Chapter Twenty-Five
Kid
Lost and Found
“They’re still coming,” he warned the witches even as he adjusted his grip on the rifle. Like him, Jason was armed. Their abilities were far more effective on the living. They hadn’t been able to touch the minds of these shambling beasts coming for them. Behind him, the witch siblings worked in tandem, setting out tools, chanting, and doing all other sorts of other things with what they’d gathered.
“They’ve been coming for a while,” Jason snorted. “They’re rather slow.”
Cody leapt back up to join them, his expression fierce as his ears focused toward the lake. The giant plumes from the water had vanished. It was Delilah who surprised Kid when she strode away from her husband. Buck watched her walk toward the lip. She would be between all of them and the corpses making their way.
Her song rose, and the beauty of it was so at odds with where they stood, surrounded by death and loss. Blue lifted a bound collection of sage. The smoke rolled upward, and she added her words to those of the witches and the siren.
“Did anyone ever say that we could sing the enemy to death?” Shane’s question wasn’t an unfair one. “With—three different songs?”
“We do what works,” Jimmy assured him, but his gaze fixed on the approaching issue. “I don’t think this is all we’re going to have to deal with.”
“No,” Jason agreed. “We’ve got more coming. Riders. They’re still distant, but my mind can see them. Which means they aren’t like…those things.”
“Then those are ours,” he told Jason. “We’ll deal with those Fevered. Jimmy, you guard the shamans and keep an eye on Delilah. Shane, you and Sage are to protect the witches.”
Scarlett lifted her head and looked toward him. “You’re going to need me.”
“Yes, we do…you and Cody both. Are you up for it?” He wouldn’t force her, not when her emotions were so scattered. Tempestuous anger, grief, and longing were a potent cocktail. If she couldn’t rise, he had no doubt where Cody would stay. The wolf was already agitated.
We can do this on our own. Jason’s assurance notwithstanding, Kid didn’t want to risk Sam’s wife to her loss.
Turning away from the oncoming battle, he dropped to a crouch next to Scarlett. Setting a gentle hand upon her shoulder, he lowered his voice. “Scar, we need you. I know you’re hurting. We’re all feeling it. But we need you, and I can help if you need that, but I’d rather you find the strength within yourself.”
As if in agreement with his suggestion, Cody trotted up and nudged Scarlett with his nose. The wolf repeated the gesture until she shoved at him. “I can’t promise I won’t burn them all alive.” The fight in her voice defeated the sorrow, and Kid offered her his hand.
After pulling her to her feet, he pulled off the hat and pressed it over her very noticeable hair. “Fight like a Kane, Scar. Fight to defend your family and your friends. We’ll do the same.”
Cody sneezed and Scarlett wiped a hand across her tear-streaked face. “I’ll fight like a Morning Star. My brother, Wyatt, taught me that when others come after what you love, you kill them. These bastards are coming for everyone I love.” And what she didn’t say—they had taken someone she loved.
“Stay alive,” Kid said over his shoulder to Jimmy, as he, Jason, Cody and Scarlett began their descent. The Fevered coming for them were going to have their own abilities. Once upon a time in his life, he’d shied away from these fights, but then he’d tracked a wolf into the hills.
Craziest thing he’d ever done.
“Jason,” he said as he caught up to his brother. “Together?”
They would hold the line, and his brother tossed him a mental rope. The connection, so easily forged, had once been anathema to them both. His view of the range changed. The color was a riot of reds and purples—fury and hate. But beyond that was the rhythmic chanting of thought, underscored by wild loyalty.
Behind him, Delilah’s song soared. The siren captivated. Could Kid do the same thing?
I have an idea…
Jason gave him a sharp look. “That’s a bad idea.”
“That’s what you’re here for, big brother.” He grinned, and gripped his shoulder. “You’ll save me.”
Cody snapped at him, but Kid soaked up the confidence from within. He could direct emotions, and it wasn’t like when he fed off them. He could feed his own back, slow them down, and maybe…just maybe, they could give the witches and shamans the time they needed.
Blue
The Calming of the Dead
The siren’s gift wound around the shambling beings. They halted under the yoke of the song. It wouldn’t hold them for long, but she began to whisper a song to the spirits of the beyond even as Buck concentrated on opening the dreaming and surrounding the corpse army with it. If they pushed forward, they would walk into it.
