As an experiment, I stepped back to the treeline-keeping an eye out for Amon’s next attack, of course. I didn’t seem to have any trouble getting there. I even reached out and touched the trunk of an elm. I looked back and saw Devona standing several feet away.
“Start walking.”
She did, and it was the oddest thing. On one hand, she appeared to be walking away from me, but on the other, she seemed to stay in place. It was as two different films were being played at once on the same screen.
“Keep walking, but look back over your shoulder,” I called. “And tell me what you see.”
“All right.” A pause. “This is strange; I appear to be moving away from you, but at the same time you seem to be almost right next to me.”
“Okay, stop walking.”
My vision lurched, and I experienced a dizzying moment of vertigo that might very well have nauseated me if I still had a working stomach. The far-off image of Devona was gone, and only the close-up Devona remained.
I returned to her side. “Well, that didn’t help any.” I scanned the sky and ground for any sign of Amon, but there was none. Maybe he had to recover, build up his strength again from having been shot twice. Or maybe he was just enjoying our confusion over the nature of his glen.
“No, it helped a great deal,” she said. “The effect we experienced is similar to that of certain wardspells which operate by making someone believe he is walking toward the object warded, when in reality he cannot approach it.”
“So how do we break the spell?”
“I said this spell is similar; I didn’t say it was the same. We’re talking about a spell laid by a Darklord. Even if I had the mystical ability to circumvent the normal version of this spell-and remember, my father made certain I was trained only in the monitoring of wardspells, not the laying or breaking of them-I couldn’t begin to touch the enchantment on this glen.”
“Just because Amon cast this spell doesn’t mean it can’t be broken. The Darklords can’t afford to waste much power on such trifles as this, can they? They have the Renewal Ceremony to think about, let alone trying to defend themselves from each other. Maybe you didn’t receive any formal training in getting around wardspells, but that doesn’t mean you can’t extrapolate from what you did learn. And if a person knows how a lock works, he stands a good chance of picking it.”
“But I’m not a magicworker,” Devona protested. “I’m a curator, and I suppose really little more than a glorified security guard.”
I sighed. “Look, I’d like to do this gently, but we don’t have time. What you are, Devona, is a half-breed vampire who gets her entire sense of sense of self-worth from basically dusting another man’s treasures. Because of the way you were brought up and the attitude of other vampires toward your mixed heritage, you feel that being the keeper of your father’s Collection is all you can do, that there isn’t any more to you.
“But in the short time I’ve known you, I’ve seen much more. I’ve seen a woman who when faced with danger doesn’t run, doesn’t back away-she fights. I’ve seen a woman who when faced with a problem doesn’t give up-she keeps working at it until she finds a solution. I’ve seen a woman who’s intelligent and caring…and,” I said softly, “who sees the man inside me, the man I thought had died along with his body. I’ve seen a woman who, having ventured beyond her tightly circumscribed life, is starting to find out who she really is and what she’s truly capable of. Well, it’s time to find out some more, Devona. It’s time to find us a way out of here.”
I didn’t know how she’d react: tell me to go to hell, start crying, or haul off and belt me. Maybe all three. But she just looked at me for a long moment, her expression blank, eyes unreadable in the dark. And then she nodded.
“Let’s start walking again. I need to examine the spell while it’s functioning.” She headed off without waiting for my reply.
I smiled as I hurried after her. Wholly human or not, she was some woman.
While we walked and walked and got nowhere, Amon came at us again, this time in the more classic form of a large gray wolf. He managed to take a hunk out of my right leg before I dispatched him, or rather, his shape.
Two bullets left.
“I have an idea,” Devona said not long after Amon’s wolf facade had disintegrated. “I’m not sure it’ll work, though.”
“I’m rapidly running out of ammunition. Anything’s worth a try at this point.”
“I don’t have the mystical training to break the spell, but I do think I understand how it’s constructed. It’s really very simple, a mere matter of aligning psychothaumaturgic energy structures in a constantly rotating-”
“In simple English, please, for the magically challenged among us.”
She grinned. “Sorry. Basically, the spell works by constantly assaulting our minds with false sensory input. The trick to overcoming such a spell is to block out the false input so that our senses can detect reality once more.”
“Sounds like quite a trick.”
“It is. But I think I know how we might accomplish it. Remember I said that as half Bloodborn I possess a certain amount of psychic ability? While I haven’t been trained in its use, I believe I may be able to sense in which direction the Sprawl lies by focusing on the combined mental energy of all the celebrants there. Ordinarily, I might not be able to accomplish such a feat, but this time of year there are so many people crowding the streets of the Sprawl and the emotional atmosphere is so charged, that even with my untutored powers I should be able to get a fix on it. And once I know where the Sprawl is-”
“You’ll be able to shut out the glen’s spell and lead us across,” I finished. Earlier, I’d been wishing for a compass. Now it looked like Devona had found us a psychic equivalent.
“There’s a problem, though,” she said.
I smiled. “Only one?”
“You’ll still be affected by the spell.”
“Why is that a problem? You can guide me.”
“And if Amon attacks and we become separated?”
“You can use your powers to locate me.”
“I don’t know if I can maintain my fix on the Sprawl and locate you at the same time. And even if I could, Amon might take the opportunity to finish one or both of us off while I’m looking for you.” She shook her head. “No, it would be better if we both were able to home in on the Sprawl.”
“That would be nice, but I’m afraid a set of psychic powers wasn’t included in my zombie membership kit.”
“You don’t need powers of your own; we can link minds. That way you’ll be able to sense what I sense.”
“Link minds?” I tried to imagine what it would be like to have my mind joined with someone else’s, but I couldn’t. The closest I could come to was some sort of psychic equivalent to a phone connection, and somehow I doubted it would be like that.
Devona must have sensed my reluctance because she hurried to add, “I really believe it’s the only way.”
It wasn’t like we had a lot of options to choose from. “Have you ever linked with anyone before?”
She looked down at the ground, and when she answered, she sounded embarrassed. “I’ve had a few Shadows of my own over the years. And I’ve linked with some of them.”
She said Shadows but the word I heard was lovers. I don’t know why it bothered me-we were both adults, and Devona was older than I, in her seventies chronologically. And for that matter, I was a zombie. I had no business being jealous-but I was.
“Will it work on me?” I asked. “However my brain functions, I’m sure it’s not the same as a living man’s.”
“I don’t know, Matt. We’ll just have to try.”
I didn’t like the idea of anyone invading my mind, no matter who it was. But it didn’t look like I had a choice. “Okay. But we’d better hurry before Amon attacks again.”
Without another word, Devona reached out with both hands and placed her fingers lightly on the sides of my head. I wondered what her touch felt like.
Nothing happened at first, and I was afraid that my zombie mind wasn’t capable of linking with a living one, when all of a sudden a warm, bright light flashed behind my eyes. And then I felt Devona inside me.
