Her hands were bound by what felt like rope, something bit into her neck, and she gasped for breath. The ice-storm spun around her, the blackness becoming blacker, her lungs straining for air. In the end, she had to give up and collapse.
***
She woke in warmth and light. Joanne took a long breath, smelling a patchouli-like spice, her skin touched with pleasant heat. She must have overslept. Her dreams had taken her to the corner of a warehouse where Broderick and his brother made exquisite musical instruments then through a gate of boards, propelled by magic from a computer.
Crazy. She needed to stop drinking martinis before she went to bed.
Joanne opened her eyes.
She jerked, her fear flooding back. The dream was continuing.
Joanne lay on her side on a pile of folded cloths of many colors—blue, fuchsia, gold, purple, the brightest green. The makeshift bed was thick, soft, and surprisingly comfortable.
The walls surrounding her, as well as the ceiling above, were made of a purple material with wide black stripes. A tent, she assumed, but like no tent she’d ever been inside.
The place was huge, high-ceilinged, and round. The tent poles were carved black wood—ebony perhaps—inlaid with mother of pearl and silver. Low-slung wooden chairs covered with cushions and silk throws littered the room, and intricately carved tables stood beside the chairs. Her bed filled an alcove, cushions stacked behind her. Someone had taken camping to its elegant extreme.
That someone came through the door. He was tall and had the bulk of a Shifter, but his hair, which had been cut short, was pure white. Not the white of an old man—but the white-blond someone of Scandinavian extraction might have.
What Joanne noticed next—beyond the black ninja-like clothes he’d covered with a silver and black cloak—was the man’s eyes.
They were dark like obsidian, impenetrable, and fixed on her. He had a hard face, sharp, his mouth a firm line. His ears, as Broderick had described, were tipped with points. Therefore, she’d either been transported into a Star Trek episode, or this man was a Fae.
“Where’s Broderick?” she asked, trying to sound stern and unafraid.
The Fae said nothing, only watched her, his eyes never flickering.
“The Shifter I came in with,” Joanne went on in a louder voice. “Where is he?”
Again, silence. Maybe the guy didn’t speak English. Well, Joanne didn’t speak Fae, so there it was.
The Fae approached her. Joanne scrambled to her feet. No way was she going to be flat on her back while this being came at her.
He thrust out his strong, black-gloved hand and gripped Joanne by the throat. Not squeezing, just enough to hold her still. The Fae tilted her head back and forth, examining her with his hard black gaze.
Finally he released her with a jerk, and Joanne fought to retain her balance.
“I asked you a question.” She spoke slowly, though she knew he either didn’t understand or didn’t care. “Where is Broderick? And who the hell are you?”
The Fae swung away, the folds of his cloak brushing Joanne’s body. The fabric was warm and surprisingly light. As the man moved, the silver in the cloak caught the lamplight and confused the eye before the dark part of the fabric rippled to cover it. Camouflage, Joanne realized. Fae version. Outside, in darkness and moonlight, she guessed he’d be pretty much invisible.
Thinking of that, Joanne wondered what time it was. The tent was lit by glowing lamps—electricity? oil? kerosene? Some Fae chemical?
The fact that she accepted straightaway that she’d left Austin and likely the planet Earth through a magic door and was now in a place called Faerie, spoke a lot about how far she’d come in the last year.
She didn’t regret infiltrating Shiftertown though. If she hadn’t, she’d have lost her sister forever and never met Broderick, a growling, pain-in-the-ass, and incredibly loving Shifter. Joanne’s life would have been nothing but emptiness.
Now, her life was filled with a Fae who strode out of the tent, shouted something in a guttural language, and returned with another man in tow.
Joanne’s blood went icy. The man who came inside with the Fae was … dead.
She wasn’t sure how she knew that. He stood upright, walked normally, listened to what the Fae was saying to him, turned to study Joanne with eyes that could obviously see her. He was nearly as large as Broderick, wore jeans and a T-shirt, and had a Collar around his neck. His eyes were light green, Feline eyes, and his hair was a dark golden color, brushed with black in places. A leopard, Joanne guessed.
But he was dead. Not in a zombie way—he was whole and real. But not breathing. Behind his eyes, Joanne read pain and deep fear.
“Who are you?” she blurted out.
The Shifter shook his head. “Kian brought me in to tell him what you were saying. Not to talk to you.”
“But you’re a Shifter.” Joanne stood up straight, her mouth dry, fingers curling. “What are you doing here? What happened to you? Why are you … ?”
“Dead?” The Shifter’s lips quirked. “I was shot and killed by some humans who stole my sword. Without the sword, my soul became trapped, ripe to be enslaved by Fae who know how to do it.”
Joanne sucked in a breath. “Holy shit, you’re the Guardian from the Montana Shiftertown. How are you … walking, talking?”
The Fae growled a few words, and the Shifter listened without taking his eyes from Joanne. “He doesn’t want me talking to you. He wishes to know—who are you and what do you want?”
“Who am I? I’m Joanne Greene, a programmer from Austin. Who cares? Who the hell is he, where’s Broderick, and why did this guy bring us here?”