The idea of those creatures shuffling through the landscape of dreams was the stuff of nightmares. Behind her the witches chanting increased, and smoke rose as they called fire. The smell of white sage flavored the air. She went to her things and pulled out a drum. It was older, one of the only items she had left from her people that hadn’t been sacked when the raiders tore through them all.
Closing her eyes, she began to play. Delilah’s song held them rigid, and her drums would send them home. The spirits had to obey, even the weak ones filling out the limbs of the rotting.
“It’s working,” Jimmy said, his voice hushed. Blue began to dance, beating the drum in steady cadence. At some point, the witches chant joined her, following the pounding of the drum. The double beat—her heart and Jimmy’s. Delilah’s song changed, taking the cue from the music.
Fire crackled.
Water bubbled.
Air blew.
And the earth began to shake…
It was as though every battle fought had led to this moment. They were unwinding the leavening of time, reducing it to the place it should have been. Overhead, the great eagle cried and Blue tipped her head back. The vision came at once, even as she beat the drums.
She saw their graves, the places where these poor souls had dragged themselves from the earth. They’d fought and clawed their way up. White. European. Native. Foreign. They came from all nationalities. It twisted Blue’s gut.
The one called MacPherson used his blood. Quinn had been right.
“Io! Dyo! Hey!” The witch’s chanting reached a crescendo and the graves collapsed. Dirt rushed back into them and, beyond on the field, the corpses began to scatter, decomposing so swiftly as the blood-fueled magic leached from them. Their collapse of the whole column was like a relief of a blight on the earth.
Only then did she see the true danger. “Jimmy,” she called to her husband. But it would be too late. The rest of their tribe was walking into an ambush.
Gunshots filled the air with black powder and death.
Jason
Man of War
The control of a living mind required concentration and effort. Kid could slow them, inflict upon them doubt, and fear—but Jason could order them to stop in their tracks. He could tell their minds to stop their hearts. To do that, he had to crawl inside their minds and, if the blood of MacPherson poisoned them, he could very well open himself to a trap.
Instead, he focused on shielding his brother. Within that grouping might be others like them, and Kid stood wide open as he poured his heart and soul into leaching away their fury and filling them with angst. It was a brilliant plan in its simplicity. Their hate made them miserable, and it also fueled their anger. He simply took away the one that buoyed them.
Extending his hand, Jason concentrated on the cold. He and Scarlett had practiced as they rode. She reveled in the fire, let it billow through her and, with his mind on Kid’s, shielding it, he unleashed the cold in his veins. The water at the edge of the Lake arced upward like a rising fist.
Scarlett.
A streak of fire cut across the emptiness and the fireball shattered the ice. It rained shards down on the front-runners and they scrambled to avoid the icy blades. A large man collided with another and they began to pound fists into each other. Turning ally upon ally, until a full-on brawl erupted. Fire spilled from the grouping, then lightning, and more ice. A snarl from a cat was the only warning before one leapt out toward Scarlett.
Jason pivoted, gun raised, but he never got it aimed before Cody slammed into the cat. The wolf took the feline down and then it was all claws and teeth. The sound was unimaginable horror.
When a second wave rushed them, Scarlett took point and a tidal wave of fire flooded down the hill. The rage in it trapped even those rushing toward them. The screams would haunt Jason for years to come, and Kid buckled even as Jason’s mind rushed around his to shield him.
The empath didn’t need to experience the deaths. Gripping his brother’s arm, he turned him around. “Close them out.” It was an order. Staying too long in the mind of the dying had nearly taken Jason with them. He didn’t know if it was the same for Kid, but he wasn’t losing him.
A gunshot echoed through the air. Pain creased along his arm. Belatedly, Jason stared at the blood blooming on his shoulder. Kid tackled him to the ground. Another shot, then another—soon dozens of guns were firing and Scarlett stood above them all.
“Get down!” Jason yelled. But none of the bullets struck her. The heat turned incandescent, and it was like the flames licked at his face. Reacting, he ordered the air to chill around him. The moisture became solid, and the ice melted nearly as fast as he could form it.
Scarlett wasn’t even human anymore, standing there as the bullets flew at her, exploding before they even reached.
Then Jimmy was walking up, and his rifle barked.
One.
Two.
Three.
With every shot he fired, the pelting of bullets diffused until the last one was fired.
Slowly the fire faded, and Scarlett stood, nude save for the flaming red hair lifting in the breeze. Jimmy stripped off his coat and tossed it to his sister, barely slowing as he continued down the hill. Buck followed him, and Jason pushed to his feet. Grabbing his rifle, he followed.
