Reckoning

Have I been . . . out?”

“Hours,” he whispered. “I was scared.” Half-defiant, his lower lip pooching a little. There was some grit in Dibs, even if he was sub. He certainly didn’t take any crap when it was time to bandage someone up.

“Me too, kid.” I tried to move, got pretty much nowhere. But I felt a little sharper now. The aspect’s warmth was gone; I never thought I’d miss it. It was freezing in here. The cold crept into my fingers and toes in a way that should have alarmed me. “Dibs. My hand. Left hand.”

“What?” As usual, once he got something to do, he calmed right down. The stutter eased up and the frantic jittering in his muscles settled into an occasional twitch. “Oh, yeah. Blisters and stuff. I b-bandaged it. Looked pretty rough, and not healing r-right. What is it?”

I don’t know. A hex so bad it burned me, but it’s turning out to be useful. I didn’t have the energy to explain. “Poke it.”

“What?” He stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Poke it. Squeeze it.” Give it a beat and dance to it, just make it hurt. I brought my attention back with a start. “Make it hurt.”

“But—” He set the water glass down. “Dru.”

“Make. It. Hurt.” I didn’t have any patience left, either. “Please.”

“Okay.” He leaned over me, grabbed my left hand, and squeezed with more than human strength.

A lightning bolt went up my arm, detonated in my shoulder. I yelped, Dibs yelped too and dropped my hand. He was all the way across the room before you could shout Dixie, pressed up against the dark, weeping stone wall. For just a moment the Other shone out through his wide fearful eyes, a flash of orange snarling, and fur rippled under his skin, not quite breaking free.

Even if he was shy and frightened, Dibs was still wulfen. He could kick some serious ass if he was motivated.

The trouble, I guess, was getting him motivated enough to forget he was scared.

The jolt of pain cleared my head. It also made the touch ring like a bell, expanding for a brief second before I dropped back into my tired aching body with a click, the exact same sound as Dad chambering a round.

Okay. I propped myself shakily on my elbows. Random curls fell in my face, and I tasted copper. My mouth was dry and aching. My teeth weren’t sensitive at all. Well, that was a relief—but there was none of the aspect, and the world looked dull. It could’ve been just the dim pinkish light.

Or maybe I was just seeing with normal eyes now.

If I was, how did people live like this? With shutters over their eyes and cotton wool in their ears? It was worse than being blind.

My arms gave out. I sank back down into the bed. It was chokingsoft, and my nose tickled from the dust. But I felt clear. Like I was made of glass, drained and wiped clean. At least I could think now.

I licked my lips, wished I hadn’t. My dry tongue rasped, and the bloodhunger at the back of my throat was a slow creeping burn. “Door. Locked?”

Dibs eased away from the wall. “Nothing to pick it with, either. I checked. I thought if I c-could g-get you o-out—”

“Calm down, Dibs.” I appreciate the thought. Really, I do. I focused on breathing. In, out, in, out. “Okay. Anything in here that can serve as a weapon? Is the bed breakable?”

“Wood. Not hawthorn. I could break it up, maybe make stakes, but they’ll just laugh at us before they take off our heads like Pez dispensers.” He swallowed hard, his chin lifting. His curls fell back, and for a moment I got a flash of what he’d look like if he ever got older, instead of being teenage all the time.

Pez dispensers? You’re gruesome. That’s good. “Good point. Can I have some more water?”

I didn’t really need it. I just wanted to give him something to do while I poked at the beehive inside my head and figured out something amazing that would get us out of this.

Unfortunately my beehive wasn’t producing much beyond a steady whispered oh my God we’re all gonna die and prolly me first, hooray and oh shit.

He was halfway across the room before he stopped, his head cocking. I strained my ears, heard nothing but my own pulse. “What is it?” I whispered. “Sucker?”

“N-no.” Dibs flushed, and his eyes turned orange. He half-turned and crouched, fluidly, his splayed hands gently touching the stone floor. He didn’t quite change, but the Other rippled under his skin and bulked his shoulders, and he exhaled, a growl thrumming out of his narrow chest before he went still and completely quiet, waiting.

Well, great. Then what the hell is it? I tried pitching from side to side, but my body wouldn’t obey me. A twitch or two was all I could manage. Dust puffed up from the velvet coverlet, and the urge to sneeze tickled me all the way down to my toes.

Great. Just great. I managed to hitch one hip up. I could think and I could send the signals, but they weren’t getting through to my arms and legs. It was like swimming in glue. I couldn’t hear a damn thing, and the touch was dead. It might as well have been dumb meat inside my skull, for all the good it did me. Even squeezing my left hand into a fist, concentrating like hell to make my fingers draw up clumsily, didn’t help. The pain just slid up my arm like swamp water, losing its insistent edge.

The door scraped. A key, turning in a rusty lock. How old was this room? Did I even want to know? The heavy bed and the lamp reminded me of the Schola Prima, and I suddenly wished I’d never left. Everything I did just made a bigger mess, and now things were as bad as they could get.

I winced inwardly. You’re never supposed to even think that. Because it’s just an invitation for the world, Real or otherwise, to throw something even more incredibly fucked up at you.

The door squealed as it was pushed open. Dibs settled, bracing himself like a cat who sees the mouse but isn’t quite ready to spring.

Graves slipped through. I let out a blurt of sound, his eyes a green flash in the dimness, but it was too late.

Dibs leapt.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

They tumbled out into the hall. Normally wulfen growl when they fight, but Dibs was dead silent—and deadly serious. If you’ve never seen a for-real wulfen brawl, rather than just them playing around or shoving for dominance . . . well, it’s something. It’s a blur of motion, the Other surfacing in both of them, fur and muscle rippling. They move like they’re shouldering through tall grass most of the time, compared to a djamphir’s quick graceful slink, but the rolling fluid hurtfulness of a serious fight among them is another grace entirely.

A grace that burns.

Thuds. A whimper. A scraping, claws against stone.

“I’m trying to help.” Graves, harshly, a loup-garou’s mental dominance pressing down behind the words. “God damn you, Dibs, I’m trying to help!”

It didn’t sound like Dibs believed him. More scraping, and a low sullen growl that rattled everything in the room.

“If you don’t shut up they’ll come!” Half-frantic, now. “It’s day, it’s day and they’re mostly asleep; shut the fuck up!”