Chapter Twenty-two
The bluetick bayed in the distance, and Duncan set off through the woods, his eyes scanning the broken ground for hidden pitfalls. Fallen branches thrust bony arms from the thick carpet of leaves on the forest floor, and lichen-spotted boulders were scattered about like a game of knucklebones abandoned by giants. Skirting a downed beech, Duncan churned up a hummock, his ears attuned to the hound’s excited barking. Abruptly, the dog fell silent.
Duncan paused, listening. From the southeast, there came a faint, distressed woofing. He followed the sound and found Evan, fully dressed once more in jeans, boots, and the blue shirt, seated on a shelf of rock in a mossy gorge. Dogwood trees, lacy ferns, and a tangle of frothy vines grew along the embankments. Though it was fall, the leaves had yet to turn and the ravine was a cool, green hollow.
Nearby, a rill chuckled noisily over tumbled rocks, but judging from Evan’s morose countenance, he did not enjoy the song. He sat hunched, arms resting on his thighs, his gaze on his feet.
He lifted his head when Duncan came trotting up. “I lost the raft,” he said, his expression surly and out of sorts.
“Raft?”
“Toby’s scent, man,” Evan snapped. “It was in the cave—my nose was full of it. I followed it through that bone yard—what the hell happened back there, anyway? I’ve seen some messed-up shit in my time, but that was majorly janked. Thought I was going to horf. Anyway, I followed it into the woods, but I kept losing it. It was there, faint, but smothered by another scent. Something floral and sweet.” He shook his head. “I’d catch a whiff of Toby and lose it. Then pfft, it was gone.”
“Do not castigate yourself,” Duncan said. “Sugar has Toby. Though he seldom bestirs himself, he can move quite briskly when motivated, and the bloodbath we have witnessed would have overset him mightily. He is a gentle soul.”
“Sugar?”
“The boggy boon. Big hairy man, chuchunya, grass ape. There are sundry names for his kind, too many to recount.” Evan gave him a blank look and Duncan said, “We discussed this with Mac earlier. There is a troop of the creatures hereabout. Sugar was left to die because of his unusual coloring. He is stark white, you see, and obtrusive.”
“You’re telling me a pigment-challenged, lavender-scented bigfoot has Toby?”
“So the shade Meredith Peterson informs me.” Duncan paused, adding with scrupulous honesty, “Though she did not comment on his odor.”
“Meredith’s here?” Evan jerked like he’d been shot with a steel-tipped bolt. “Oh, hell, no.”
“Calm yourself. She has departed,” Duncan said. “And now that we know Sugar has Toby, we can be gone as well.”
Evan got to his feet. “You know I have to ask. How’d you get to be pals with a bigfoot?”
“I happened upon Sugar in the woods some moons past. He was caught in a trap and sorely hurt. I healed his injuries, and we became friends.”
“A demon hunter and his woolly booger. How sweet.” Evan took a step and winced. “Lead the way, but not too fast. I’m tired, and my feet are killing me.”
“Tired? For shame. Modern convenience has made you indolent.”
Evan found this remark so offensive that he vociferated most of the way back to the truck. Duncan let him spew, his mind on Meredith’s revelations. Gryff had the orb and Pratt wanted it. The implications of what he’d learned were enormous. Conall must be informed, and Kehvahn, as well.
They climbed in the truck and Evan cranked the engine. “We need tunes,” he announced, pushing a button as they headed back in the direction they’d come.
A tortured wailing poured into the truck through the output device called “a sound system.”
“Sweet merciful Kehv,” said Duncan.
Evan jabbed the button a second time, and the yowling diminished. “What, you don’t like music?”
“That is not music. That is someone strangling a cat.”
“Very funny. What’s eating you, bro?”
Duncan sighed. “I confess I am in turmoil. You know of the rogue?”
“Grim’s twin? Yeah. What about him?”
“I saw him this morning, and he is much changed. More scarecrow than warrior, a wraith clad in a hollow skin. My mind was filled with misdoubt when I beheld him, and now I wonder . . . could it be that we were wrong, and Gryff is more wretch than villain?”