There was more down there than just the Fevered.
No one could survive this day. They couldn’t leave anyone behind who might start this insane movement again. Scanning the fire ravaged landscape; he pinpointed a mind and lifted his rifle.
The mind extinguished a split second before he fired.
Choking on the stench of burnt remains, Jason forced himself to focus. How much more did they need to do to erase what MacPherson had done?
Scarlett
Firing line
They were dead. All of them. The fire within her spent, she sagged to the ground. The cold air all around her seemed to prick her sensitive flesh. She dragged on Jimmy’s coat, the garment draping her. Rising, she stumbled over to where Cody lay, panting. The cat that had leapt at her was sprawled, throat torn open.
“Are you all right?” she asked him. There were deep gouges along Cody’s flank and blood stained his golden fur.
He lifted his head to look at her, then slurped her face when she leaned to close.
“Ugh,” she grumbled. He was fine. He rolled up to his feet. The steps he took were painful, and the ribboning scratches to his side look hideous, but he nudged her and she put a hand on his scruff. The contact settled her as it always had when she was little.
Her big brother had always been on her side, even when she’d been a brat. Turning, she froze. “Sage…”
Then she was on her feet and running. Sage lay in Shane’s arms. The young man’s face was frozen in a rictus of disbelief. The young woman wasn’t moving, and a bloom of blood covered her chest.
“Sage,” Scarlett said as she slid down next to her. Jenny leaned against her brother, tears rolling down her face. Blue stood over them both, wearing an expression of deep sorrow. Delilah knelt on Shane’s other side, an arm around his shoulders.
Impossible. How? Sage had been…behind her and the sudden rush of power. When the bullets had begun to fly, Scarlett hadn’t even thought she could generate the heat she’d managed, but suddenly her gift doubled, then redoubled until the power nova’d out of her.
Why hadn’t she taken cover?
“I thought I had her shielded,” Shane said, a choking sound in his throat. He cupped her face, but there was no life in her.
Scarlett started to shake.
First Wyatt.
Now Sage.
Pressing the heel of her hand against her mouth, she sobbed.
Below, the guys were still firing their guns.
Their war wasn’t over.
“Have you cleaned the blood?” She looked to the witches, even as she tried to keep her tears in. “Have you done what Quinn said we had to do?”
“Yes,” Jenny nodded. “We’ve severed the ties. It was already polluted somehow, maybe because of something she did. The dead are resting once more, and those, out there.” She waved her hand.
Wind rushed against them. It was colder than the first breeze, and the clouds were rolling in off the lake.
“Get everyone together,” Kid said, his voice as fatigued as she felt. “We don’t have time for our sorrows yet. We’re going to need shelter. And some need tending to their wounds.”
Shane didn’t move, and Scarlett couldn’t blame him.
Sage had been her responsibility, her student—her friend.
No matter what they won this day…they’d also lost.
Cody
Standing for the night
Shifting twice healed the worst of his wounds. Leaving the battlefield, they’d retreated to a cabin Cody scouted on their way in. The horses and the people were tired. Buck suggested taking them through the dreaming and going home. But their work wasn’t finished.
The ladies could go. Scarlett especially needed to go home to her husband. The hollowness in her eyes worried him. Dealing death wasn’t easy on anyone. Jimmy spent time just sitting with Shane, because the loss of young Sage had shattered the man. Blue had taken over the tending of the body with Delilah’s assistance. They would clean her and wrap her. Then they’d need to decide on the form of her burial.
But that was a conversation for later.
Each of them found something to do. Kid all but collapsed once they were in the cabin, and Jason stood watch over him. The witches were also exhausted, but they’d both made an effort to prepare food. It was as though they all needed a task. Outside, Cody found Buck staring into the darkness.
To his ears and nose, nothing out there moved. The storm promised earlier had already begun, a light snowfall. The crisp scent couldn’t quite dispel that of burnt flesh.
“Do you think he’s really gone?” Buck asked after a profound silence.
“Wyatt?” Cody hadn’t thought of it. He’d seen him fall. Seen the way he collapsed, and the remains after Scarlett’s fire had consumed it. By the end of the battle, he hadn’t even been able to find the ash. Too much disruption.
“Yes.” Buck didn’t look at him, his arms were folded and his jaw set.
“I don’t know.” At the moment, he was numb. They all were. “For now, the living come first. At first light, I’ll run a scout.” He’d already made a plan. “If there are any trails to pick up, I’ll find them.”
