Kinked

The wolves attacked.

FOURTEEN

Three wolves rushed Quentin. He braced himself as one leaped for him, and he slashed at it with the sword. His blade passed through the shadow as if it were empty air. Black teeth flashed, and his forearm caught fire as slashes appeared on his skin.

He shouted, “They can bite!”

He shrugged out of his pack and let it fall to the ground. Aryal was cursing. Pressure clamped his left ankle and denim tore. One of the shadows had latched onto his boot. He tried to shake it off, but there was no physical body to dislodge. Narrowly he managed to dodge another two shadows that jumped at him. Goddammit, there were too many of them and they had no bodies for him to hit.

Aryal’s Power surged.

He managed to glance over at the harpy. She had torn off her backpack too and dropped her sword. Two shadows had fastened onto her, one on her arm and the other on her thigh, and the upsurge in her Power blasted them backward. Both wounds were bleeding profusely, and she looked furious. She shouted, “Ever fight a Djinn before? Like that.”

At first her words made no sense to him. These couldn’t be Djinn? He had never actually had occasion to fight a Djinn, although he had met a few in the past. They were creatures of air and fire, beings of pure spirit, and their Power was unmistakable. These felt nothing like Djinn, but …

Aryal whirled and threw out her arm in a roundhouse punch at one of the shadow wolves that lunged at her, her Power concentrated in her arm. Her fist passed through the shadow, but she seemed to knock it off its course. It fell to the ground and crouched low.

Then Quentin understood. These might not be Djinn, but they still appeared to be spirits that could affect the physical world. Power used as an offensive weapon could affect them. He flung out his hand, whispering a repel spell, and it knocked one of his shadow attackers back.

But while it did so, three others leaped at him. He ducked one, repelled another and the third bit deeply into his bicep. It hurt like a son of a bitch. He could feel blood flowing out of the wound.

Fire flared in his right thigh just over the knee. Beyond the shadow that had bitten him, another paced. The ones he had knocked back were gathering too. There were too many of them. He and Aryal were in real trouble —or at least he was. Aryal could take wing and fly out of the fight.

He gathered his Power for the strongest repel spell he could throw. If he could only knock them all back, he might be able to sprint fast enough to get away.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Aryal had shapeshifted into the harpy. Her Power surged again as she kicked two of the shadows back. She shouted, “Get your ass over here if you want a lift. Let’s shoot for the top of a building and regroup.”

He didn’t have time to smile. He blew out the hardest gust of Power he could and knocked back the ones that were closest to him, but there were too many shadow wolves between him and Aryal.

He heard her say, “Never mind, I’ll get you.”

She crouched to spring, just as a new shadow wolf poured out of the alley behind her. It was bigger than all of the others, and moved with more power and speed. As it leaped, Quentin shouted a sharp warning.

He was too late. Huge black teeth fastened high on the carpal joint of one of her wings. Bone snapped, the sound sickeningly audible. Aryal gave a high, wild shriek of anguish and rage. She tried to whirl, to shake the shadow off of her, but it held on. Blood fountained as it ripped through her flesh. Two more shadows attacked, one tearing at her heel and the other ripping through her thigh muscle. She staggered and collapsed.

Quentin roared and lunged, flinging a repel spell at the shadow wolf that was still latched onto her wing. It tumbled away, even as she rolled over onto her hands and knees. Head lowered, she tried to get to her feet, while her savaged wing lay in an awkward sprawl. She couldn’t get her injured leg to support her weight.

Shadow wolves poured into the space between them before he could reach her, too many for him to knock away. Fiery pain exploded in one of his calves as a wolf sank its teeth into him. He twisted to fling a repel spell at it.

By the time he had turned around, shadow wolves had torn Aryal’s other wing, and the largest one held her pinned with its teeth at the back of her neck.

A woman wearing jeans and a tank top walked out of the alley. She was human, of average height, rounded at breasts and hips, and she looked to be perhaps in her late thirties, with dark hair and eyes, and a Slavic face with high cheekbones.

She also carried more Power than Quentin had ever felt before in a human, and more than most of any of the magic users he had met of the other Elder Races.

She gestured with one hand. All the shadow wolves halted their attack, except the largest one that kept his hold on Aryal’s neck.

The woman said in accented English, “Now is a good time for you to surrender.”

They were outnumbered, and he knew he was outclassed magically, but Quentin still gathered up his Power. He couldn’t throw a repel spell at the shadow wolf that held Aryal pinned, or its teeth might very well snap her neck. He could sure as fuck throw something offensive at the woman though.

The woman looked at him. “If you cast another spell at me or my wolves, you will kill your partner. Release your Power.”

And there it was, everything he had once thought that he wanted to achieve.

All it would take is one more spell, and Aryal would die by someone else’s hands.

A hot, furious feeling shook through him.

No. NO.

He released his Power. “Tell your creature to let her go.”

“Not yet. I have to make a decision first.” The woman crossed her arms and sighed heavily. “I know who she is. And I can guess who you are. You have presented me with a pretty problem. I do not have anything against the Wyr from America—yet.”

“I know who you are too,” Aryal whispered hoarsely. Her hair hung down over her face, and she had dug her talons into the cracks between the cobblestones. “Galya Andreyev. Only I thought you never left Russia.”

The woman frowned and said, “It is really unfortunate that you have recognized me. Now you have increased my problem, and that is not at all pretty.”

The woman made a throwing motion with her hand, and flung out a dark web filled with stars. Instinct took over and Quentin lunged sideways, attempting desperately to avoid it. But as fast as he was, he couldn’t move fast enough, because the web wasn’t any more physical than the shadow wolves had been. It settled over his head to cover him completely. He tried to throw off the spell, but it sank underneath his skin before he could cast a counter-measure.

He thought he caught a glimpse of a night sky as he tumbled headlong into darkness.

Something dripped.

The sound was making him crazy. He needed to get up to turn off the faucet. He rolled over on the remarkably hard, cold bed, and woke up.

He was alone, and he lay on the floor of a prison cell. No weapons, no backpack.

The cell was dry and very plain, just the ceiling and floor, three stone walls, and a fourth wall made of metal bars that radiated some kind of dull-feeling magic. In one corner of the cell, a shallow hollow in the floor with a hole constituted a primitive latrine. Faint light spilled in from somewhere, throwing deep shadows, but his feline sight did very well in deep shadows and even in full darkness. Instinct told him he had not been unconscious for very long. He thought that the light could be the last of the day’s sunshine.

He looked outside of his cell. He could see two cells across from him. One was empty, and the other one held a long, still length with gray-to-black wings spilled over the floor. Aryal. There was red too, a great deal of it, and he could smell the coppery tint of both her blood and his.