“I dunno, but if I had a brother, I’d want to find out,” Evan said. “Take it from me, sometimes people don’t have a choice, although Captain Asshat will tell you different.”
“My counsel to you, as a friend? Do not address Conall as Captain Asshat, if e’er you hope to reconcile with your sister.”
“That street runs both ways. Conall should treat me with a little respect.”
“Agreed.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t hold your breath. Conall Dalvahni will cut me some slack when Jesus comes back in a pink dress.”
Duncan mulled over this peculiar remark and finally decided ’twas a reflection of Evan’s sincere doubt that relations with his sister and the captain of the Dalvahni were likely to improve. As he entertained serious misgivings on that score as well, he decided to change the subject. “Know you the direction of the Randall enclave? I should like to ascertain that Mac’s mother and sister are safe.”
“No idea,” Evan said. “Told you, I don’t hang with weres. Ask Cassie. She dated that Zeb fellow.”
“Do not remind me.”
Evan gave him a sideways glance. “You two working things out? You were going at it mighty hot and heavy this morning.”
“In a manner of speaking. Cassandra has consented to be my thrall, and I hers.”
“Say what?”
“We have fixed upon a physical relationship. Sexual congress without the emotional component or lasting commitment.”
“Bed buddies, huh? You okay with that?”
“Not in the slightest, but I shall strive to be content with carnal pleasure.” Duncan’s jaw tightened. “For the present.”
He would find a way to make Cassandra trust him again. He would lay siege to her heart and break down her defenses, no matter how long it took. A Dalvahni warrior was stalwart. A Dalvahni warrior was tireless. A Dalvahni warrior knew not defeat.
For this Dalvahni warrior, there was no choice. Cassandra was his heart’s blood.
Evan shook his head. “Straight-up boning. No demands or complications. Sounds like a mangasm to me. Why mess with a good thing?”
“Is that the sort of arrangement you desire with Taryn?” Turning in the seat, Duncan regarded him. “Coupling and nothing more?”
“Yeah, sure.” Evan lifted his shoulders in a dismissive gesture. “What else is there?”
“A great deal, as it happens. Having indulged in . . . er . . . boning for thousands of years ere I came to Hannah, I prefer Cassandra and complications.”
“Why?” Evan sounded genuinely puzzled.
“I do not know that I can explain,” Duncan said. “Suffice it to say that I was not alive until I met Cassandra, and I have been dead lo these many years without her.”
“That is some seriously nauseating shit, my friend.”
“’Tis but the truth.”
Evan guided the truck off the narrow trail and onto the paved road that led back to Cassandra’s. “So what exactly is a thrall?”
“Sexual creatures designed to sate a warrior’s physical needs. We have congress with them to maintain our detachment and dedication to the hunt, unhampered in battle by emotion.”
“Sex as one of the perks of the job, huh? Nice company benefit.”
“Lest you think we take advantage, the thralls are succubi that feed on emotion. The relationship is beneficial to both species.”
“Oh, yeah? How often do you go in for a lube job?”
Duncan chuckled. “Lube job—a term denoting a common service wherein certain parts of a motorized carriage are lubricated to facilitate the machine’s operation. Your quip, however, refers to the coital act. Amusing.”
“Can’t put anything over on you,” Evan said. “How often?”
“The Great Directive does not prescribe a strict schedule, only that a Dalvahni warrior avail himself of a thrall at regular intervals.”
Evan drove on in silence for several miles, his expression brooding. Something was bothering him, though Duncan could not guess the direction of his thoughts.
“Are there male and female thralls?” Evan asked at length in the tone of one whose curiosity was beyond bearing.
“Naturally.”
“And do the Kir have the same deal? With the thralls, I mean.”
“Of course, though the establishments are kept separate for privacy and due to the somewhat fractious nature of the relationship between the Kir and the Dal.” Duncan stared through the glass at the lush forest of the river basin they were passing through. Hard to believe horror and death had stalked these quiet woods but a few hours past. “Depletion is beneficial to all demon hunters, be they male or female.”