The Shifter spoke in the Fae’s language, and the Fae gave Joanne a mirthless smile. He said a few words, and the Shifter translated.
“Kian is a general, a bad-ass warrior who’s in the middle of a campaign and looking to move up the food chain. He figures trapping a few Shifters, one a Guardian, can only help him.”
“Is he doing all this?” Joanne demanded. “Trying to get us to break into the Guardian Network, getting you killed, manipulating Cilla to work for him?”
The Shifter watched her with his unnervingly still green eyes. “You think he’s responsible for my death?”
“I don’t know. Is he?”
“No idea. I’m here because another Guardian was supposed to come along and dust me with my own sword so I could fly away to the Summerland.” He opened his hands. “Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
Kian listened, but it was clear he didn’t understand a word. At Kian’s barked command, the Guardian translated, and Kian growled a lot of words in return.
The Shifter looked almost amused. “He says he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Guardian Network or having humans in the human world work for him. He didn’t actually say rat’s ass, but the Fae equivalent. He’s an opportunist. Grabbed me when he found me, had his soldiers grab you when you came in. He wants to learn all about where you came from and if other Shifters are available for him to enslave.”
Joanne glared at Kian in indignation. “I’m not telling him that.”
The Guardian shrugged. “Better pretend to cooperate so you can stay in his cushy tent. And you must help me.”
He added the last in a steady voice, not betraying his desperation to the Fae, but Joanne saw it in his eyes.
“Fine,” Joanne said, keeping her irritated tone. “What do you suggest?”
“Get free of this place. Find my sword. Take it to my Shiftertown, drive it into my heart. Or I’m trapped here forever.”
“I can do the last three things,” Joanne said. “The first one is going to be tough.”
“Do it anyway.”
The Guardian might be dead, but he was still formidable and compelling. The green eyes bored into hers.
“What’s your name?” Joanne asked. “I can’t just call you The Guardian, or Shifter Guy.”
He paused a moment. “You know, I almost forgo
t I had a name. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore. But I was called Daragh.”
“Where’s Broderick?” Joanne asked him. “The Shifter who was with me?”
“I don’t know,” Daragh answered. “I only knew he’d taken you.”
Kian barked something, clearly growing tired of not knowing what they were saying. Daragh replied, and then Kian grabbed him by the neck, his fingers landing precisely on the Collar.
The Collar went off, the Guardian’s already gray face went grayer still. He collapsed.
Joanne rushed forward. “Leave him alone!”
Kian shoved Joanne back with steely strength. Joanne fought but only landed on her butt on the bed.
Daragh was on his hands and knees. Kian drew his sword and touched it to Daragh’s Collar, which went off again. Kian drove him backward in this way, Daragh scuttling on all fours, trying to evade the pain. Then they were out of the tent, and gone.
Joanne watched them go, her heart pounding. Had Daragh been the one begging for help through the code? He was a Guardian—he’d know how to use the Guardian Network to send the messages.
But then, Cilla had been trying to break into the network and learn to make a gate before she’d had Daragh killed and the sword brought to her. So she’d been working to the instructions of someone else. Who? Kian? But Kian didn’t seem to know what was going on. There was much more to this than Joanne understood.
First things first. As a programmer, Joanne knew that each step had a solution, an either-or possibility. Solving one would lead to the next decision and the next. Eventually, if there were no bugs, all decisions would be made, and the program would run.
First, Joanne needed to leave the tent; next, find Broderick. If she couldn’t get out of the tent, then she’d find a way to make Kian reveal where Broderick was. If, then, else. Simple.
Leaving the tent shouldn’t be too hard. This was a tent, for crap’s sake. Joanne could pull up a stake and roll out under the canvas.
She easily found a loose enough section at the base of the tent and pulled up a swath of fabric. Joanne peered through, and her heart squeezed in disappointment.
Her tent bedroom led to another room inside the tent, this one with an open doorway that showed her more of the tent beyond. She must be in a pavilion of some sort, with many rooms inside it.
The other difficulty she saw was that plenty of Fae soldiers, armed with swords or long knives, moved in and out of the room and hall with quick efficiency. If she slithered under the canvas, they’d simply trip over her and toss her back at Kian. That is, if they didn’t decide to kill her or inflict other horrors upon her.
Joanne sighed, replaced the stake—loosely, in case she truly did need to leave that way—and sat down on the bed again. Now for the Else part.
***
Broderick always knew he’d end up stuck in a Fae cage. This one had wires that triggered his Collar if he touched them.
The Fae milling around outside the cage in what looked like a barn were soldiers. Garden-variety, working-for-a-living soldiers. They were happy from time to time to come over and stick stubby swords into the cage of a real live Shifter. Broderick put up with them poking at him a few times before he shucked his clothes and shifted to wolf.
They backed off some as Broderick snarled and snapped at them, even more when he hooked his claws around one solder’s short sword and jerked it into the cage with him. Come a little closer, shithead.
At one point, a Fae who appeared to be a little higher in rank than the ground-pounders, ordered the cage opened and Broderick dragged out. The soldiers then proceeded to beat the living crap out of him.
