Especially if Fiona was involved. He stumbled across the grass and yanked his sister's head back by her sweat-soaked hair, knocking the baby to the grass. Then he had his knife at her throat, shaking, his muscles replaced by Power and will.
She glared up at him, rage and cunning on her face. "If you kill me, the baby dragons die."
That froze his hand. She squirmed away from the sagging blade, eyes frantic and hunting for the baby, screaming as she saw the fox take it gently by one leg and drag it away across the grass.
Maureen shook her head and slumped, squatting back on her haunches. She looked drained. "You . . . dumb . . . shit!"
{One trusts that the dog is showing care.} That seemed to be the leopard.
{Call me a dog again and I'll nip your tomcat balls off while you're sleeping.}
"Cut the crap, you guys." Maureen shook her head again, as if flies devilled her. Her face looked pale and hollow, much like he felt, exhausted by fierce magic. She glanced from the cat to the fox. The baby now squirmed feebly on the grass, between the vixen's legs, nosing around for milk.
Then a twist of her head and eyes motioned Brian's knife away from his sister's throat. Maureen's hand flashed out and slapped Fiona hard like a cracking whip.
Brian stared from his sister's flaming cheek to Maureen rubbing her hand. The redhead blew on her palm, cooling the smart of it. "You really are a stupid bitch. I ought to let Shadow eat you."
{Is it fit to eat? It smells like carrion. One prefers one's meat fresh and clean. Feed it to the dog.}
{Dog . . .}
"Can it, okay?" Maureen wiggled her fingers and spoke to them. "I could get used to this sadist bit. Sometimes giving pain is fun." Her eyes focused back on Fiona. "Other people just don't matter to you, do they? Even your own baby? A true antisocial personality, clinical case. What they used to call a psychopath. Brian tried to warn me, but I didn't take him seriously."
Fiona sneered. "Don't bother with the diagnosis, love. You're no holy gems yourselves, a drunken killer matched to a dumb thug with the smell of death blood on him. How'd you sober up so fast? Must be a useful spell, living the way you do."
Maureen just shook her head again, apparently amused. "That's where the fucking stupid part comes in, love. Your spies weren't watching me. That was Jo. You were so focused on your hate, you forgot that there are two of us. All your plots and plans, and your big boogeyman isn't even fucking home when you attack. And you weren't fighting either of us. You were fighting the forest. It doesn't like you."
{The forest is not alone in that.}
The mental speech boomed, deep and resonant like a cave given voice. Brian turned and reflex moved him back two steps as a bloody huge dragon limped into the clearing, favoring one forepaw. But it glared at Fiona, not him, and David walked unscathed by its side. Brian willed his shoulders to relax.
{But the dark one did not lie. Not this time. It has bound the hatchlings to its own life, and I would ask you to spare it long enough to break the binding.}
"Kill me, kill the hatchlings." Fiona's eyes turned sly and dangerous. "Safe passage to go home, and I'll release them."
Fiona and Dierdre, sisters under the skin. Always another plot beneath the one you're seeing, and another still beneath the second. Brian stared at a column of smoke rising beyond the trees, beyond David and the dragon. He measured the angle of the sun and turned it into a compass. "I don't think you'll be going home again, dear sister. Not this time."
She twisted to see what he was seeing, paled, and slumped back on the grass. "Gone. My home, my work . . ." She shook her head, biting back other words. Brian wondered just what they'd destroyed.
But she rallied. Fiona always rallied. "Safe passage, or I kill the little dragons."
Maureen had picked up the baby and cradled it against her chest. The child stirred weakly and seemed tiny, arms and legs thin even for a newborn. Understanding flashed through Brian's head -- that was his child, Fiona's child, rushed to birth as a weapon. He wondered if it could live.
Black rage swallowed those thoughts. For an instant, he could understand Merlin and the Pendragons. Something like Fiona almost justified Dierdre.
Almost.
His rage cleared, and Maureen was speaking. Blood stained her fingers and her lips, Fiona's blood from the birthing, source of a Power that sent shivers down his back.
". . . and you'll never bear another child. May your womb and ovaries shrivel into wood and your womanhood pass from you with the afterbirth. May food and drink taste of ashes in your mouth. May the sun refuse to warm you and the dark deny you rest and the waters never cleanse you of your guilt." Maureen paused and an evil smile crossed her face. "And may all your clothing fit you like a camel draped in a shit-stained ragged tent woven from goat hair."
Ouch. That last one was nasty! Brian grinned in spite of himself. Then he dropped to his knees as the world turned fuzzy.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
{Walk to the sun.}
Jo went where the voices told her. First the cats, then the deep green fragrant grass and rough ledge outcrops under her feet, then the ancient trees gray-bearded with moss -- they whispered in her ears and told her where she was needed. This land lived and thought. It understood her, understood what she could do that needed doing.
She just hoped she had enough strength left for it. Right now, she was having a hard time walking straight.
She'd never been needed before, not in any sense of life-or-death. It felt . . . strange, deeper and more powerful and sustained than sex.
That was