“Shit.” Evan’s hands clenched and unclenched on the wheel. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Duncan turned his gaze from the green blur outside his window. “Something is amiss?”
“Yeah. It makes me crazy to think about—” Evan’s expression closed. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“Complications, my friend?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Scowling, Evan turned the motorized carriage onto the road leading to Cassandra’s abode, and the truck crunched down the long, wooded drive. The house came into view, and Evan slammed on the brakes.
“Holy shit,” he said, gaping. “It’s the Bumble.”
Sugar stood near the back steps that led to Cassandra’s house. In the sunlight, the boggy boon’s shaggy pelt glistened bright as snow. His eyes, wide with terror, were fixed on Grim as the warrior advanced on him, sword drawn. Cassandra knelt on the porch beside a bloodstained gray heap, her face pale and set. Her lips were moving. She was saying something to Grim, but the warrior paid no heed. He was in battle mode, and bent on the kill.
Duncan was out of the truck and across the lawn in a blur of movement. “Hold, Grim,” he said, stepping in front of the quaking bigfoot. “Sugar is harmless, on my oath as a warrior.”
“Sugar?” Grim lowered the sword. “By the gods, Duncan, I am in no mood for your jests.”
“’Tis no jest, I assure you. Sugar is quite tame. More to the point, he is under my protection. Sheath your weapon, I pray you, for I will suffer him no harm.”
Grim snarled a word, and his sword disappeared.
“Dunk?” Sugar warbled from behind Duncan.
Duncan turned to reassure the boggy boon. “Be at ease, my friend. My brother is a trifle grumpish, but Dunk will not let him hurt you.”
“Grumpy?” Sugar’s anxious gaze darted to Grim and back to Duncan. “Owie? Paw?”
Duncan rubbed his jaw to hide his smile. “How perceptive of you. Pain would certainly account for his choler.” He turned to Grim. “Sugar would know an, perchance, you have suffered some injury that has caused your distemper?”
Grim glowered. “Now see here, Duncan—”
Sugar’s baritone trill drowned him out. “Sugar like Dunk,” the boggy boon declared, seizing Duncan in his bearlike arms. “Dunk heal Sugar owie.”
“Yes, yes,” Duncan said, his ribs creaking from this exuberance of affection. “Put Dunk down. There’s a good fellow.”
Sugar dropped him at once. Raising a long, hairy arm, he pointed to the porch, his expressive face wrinkled in consternation. “Sugar bring doggie. Dunk heal doggie’s owie?”
“Dunk shall do his best.”
Sugar’s blue eyes brightened. “Sugar good boy?”
“A very good boy,” Duncan said. “Your mother will be proud.”
“Mama . . . treat?”
“Of a certainty. Hie thee home at once and tell Miss Lucy that Dunk says give Sugar a treat.”
“Dunk says treat.” The boggie boon nodded and grinned, showing large, square teeth. “Sugar good boy.” With that, Sugar loped away.
“By the sword,” said Grim, watching Sugar disappear into the woods. “In truth, the creature is not hostile?”
“Quite gentle,” Duncan assured him. “I misdoubt Sugar would bite his own fleas, an he had them. He was adopted as a cub by a childless human woman. Miss Lucy dotes upon him to excess, and she is most scrupulous about cleanliness.”
Evan sauntered up. “Bathes him regular, huh? Baby shampoo would be my guess, and a shit ton of it. That’s why he smells like a giant lavender fart.”
Grim looked thoughtful. “Now that you mention it, the creature is redolent.”
“Duncan, I need you.” Cassandra’s voice was strained. “It’s Toby. Can you help me get him in the house?”
Duncan, I need you. Ah, sweet merciful Kehv.
Every fiber of Duncan’s being responded to her sweet words, and he was at her side at once.
She looked up at him, her beautiful, expressive eyes filled with anguish. “It’s bad.” Her mouth trembled. “Oh, Duncan, look what they’ve done to him.”
