Chapter 11 #2
He took a slow breath. Held it. Let it go.
“I should have acted sooner.” His attention went to the door, a false, stoic calm finding him.
“Ryan got the paramedic’s version, which is that I heard her fall.
Found her comatose in the hallway. Saw a shadow flee.
If you want to tell him different, it’s up to you. ”
“Thank you.” I gave his arm a quick squeeze. “I, ah, should probably go in.”
Tense, he rocked into motion to stay with me. “I’ll come with you.”
I wasn’t surprised, and after checking to make sure Pluck was with us, I knuckle-knocked on the heavy, wide door and went in at a soft hail.
My pace slowed when the short entry opened up into a small private room, and I stifled a shiver at the icy draft of hot pinpricks spiraling about my feet.
Pluck didn’t rise up to take refuge in his new wire-wrapped stone in my pocket; instead, he hazed about my feet to seek shelter in whatever dark place he could find.
Perhaps the glass needed to be tuned first to be comfortable.
Cameron lay like Sleeping Beauty, red curls arrayed against the pillow, her eyes closed, and her face pale. The only thing hooked up to her was an IV and probably a catheter.
Beside her in a chair pushed up to the bed was Dana. The woman’s brow was furrowed as she texted someone. Ryan ran a hand over his thinning salt-and-pepper hair as he saw me. Hands extended, he came closer, his limp more obvious with his distress.
“Hi,” I said as the older man tugged me into a quick hug. “I got here as soon as I could.”
“Petra. I’m glad you’re here.” Ryan’s worry eased but didn’t leave his face. “Where are Benedict and Marty?”
“Parking the car. Lev told me what happened. How is she?”
Ryan took his gaze from the hint of green eyes peering out from under a cabinet, and I wondered if Pluck and I had lost every shred of trust gained in the last five months.
“We don’t know.” Ryan gestured for me to take the second chair. “I’m glad you’re here.”
An icy ribbon snaked around my ankle. He’s said that twice now, Pluck thought, and I inched closer to the cabinet so the tendril of himself stretched across the floor wasn’t as obvious.
“This is an ugly situation,” Ryan said. “It seems certain that it was a shadow assault.” His gaze went to Lev. “Thoth, probably, but everyone will assume it was Pluck, since it happened outside your apartment. I don’t know how I’m going to keep this quiet.”
Yeah. I got that, seeing as Cameron had been investigating me when she had been attacked.
Damn it all to hell and back. We’d given Dana all the ammunition she needed to force a review of the university’s policies regarding dross and shadows.
“Marshal Owens is a bull in a china shop,” I said regretfully.
“Yesterday she stood in the grotto and antagonized a memorial shadow. Some of this might be her fault.”
Dana looked up. “Blaming the victim?”
My face warmed as Pluck’s anger fizzed through me. “I do if she jumps the fence and waves a red flag in the face of a frustrated shadow.” Okay, I was talking big, but the reality was it had undoubtedly been Thoth—looking for me—and a twinge of guilt rose and fell.
“Even so,” Dana said. “We can’t allow shadows to attack people with no reprisal.”
“Yeah? Then perhaps people should stop threatening to burn them alive,” I countered. “Why haven’t any shadow release valves gone in? It’s been months!”
Ryan shifted uneasily. “Can we keep it down, please? This is not the place to be discussing university business.”
Expression sour, Dana turned away. My gaze, too, went to Cameron, peaceful on the outside, who knew what on the inside. “Has anyone tried to go in and find her?” I asked. “Pluck tells me Thoth can possess people without breaking their mind. She might be okay.”
Dana’s shoulders slumped, her thoughts visibly shifting. “The hospital doesn’t have an etherologist on staff with enough skills to tell,” she admitted, and Lev ran a hand over his chin in agitation. “It’s a shadow attack. That she’s still breathing is a miracle.”
There was blame in her voice, and my spine stiffened.
Ryan pushed forward, his expression pained. “The hospital has a specialist coming in tomorrow. They offered to fly Marshal Owens out to him, but we have control here.”
“One more day won’t make a difference,” Dana said, and I crossed my arms over my middle in a show of disagreement. “No one survives a shadow within one’s mind.” She glanced up at me. “Except a weaver.”
Up until today, I would have agreed with her, but the need to correct her died when I noticed the faint ribbon of black hazing up behind Cameron, settling just under her ear. It was Pluck. He wasn’t touching her, but he was so close that the woman’s eye twitched and went still.
“Who is to blame doesn’t matter to the common mage,” Dana said, oblivious to Pluck.
“For the first time in thousands of years, we are openly seeing shadows in the streets. Without a functioning vault containing enough dross to be a threat, shadows feel free to attack the very people who have the power to enforce the traditional method of shadow maintenance.”
My attention jerked from Pluck’s hazy shape. “Maintenance? Call it what it is. Murder.”
Dana huffed as she stood. “Ryan, I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything here and I need to prepare a report for the board.”
One that I was sure wouldn’t put shadows in a sympathetic light. Panic gripped me. I wasn’t sure if it was mine or Pluck’s. Not that it mattered. “Lev saw a shadow,” I blurted. “Chances are it was Thoth looking for me. Give me the opportunity to catch him before you set the campus on fire.”
I think we can reach her, Pluck thought suddenly, the crystalline surety of it ringing through me like a bell.
Wait. What? I thought, almost oblivious to Lev backing me up, his words fast and succinct as he warned Dana what a potential shadow purge could cost the school.
With my skill and your fields to get me past her natural safeguards, I think we can safely reach Cameron.
“That’s an etherologist skill. You can do that?” I said aloud.
“Do what?” Ryan looked up from Lev, his eyebrows high in question.
