The Thing About Weres

Somewhat peevishly, he said, “Your brother will find healing there.”

I gazed at the passage to Merenwyn for a moment, faint hope stirring despite my massive misgivings. Was there really a dead end that didn’t lead to purgatory? One with a little cabinet fixed to that wall—inside that a small bottle of magic with a DRINK ME label? One sprint through the portal and he’ll be healed?

“Not a sprint. It will take many days,” said the mage. “He must remain there until such time as the demon is exorcised from his body and soul.”

Days in that windy chute? Listening to those voices calling from the walls? Being buffeted by those winds? Did I have the courage? The stamina?

He’ll be healed.

“You cannot lead him through the passages,” he said, studying Lexi’s cyreath.

“I beg your pardon?”

He turned to fix me with a penetrating gaze. “The addiction has woven itself around him so deeply that it has become a living fiend inside him which knows only that it wants to live. It knows you well, and will use every wile against you, playing on your fears and weaknesses.” The Old Mage’s eyes were hazel. Neither blue nor green. “Your brother’s demon must not recognize the hand that wields the sword, else he will anticipate each feint and thrust. He must be attacked not from the outside, but from within.”

From within?

A chill ran down my spine as comprehension rolled over me.

“You don’t want my body anymore—you want Lexi’s,” I whispered, appalled. “You want to be inside his mind, not mine. Controlling his every move. Telling him where to go, what to say. Using his lips to form your words. Giving his body commands that he must perform. Sit. Stand. Eat. Talk. Shit.”

A quick death would be better than that.

“It’s too late,” I told him. “You’ve chosen your nalera.”

“Nay,” said Mad-one, moving toward the tall grass. “You share one root. It will suffice.”

“One root but two trees!” I said. “Two!”

The Old Mage spread his hands, clearly perplexed by all the fuss. “Your brother’s skills and physical strengths are far better suited for the task ahead.”

I got a mental flash of Lexi creeping into that room with its arched window, and bottle-lined shelves, and a lectern on which sat one big, fat leather-bound book.

He’d be blamed for its destruction, unless—

“You ripe bastard,” I hissed. “You’ve figured out how to have your cake and eat it, too, haven’t you? You’ll use Lexi to destroy your damn book, but when all is said and done, you’ll stay in my brother’s body and become the fourth mage to the Court.”

I gazed at him, noting the softened jawline, the drooping eyelids and fatty pouches beneath them. “No one is going to recognize you for the old wizard they condemned to the Sleep of Forever, are they? How could they? You’ll look and sound like Lexi. Goddess, the Black Mage will never see you coming.”

“I need the use of your brother for naught but two days.” Two blotches of outraged virtue rouged his cheeks. “I seek only to stop that which—”

“Save it,” I said. “I’ve lived with a Fae. I know all about lies of omission.”

Outraged virtue dissolved into simple outrage.

Here comes the pain, I thought, steeling myself.

But before his hot knife dug into my brain again, Mad-one dropped a bomb. “A cyreath can be parted from a nalera’s,” she said. “There is a very narrow window of opportunity—a few days, no more—but one does exist.”

“You forget Simeon,” the Old Mage threatened—his tone low and mean.

“I have never forgotten Simeon,” she said fiercely. “But on this day you have lost your body in Merenwyn. You cannot rise from your Sleep Before Death. He is finally safe.”

The mage made a quick flat sideways chop with his gnarled hand.

I saw no magic. But Mad-one suddenly gasped and pressed two knuckles against her left temple.

A small miscalculation on his part.

Whatever pain he’d sent her way was inferior to the venom that she’d kept hidden in her heart. Face twisted in pain, she said in a reckless rush, “Make him prostrate himself on his knees. Force him to pledge to his Maker that before the waning of the next full moon, his cyreath will be torn free from your brother’s.”

“Cease with your treason!” he shouted.

“There is no treason in this!” she screamed back.

He stabbed her again. Not with a real knife but with the hot blade of his anger. She buckled over with a keening cry, both palms pressed hard to either temple. Grass swayed and snatched at her trailing hem.

“Our mage has deep fears over the quality of his life beyond this one,” she said between ragged gasps of agony. “He will not break a sacred vow to his Maker, not if he is forced to mouth the words. That is but one of my mage’s weaknesses—he believes that his Maker still listens.”

“You dare!” he shouted, rising to his feet, his hand lifted like he had a spear and a clear shot at a target.

“Kill me, master, if you dare!” she shrieked. “But forget not who will place your cyreath in the boughs of his citadel!”

He stilled—no, the old guy froze.

“You need me,” she said hoarsely. “You need me.”

The wizard gazed at her for another beat. Then he lowered his invisible spear and stiffly walked back to his chair. To my amazement, he sat. Crossed his legs and strove for cultivated calm. But he watched her from beneath brows set in a winged flare of repressed fury, with his fingers steepled and his toe tapping like an angry cat’s tail.

A thin ribbon of bright blood snaked down from her ear. She painfully righted herself and used the edge of her embellished sleeve to wipe her neck. With a slanted glance toward the angry wizard, she said, “I bid you, Hedi of Creemore, to perceive the opportunity if you have the wit to seize it.”

Always with the compliments. “Go on.”

Gold and green lights played over her taut face. “Our mage will not allow his cyreath to be melded to your brother’s before all battle risks are reduced. There could no site more suited to our mage’s strengths than one of his portals—that is where the war will begin. Their very walls are permeated with his magic. Therein lies the fulcrum to your opportunity. Use it well, mystwalker. For you will never have another chance to negotiate with our mage.”

“You lost me at fulcrum,” I said flatly.

She sank to terra firm a, then shoved her hair back over her shoulder with more impatience than finesse. “The magic heals. The moment your brother steps through the gates, he will regain strength. And that is our mage’s conundrum—he needs your brother to be weak and the timing perfect for his attack—

“Attack?” I repeated, my voice raw. “How badly will this hurt Lexi?”

“Would knowing the answer change your decision? If so, we are doomed, for only the brave and the quick will survive this test. Think beyond the moment, mystwalker.”

Think beyond the moment? Just how well did that bitch know me? She expected me to deduce his plan? Sniff out the old bastard’s motives? Figure out the side exit to all this disaster? Good luck. My head hurt—threats hovered over me like a cloud of hungry gnats.

“Do you not see your opportunity?” she demanded.

“No. I don’t!” I shouted in frustration.

“Your brother must pose no threat of resistance—thus he must be within the very moment of his death—and the melding of their cyreaths must take place before Lexi crosses the gates. Someone with a vested interest in the outcome of this day—someone from your world—needs be ready to place his near lifeless body through the gates.”

And then, indeed, I saw beyond the moment.