Duncan felt as though a knife had been slipped between his ribs. Her concern and affection for the old shifter were plain, and the knowledge made him burn with jealousy. A fine warrior he was, to be sure, envious of her feelings for a friend.
But I desire her love, too, he thought with a wistful pang. More than anything.
He would not get it. Still, he would accept what she offered and rejoice. To be near her, to be with her, to have her in his arms once more, these were riches he had despaired of obtaining.
Swallowing his bitterness, he knelt beside Cassandra on the porch. Toby was in dog form, a great gray wolfhound, and he was moribund, his rough coat torn in dozens of places by savage bites. He’d lost a great deal of blood, and his deep chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. At Duncan’s gentle touch, he moaned and shuddered in pain.
“Duncan?” Cassandra’s voice shook with unspoken questions.
Duncan finished his examination and settled back on his heels. “In truth, he has suffered grievous hurt.”
Evan edged closer to the porch. “Will he be a werewolf? I mean, now he’s been bitten?”
“I know not,” Duncan said. “Cassandra?”
She shook her head. “No. Randalls are born weres, not cursed. That kind of lycanthropy isn’t contagious any more than the kith are infectious to norms.” Her breath caught on a sob. “But werewolf bites can turn septic, a-and Toby has s-so many.”
She covered her face with her hands and burst into tears. The sound shattered Duncan and his jealousy and heartache were swept aside by the urgent need to comfort her. He pulled her into his arms. She was trembling violently, and he willed his strength into her shaking form. “Easy, my sweet,” he murmured. “You must be strong for Toby.”
“You’re right.” Cassandra swiped her eyes. “Verbena’s upstairs getting a room ready for him. Let’s take him inside.”
Shaking off her distress, she slipped from his grasp and into the house. Duncan let his empty arms drop and watched her go.
Behind him, Evan whistled. “You poor, dumb son of a bitch. You got it bad.”
“This, I already know.” Duncan turned to Grim. “My thanks for safeguarding Cassandra in my absence. Howe’er, I would ask another boon.”
“You know you have but to ask.”
Duncan inclined his head. “Be so good as to inform Conall that I have tidings of the orb. Ask him to inform Arta as well. Tell the captain I will report to him anon, but first, I must do what I can for Toby.”
Grim turned to leave. “It will be done.”
“And Grim, you will wish to be at the meeting. I have news of Gryff.”
Grim’s big body went rigid. “I will deliver the message and return for your tidings.” Without another word, he disappeared.
“Guess I’ll head home,” said Evan. “Got a business to run. Let me know if I can do anything.”
“My thanks for your good offices today,” Duncan said. “Give my regards to the Vikings in your larder.”
“What?” Evan made a face. “Never mind. I don’t wanna know.” Strolling to his truck, he climbed in and drove away.
Duncan lifted his hands, and the dog rose into the air. He guided the mortally injured shifter into the house and up the stairs to the landing, where Cassandra waited, her face pale and tense with worry.
“This way,” she said, hastening down the hall ahead of him.
Duncan floated the dog into the bedchamber and looked around. Cassandra and Verbena stood near a big four-poster bed that had been stripped and covered in a clean white sheet. The room was neat and simply furnished. A small table with a lamp sat next to the bed, and a comfortable chair and footstool had been placed by the window for reading. A squat chest the locals called a “dresser” sat near the door, with an oval mirror above it.
Duncan carefully lowered the dog onto the bed. “Have you goldenseal, calendula, and St. John’s wort among your stores?” he asked Cassandra.
“I think so, but aren’t we going to use magic to heal him?” Her voice was thick with tears, and her face was pinched with the effort not to cry. “T-the three of us, I mean.”
“Of a certainty,” Duncan assured her, “but I have no experience with werewolf bites, and Toby’s are many and putrid. I would be prepared in the event our combined magics are not enough.”
In truth, Duncan doubted the shifter could be saved, but he kept this thought to himself. He had no wish to add to Cassandra’s distress.
“Of course.” Her stricken gaze was on Toby’s battered and bloody form. “I’ll get whatever you need.”
