Kane? Here? How had he found me? This had to be a hallucination, my dying mind conjuring up comforting images where everything could still be all right. Where escape and rescue were possible.
Kane’s face hovered over mine. His gray eyes burned with fury and concern and something else.
“Are you real?” My voice came out in a croak.
The brush of his lips on mine felt real.
A commotion burst out near the door. Kane looked up, scowled, raised a pistol. He fired. Then something knocked him backward and I couldn’t see him anymore.
A blast—gunshot? energy?—broke the mirror over my head. I closed my eyes as shards rained down, nicking and slicing my skin.
“Hello, Mab.” Myrddin’s voice sounded thick. Was he hurting? “Funny name you’ve chosen for yourself this time around.”
“Myrddin Wyllt, you will not harm my niece.” Mab sounded strong, certain. Now I knew I was hallucinating, because my aunt was two thousand miles away. Yet I felt a certain peace. I was glad my life was ending this way, in a fantasy of my aunt stepping in to protect me. And Kane. I always knew he’d come for me if he could. Still, I wished it had been real. His lips had felt so nice, so warm.
Where was Kane? If I was hallucinating, I wanted to imagine him beside me.
Fighting noises erupted from the other side of the room. It didn’t sound like a sword fight. More like they were throwing bombs at each other. Energy blasted out again and again. Then Myrddin’s cackle rang out. “Colwyn, you lazy corpse. It’s about time you—”
A furious snarl chilled me down to my fingertips. It was a primal, animal sound. Had Mab shifted to fight the Old Ones? Maybe I could help her. I concentrated, again summoning the grizzly bear image. But I couldn’t gather the energy. I was too weak.
This was my hallucination, damn it. You’d think it would let me escape from the straps that held me down. Then I could at least imagine my death as an honorable one, fighting beside my aunt.
Shouts. Snarls. Running footsteps. Cursing. The thud and grunt of impact. More shouts—Mab’s voice among them. “Get Pryce!” she shouted. “Kill him!” So she hadn’t shifted. Yet the sounds of an attacking animal cut through the chaos. Something slammed into the table beside mine, shaking it. “No!” Myrddin shouted. A yelp of pain.
A slap stung my cheek and I opened my eyes. Myrddin stood over me. Blood smeared one side of his face and matted his hair. He was panting, slumped over. “Another time, my girl,” he said to me, and winked. Then he disappeared.
“Victory, child, are you all right?” Mab’s face appeared above me. Not huge and transparent, as she’d been in my dreamscape, but real flesh. Worry lines sharpened her gaze as her eyes roved over my face. She brushed glass off me. Her fingers loosened the strap across my forehead. She flung it aside and smoothed a warm hand over my icy skin.
I lifted my head, just because I could. The empty room looked like a battle zone. Scorch marks blackened the walls. Chairs and tables were scattered around like discarded toys. Something smoldered in a corner. I looked to my right. The table that had been next to me, the one that held Pryce, was gone.
Mab had unbuckled the strap across my chest and was working on the one that secured my right wrist. I was still shaking, and dizziness made the room spin. Weak, I let my head fall back.
“Myrddin has gone into the demon plane and taken Pryce with him,” Mab said. “He knows I won’t follow him there, not with you like this.” She paused and laid her cheek against my forehead. I could feel her trembling. “Oh, Vicky, are you all right?”
“I . . . I can’t stop shivering.” I felt like I’d never be warm again. Mab put both her hands on my face, and I soaked in their warmth. “I thought I was hallucinating. Am I?”
She went back to work, unfastening the strap. She picked up my hand, bending the elbow and massaging my skin. “No, child. This is real. I’m really here. After you’re safe and rested, I’ll explain all.”
“But I thought Kane was here, too.”
“And so he was.”
Was? I struggled to sit up through the nausea and dizziness. I snatched away my free hand and pulled at the strap across my waist. “‘Was,’ Mab? Where is he?”
She smiled grimly as she unbuckled the waist strap. “The last I saw, he was in the hallway, making some Old Ones run in a most undignified manner.” She tilted her head, listening. “I believe he’s coming back. Here, child, you can sit up. I’ll help you. Gently, now.”
She got her arms around me and lifted. The room tilted, and I grabbed at her to keep from falling. I closed my eyes, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
Someone touched my leg, and I breathed in the scent of moonlit pine forest. Kane. His scent calmed me. I opened my eyes to see his gray ones.
In the face of a massive wolf.
Kane was in wolf form.
Mab gripped my shoulders. I looked at her, confused. The full moon was weeks away. “How long have I been here? Is the moon—?”
She shook her head. “Waning gibbous. Myrddin had you only for a few hours.”
“So how . . . ?” Kane nuzzled my neck. I leaned into him and stroked his fur. It was thick and coarse, but soft. He didn’t smell like a wolf. He smelled like Kane.
“Myrddin did it. He has some power over animals,” Mab said, but didn’t elaborate. “Most likely Mr. Kane’s human form will return with the dawn.”
Most likely. I didn’t like the sound of that. But I put my arms around Kane’s neck and buried my face in his warm ruff. He’d come for me. That was all that mattered. Whatever else we had to face, we’d face it together.
14
I SAT ON A DOUBLE BED, MY BACK PROPPED UP BY PILLOWS and my legs stretched out. The hard, lumpy mattress was uncomfortable, but it beat my previous resting place in Myrddin’s guest room. I felt weak and tired, and every cell in my body ached. Mab sat in a chair beside the bed, holding my hand in both of hers. Kane lay on the bed beside me, his long wolf body pressed close against my leg. My hand rested on his shoulder, fingers burrowing into his warm fur. We were in a run-down motel somewhere north of the airport.
I was a little fuzzy on how we’d arrived here. I’d been too weak to walk—an attempt to stand up had made me faint. Flashes of scenes jumbled together in my mind. Being carried past white cinder-block walls and up a long staircase. Passing through a doorway into cool air that smelled of exhaust and wet cement. Darkness. Some kind of construction site. Mab buckling a seatbelt across me as she settled me into a car. Leather seats. I thought it was Kane’s BMW, but I don’t know who drove. Not Kane, who was lying across the backseat. I didn’t think Mab knew how—Jenkins did duty as her chauffeur in Wales—but I sure as hell hadn’t been in the driver’s seat. As soon as the car door had closed, I’d slumped against it, dozing off and on as we moved through the streets of Boston.
Now, I smoothed the thin, stiff comforter over my legs. It was the cheapest kind, a hideous orange-and-brown floral print, pocked by cigarette burns.
“Are you still cold?” Mab asked, leaning forward.
“Not as much.” I’d stopped shivering, at least. Mab pulled the comforter off the other bed and draped it around my shoulders. I probably looked like a pile of dead leaves.
“Warmth will return as your life force regenerates.”
“That will happen?”
“It’s happening already. I just thank all the heavens we reached you in time.”
“How? How did you reach me at all? Where was I?”
“You were being held in an underground facility beneath a construction site. Stanhope was the name of the street, I believe.”
I stared at her. It still seemed unreal that she was here. “But you were in Wales, right, when I called you on the dream phone?”