strip him down right here?” the young mother asked as she stepped away to scoop up her crying infant.

“I don’t think either one of us is going to be offended if I do,” Jacqueline said, swallowing against the tightness in her throat.

“You might want to take his boots off first.”

Choking on a laugh, eyes starting to sting, Jacqueline shook her head.  “Of course.”

Don’t fall apart. Keep it together.  You can handle this. You’ve got to handle this.

She worked off his boots and then stripped off his jeans.  The skin of one thigh was discolored all the way down to the knee.  His shin on the same side was discolored the same way, pale and whitish, almost looking frostbitten.

“Shit,” Tala said, peering across the fire.  “What the hell hit him?”

“If I had to guess, probably one of the Greys,” Jacqueline murmured.  “I need blankets, Tala.”  What else do I need? God, I don’t even know.  I’ve never seen this before.  The Greys—they shouldn’t be able to do this, right?

God, I don’t know anymore. I don’t even know anymore.

She sucked in a rasping breath, abruptly aware that Tala was gone, probably to get the blankets she’d just asked for.  The hairs on the back of Jacqueline’s neck refused to lay down and she shuddered, swallowing hard.

“Ériu, is that you?”

She felt a strange warmth and nodded to herself, swallowing again. “All right.  Stay near, hmm?  As long as it’s safe.”  Jacqueline pulled Phelan into a sitting position so she could peel off his shirt.  First she swore at the chill that had spread across his shoulders and back, just like the cold she’d felt along his leg and side, then she swore at the blood she saw on the lining of his jacket where it had been laying beneath him.

“Dammit, Phelan!  What the hell did you do?”

He didn’t answer and it made her heart hurt.  Her chest was tight and breathing was hard.

Jacqueline squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that tried to escape.  She couldn’t cry—not now, not yet.  She had to finish taking care of him.  After that was done, she could fall apart, but no sooner.

She peeled off his shirt and threw it to the side, not caring where it landed. She rolled him onto his stomach to get a better look at what was bleeding. His shoulders were smeared with fresh and drying blood, the skin of his back just as discolored as his leg.

Definitely one of the Greys, but I’ve never seen it like this before. She grabbed a basin and filled it partway with tepid water, partway with hot water from the kettle.  A few clean rags from her kit got tossed in that water as she peered closely at Phelan’s shoulders, seeking the source of the bleeding.

There! Two sets of marks, puncture wounds almost surgically neat, like someone had stabbed him with twelve large-bore needles in a crescent shape, six wounds to each shoulderblade, deep enough to penetrate the muscle almost all the way down to the bone.

How didn’t I notice that before? She shook her head and grabbed one of the wet rags, folding it quickly and pressing it against one wound.  A second rag ended up over the other.

“Just stay with me, Phelan.”  She watched him as she reached for her kit to find her mortar and pestle, for the herbs she’d need for compresses and the strips she’d need for bandages.  He was deathly still, breathing slow, completely silent and limp in front of her.  It wasn’t a sign she liked at all.

“Please,” she whispered.  “Don’t leave me now.”

“What happened?”

J.T. shook his head in answer to Jacqueline’s question, continuing on his jog back toward the fire. She turned quickly and kept pace, her eyes on Phelan’s pale face, a contorted expression frozen on the once-druid’s face. Her heart skipped a beat and her throat tightened.

Oh, God, what just happened? What happened out there?

“Jay.”

“I don’t know, Jac. He just collapsed, okay?  He collapsed and I need to get the hell back out there to back everyone up because if I don’t, who the hell knows what’s going to happen.”

She stopped in her tracks and watched him keep going, deeper into the tent and toward the fire. Her heart tried to pound itself out of her chest as her throat constricted even further. What the heck is going on out there? She bit her lip, glancing back over her shoulder.

White light flared beyond the tent’s flap and she twisted away, breathing a curse as she threw up an arm to shield her eyes. What was that?

“Jac!  I could use you over here.”

She swore under her breath again and turned, rushing toward the sound of J.T.’s voice. “What’s happened?”

“Just twitching, that’s all. Do you want him out here or in his bed?”

“By the fire,” she answered without thinking as drew closer. Tala stared at her, wide-eyed, one of the twins cradled in the crook of her arm, the other in a moses basket at her feet.

“What’s going on out there?” Tala asked.

Jacqueline shook her head. “I have no idea, but Jay has to get back out there. Can you get my kit?”

Tala nodded, nestling her daughter into the basket with her brother. “Hanging by your bed?”

“With Phelan’s,” she said as she knelt down next to her unconscious lover.   Jacqueline shrugged out of her coat and bunched it up, tucking it under Phelan’s head. “Bring both. Go, Jay. Make sure they’re not doing anything that’s going to get them killed.”

“You’ve got this?”

“I’d better.” Jacqueline stared at Phelan’s pale face, heart giving a painful squeeze. “Go. Make sure that he’s the only one I’ll need to fix.”

In the meantime, I have to figure out how I’m going to do that.