“Bring hot water also, and clean bandages,” said Duncan. “And yarrow, if you have any, to fight the fever.”
Cassandra’s lips moved as though she were committing the list to memory. She hurried from the room. Verbena gave the bloody form on the bed a wide-eyed glance and darted after her, leaving Duncan alone with the suffering animal.
Much troubled, Duncan moved to the bed and began a second, more thorough examination of his patient. He had failed Cassandra once, when the children had died. He would not fail her again, an he could help it.
He was making mental notes of the sundry lacerations on the wolfhound’s body when the dog began to convulse, back legs pattering against the sheet as violent spasms racked his body. “No,” Duncan said with a muttered curse. “You must not die. You cannot.”
Raising his hands over the dying animal, he opened his senses. His palms glowed, and green light coursed from him, engulfing the convulsing dog. To Duncan’s relief, the dog’s spasms immediately eased, then ceased altogether.
A good beginning, Duncan thought, but not enough.
Concentrating on the dog’s terrible wounds, he bathed the stricken animal with wave after wave of healing light. The radiance grew and spread. Slowly, painfully, the torn flesh stopped oozing and began to mend. Fur sprouted and grew. Ragged gashes closed, grew red and then pink, and faded. But the dog’s breathing was still rough and labored. The poor creature had suffered severe trauma, blood loss, and shock, and his strength was spent.
Desperate to spare Cassandra further pain, Duncan focused all his will on restoring Toby to full and complete health.
Heal, he commanded, sweat running down his face and back at the effort. Better, stronger. Hale and hearty. Gritting his teeth, he added another push. You will be whole, a new man. For Cassandra.
He bore down, pouring everything he had into the effort. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light, and Duncan was thrown across the room and slammed against the wall.
Footsteps thundered on the stairs, and Cassandra rushed back into the room. “Duncan?” she cried, spying him sprawled on the floor. She dropped the basket in her hands with a crash, and jars and bandages rolled across the floor. “Are you all right?”
She was bending over him when Verbena came hurtling into the chamber, breathless. “Mr. D? You done fell out, too?”
“Nay, I am unhurt.” Duncan got to his feet. “Naught but my dignity has suffered.”
“What happened?” a deep, masculine voice demanded from the other side of the room. “I feel like I been stepped on and squished.”
The three of them turned to look at the bed, and Duncan’s jaw dropped. Toby lay on the bed, clad in jeans and nothing else. His body was unmarred by injury or hurt, and he was . . .
No, it could not be. Astounded, Duncan stared at the shifter. This went beyond mere healing. This entered the realm of blatant, unadulterated meddling.
“Toby?” Cassandra and Verbena squeaked in unison, echoing Duncan’s astonishment.
“It’s my name, don’t break it.” Pushing himself to a sitting position against the headboard, Toby glowered at them. “What’s gotten into you people?”
“It’s . . . um . . . it’s just that—” Cassandra gulped and faltered, speechless.
Toby scowled. “Dagnabbit, somebody answer me. Why’s everybody looking at me like I got three heads?”
“You were grievously wounded,” Duncan said, collecting himself. “Steps had to be taken, else you would have died.”
“Steps? What kind of steps?” Toby narrowed his eyes at Cassandra. “Out with it. What’s going on?”
“Don’t ask me, ask Duncan,” Cassandra said with a helpless gesture. “He did this.”
Duncan gave her a look of reproach. “Your loyalty unmans me, my sweet.”
“Well, you did,” said Cassandra, flushing.
“Did what?” Toby’s voice rose in frustration. “What in the Sam Hill’s going on?”
Duncan cleared his throat and indicated the mirror on the wall. “Methinks ’twould be better an you see for yourself.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” Toby gave him a black look. Rolling off the bed, he reeled like a drunken sailor to the mirror on the wall. For a long moment, he stared at his reflection, his throat working. He held out his hands, examining the smooth, unblemished skin. Jerking his stunned gaze back to the mirror, he regarded the dark-haired, firmly muscled young man in the glass.
“Lord love a duck,” Toby said, finding his voice at last. “What in tarnation have you done?”