Pluck gained substance until he was again a dog at my heels, his hazy ears pinned to his not-there skull in a show of reluctance.
Maybe? His thoughts were tinged with worry. Thoth put her into a dream loop. I can’t get into her mind without causing damage, but you can. Once in her dream, we could possibly get her out.
Breathless, I focused on Ryan. His brow was furrowed with impatience; he clearly knew that he wasn’t privy to half the conversation. “Can Pluck help?” he demanded.
“She is still in there,” I said, knowing what I was asking. “He thinks together we can wake her up.”
Dana’s attention snapped to me. “From a shadow attack? Everyone knows only a weaver could survive a shadow within their mind.”
Lev chuckled as I squared my shoulders. “Pluck is in my mind right now,” I said. “He’s not damaging me. Thoth put her into a coma. Pluck thinks we can get her out. What is the problem?”
The woman looked at Ryan, clearly surprised when he didn’t agree with her. “Ah…” she hedged at his sly smirk. “No. A shadow caused the damage. I’m not going to sit here and let another—”
“Pluck says she’s stuck in a dream loop,” I interrupted. “If we can get her out, she’ll wake up and can tell us who attacked her. I’m not going to let an entire demographic of sentient energy become scapegoats because another demographic doesn’t want to learn how to handle their own waste!”
“That’s not what’s going on here.” Dana held her clasp purse before her like a fig leaf. “I cannot allow another shadow—”
“Pluck thinks we can get her out,” I insisted. “Dana, I want to try.”
“You didn’t let me finish.” The woman glared at me. “I can’t go back and write a report saying that I let another shadow touch her, so I’m going to…leave.”
I froze, my next outburst dying amid a cold fizzing. Behind me, Lev snickered.
“Oh,” Ryan said, his own distress melting into a confused realization.
“You’re coming with me, Ryan,” she added, and the older man lurched to his feet. “I don’t want you to lose your job because of your weaver’s hubris.”
“I’m staying,” Lev said. “Make sure no one interferes.”
“Fine.” Dana gestured for Ryan to go out before her. “Grady, your fields are flexible?”
“No one better,” Ryan said from the door.
Dana rocked to a halt, concern pinching her eyes. “I hope you’re right about this.”
I dangled my fingers in Pluck’s icy presence, remembering having fought him, the ice cream headaches I used to get. Either he had gotten better, or I had. “We are.”
She blinked slowly as if to gather strength. “If anyone asks, I left before you got here. Succeed or fail, this is on you and Pluck.”
A dread anticipation bubbled through me, and seeing it, she lifted her chin and pushed Ryan out, her heels clicking smartly. The door slipped silently shut, and I stifled a shiver.
“I’m not sure if she gave you the rope to pull Cameron out or hang yourself.” Lev slid sideways to stand next to me. “Can I help?”
No, Pluck thought, his mood both sour and eager.
“Ah, don’t let anyone interfere?” I said, and Lev gave me a mock salute.
“The room is yours,” he said boldly, but his confidence faded when he glanced at Cameron. “I, ah. I will be in the hall. Yell if you need me.”
I waited until I heard the click of the door latching before I turned to Cameron.
It was just her, and me, and Pluck, and a stab of worry came out of nowhere, poking holes in my confidence.
“Okay, Pluck.” I sat down in the chair that Dana had been in, feeling odd as I took Cameron’s cold hand in mine. “Light meditation state?”
Ice cramped my ankle, and I shivered as his presence took a stronger hold in my mind. Light meditation will work. I’ll take you in. I’ve already mapped out as far as I can safely go.
I closed my eyes, and the bubbling and fizzing that were Pluck’s thoughts grew stronger, more real than Cameron’s fingertips in mine. The lack of a need to breathe swelled as Pluck’s presence in me flip-flopped—and suddenly I was outside my mind looking in instead of inside it looking out.
I was within Pluck’s psyche. It could have been frightening—it had been, once—but I quashed the flash of panic, my mind’s first response to fight back as I exhaled into the almost subliminal rise and fall of the universe echoing in him.
I studied the richer complexity, both familiar and not, with which he saw the world.
I tried to make my thoughts small, limited, focused on the corporeal sensations I was still feeling: the chair leg against my ankle, the grip I had on Cameron, a strand of hair tickling my cheek.
I was swimming in Pluck’s mind, and I could feel his discomfort fizzing against me.
Steady, I thought, but it wasn’t me. It was him. I’m taking you to the barrier of her mind.
I felt myself take a breath, and on the exhale, everything vanished. The chair leg, the hair tickling my cheek, even the faint hum of machinery I’d never noticed was gone. A gray haze fuzzed through my mind.
And then, like a silver ribbon, came Pluck’s thoughts. This is the wall Thoth put her behind. She’s in there. Listen.
It wasn’t hard with my usual sensations quashed down to nothing, and I opened myself to the universe. My feet, I decided, were wet, and from there came the sound of angry water. Someone was coughing, a ragged, dangerous sound, and grit ground between my fingers.
Feel, Pluck fizzed. It wasn’t physical sensations he meant but emotion, and I fastened on a thread of despair welling up in me. It was Cameron’s fear and frustration. I focused on it, sifting it through my own mind to seek out the source. Nothing.
Cameron? I thought, feeling myself jump when a flash of terror slapped me.
Cameron, wait! I thought as Pluck’s fizzing presence latched on to mine and I pushed through the murk to follow Cameron’s frustration.
The water gurgled and frothed. The grit between my fingers pricked like a thousand knives.
From somewhere came the distinctive stink of wet desert.
Until, with a ping that reverberated through my entire soul, sound, touch, smell, and emotion swelled until they blended into a new, alien existence.
I was there.