“Father’s compound,” Delilah said as she glided out onto the porch to join them. Buck adjusted his position immediately to pull his wife close. Though Cody might have envied him the physical contact, he was thankful that Mariska and their children were safe on the ranch. “I’m sorry,” she said with a wet chuckle. “I meant MacPherson’s compound. It can’t be far from here. The Lake, the land, it’s all familiar. If he has any followers or prisoners left, that’s where they’ll be.”
“Ike and Rudy,” Buck said, and Cody blew out a breath. A part of him half-expected to find their younger siblings were already dead. “We have to check.”
“We will,” Cody agreed. “We’ll find whatever there is to find.”
“And Wyatt?” Buck shook his head. “I keep thinking we should do more.”
“This was his plan.” Even a year before, Cody would have been the first to lead the charge, but he’d learned that sometimes they had to trust others to do what they knew was right. “He knew what it might cost…all of us.”
Silence fell over them. Sage’s death had been an unexpected consequence. Why the hell had they brought her, anyway? Then he recalled Scarlett’s intensity, the way she’d glowed like the sun itself.
That was why they’d brought the amplifier. She’d saved Scarlett’s life, and perhaps all of their lives.
“We do what we need to do. We do what we have to,” Cody decided. That was the plan. Only two people had known the full extent of it, and they’d both been in the thick of the fighting. “We do it, then we go home.”
“Goliath is missing,” Buck said. “He vanished after Wyatt went down. I didn’t see him again.”
Cody had no response for that. The horse was like a second skin to his brother. No one else rode him or dealt with him. “Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
With a humorless laugh, Buck shook his head. “I think the whole world knows things we don’t.”
“I’m going to take first watch. You two go get some sleep.” Perhaps it made him cold, but the wolf had to be practical.
“No one should be on their own,” Buck argued, but his dreamwalker brother’s face was lined with fatigue.
A movement in the house told him someone was already up. “I won’t be. Kid’s coming.” The boy was good company, though he was hardly a boy anymore.
With a nod, Buck tugged his wife inside even as Kid stepped out. If Buck had looked tired, Kid looked like he’d been one of the dead shuffling toward them.
Grunting, he took a seat on the step. The snow was still falling, but it wasn’t all that cold. Not like when the wind had buffeted them or the ice had cracked. It was just—snow.
“Jason’s sleeping for a bit.” Kid said, his voice gray with fatigue. “He was giving me a headache, glaring at me.”
Chuckling, Cody leaned on the rail. “He was worried about you.”
“Yeah, I know.” Kid rubbed the back of his head. “Is Scar okay?”
Shrugging, the wolf spread his hands wide. “Scar is Scar. When she gets home to your brother, she’ll likely fall apart for a while. She’s tough when the pressure is on, but it’s when it all passes that she feels it.”
Odd how he’d always known that about her and never really applied it until now.
“Right now, she has to keep it together for Shane, so she will. He’s hurting.”
“Yes, he is.” Kid blew out a breath. “He was falling for her, and she ran him in a circle on the way here. Angry with him for leaving, and now he’s angry for letting her come.”
Which explained why Kid was outside, rather than in. He was tired and feeling everyone. Settling on the step next to him, Cody bumped his shoulder with his. “We’ll take care of them. We’ll take care of all of them.”
Inside, a hint of laughter escaped, and it rode a wave of tears. Then more laughter bubbled up—and to Cody’s surprise, Jason sounded like one of the voices laughing.
“You’re not?” He eyed Kid and the younger man held up his hands.
“Not me. There are two shamans in there, a siren, a firestarter, a telepath, and some witches. I don’t have to do anything. I think it’s Jimmy telling Shane stories, or maybe Shane is telling Sage stories. But it’s—it’s letting some of the pain go.” From Kid as well, based on the way his shoulders sagged.
“Good.” Cody stared into the darkness. None of his senses alerted him to danger. No foreign scents. No unexpected noises.
He wanted to ask Kid about Wyatt, then thought better of it.
He’d rather think of Wyatt as out there somewhere—maybe—than know the strongest man he’d ever met had fallen.
It was impossible.
Gut churning, he swallowed a growl.
“You know anything about the bath house I want to build?” Kid said after a while. “I’m still trying to figure out how to run the water pump and heat the water…”
Latching onto the lifeline, Cody shrugged. “Build near a river?”
Kid laughed. “Helpful.”
But it was something.