Broderick clawed and bit anything he could, feeling satisfaction when a Fae snarled in pain. Eventually they tossed him back inside and locked the door.
Broderick lay on the bottom of the cage in a pool of his own blood. He couldn’t understand the Fae language enough to know what they’d done with Joanne, if they even knew. These guys were at the bottom of the food chain, living weapons to be pointed at the enemy.
As Broderick concentrated on trying not to groan, he assessed his captors, but he couldn’t tell if the soldiers were on a campaign or just training for one.
The animals in the barn weren’t like any he’d ever seen. At first glance, they were horses, but when one of the beasts looked over a partition at him, Broderick jumped. The neck and head that turned to him was distinctly dragon, with a snout and teeth to match. Its eyes were black with a red glow from within, as though it had been created in hell.
Well, he shouldn’t be so surprised. The Fae had genetically and magically engineered Shifters, so there was nothing to say they hadn’t put together a bunch of other kinds of animals as well to serve their purposes. Maybe one day these dragon-horses would turn around and fight their way free of their enslavers, as the Shifters had. Would be fun to watch.
The dragon-horse that glared at Broderick, however, looked more like he regarded Broderick as a canned snack. Broderick growled at him for good measure, pretending he wasn’t in a boatload of pain.
He prayed to the Goddess that Joanne wasn’t in a similar cage somewhere, with the Fae treating her as bad or worse. Broderick’s fear for her grated through him, strengthening him. He would live to save his mate.
He hated that they’d taken him down so easily, triggering his Collar like he’d never felt it triggered before. The swords, he thought. The ones they’d used to make Shifters obey, damn them. He’d get free, find Joanne, and do some slaying.
The soldiers, like all soldiers waiting for something to happen, were bored. After about an hour by Broderick’s calculation, they dragged him out of the cage and beat on him again. Broderick refused to scream or howl, and he fought back with fervor. Another hour, another beating.
They shouldn’t be so predictable, Broderick mused as he lay in the cage after the third time, in so much pain he could barely see. He closed his wolf eyes, and laid his plans.
Before the next hour was up, however, Broderick received the answer to the question of whether they were training or on campaign. The barn doors were thrown open, sunlight streaming in through thick mist.
More than a score of the dragon-horses were led in, the beasts wet with sweat, blown and exhausted. Their riders were just as weary, but every one of the Fae shits had triumph in their black eyes. Shouts and whoops sounded from the Fae who’d been waiting for them, friends greeted, some kind of beverage brought out and sloshed all over the returning soldiers, the floor, the horses. Some of the liquid even got drunk.
These Fae had been to battle, and they’d won.
A couple of the soldiers pulled Fae captives into the barn. To Broderick, the captured didn’t look much different from the ones who’d caught them—the only distinction was different badges on their surcoats.
Two prisoners were dumped to the floor, then the soldiers who’d beaten Broderick drew their short swords and hacked the unlucky Fae to death.
They took their time about it, making sure the captives screamed and begged for their lives as their blood and entrails gushed from their bodies. One prisoner rolled, struggling, until he slammed against Broderick’s cage.
The look of fear the Fae turned on Broderick was terrible. The poor shit must think they were going to let Broderick tear him the rest of the way apart.
Broderick saw the thought occur to his guards, and they liked it. Gleefully, they reached out and unlatched Broderick’s cage.
Broderick, in the cage, shifted to human, caught up the sword he’d captured and hidden under the dirty straw, and stabbed it between the bars and into the dying Fae soldier’s heart. A clean kill. The Fae’s eyes clouded, then his face relaxed into relief and death.
The victorious soldiers were not happy with Broderick at all. They cut the Fae captive apart, then turned around to try to feed the bits of him to Broderick.
But Broderick wasn’t there. He took advantage of their rage, distraction, and vengeance to bang his way out of the cage
they’d unlatched. Broderick used the sword to slice his way past the stragglers and then to loosen several of the tethered dragon-horses. The fresh ones spooked, just like regular horses, and started charging around, relieving their tempers by trying to bite those they ran down.
Amid the confusion, Broderick shifted to wolf, dropping the Fae sword as he went.
He had the medallion, though. He’d shoved it into his mouth before he’d shifted the first time. It rested painfully against his teeth, but no way in hell would he leave it for the Fae to find. He closed his jaws around it and ran into the bright mists.
***
The black-and-silver cloaked Kian returned for Joanne, without the Guardian, but with a few of his personal guard. The guards yanked Joanne to her feet and half pulled, half carried her through the maze of the pavilion. They exited the tent for a mist-soaked morning, and a clearing that held a number of similar purple-and-black striped pavilions.
There were hundreds of Fae milling about around the tents, with more streaming in from the surrounding woods. Some rode odd-looking horses, while others marched on foot.
Not all the soldiers were upright. Some were bloody, limping, carried by others. Some were draped over the horses or pulled in on litters.
No one paid much attention to Joanne, though those soldiers Kian passed closely came to attention, well-trained.
The guards pulled Joanne quickly into another pavilion, Kian striding rapidly ahead of them. In the center of this pavilion was a solid wall, built of some kind of stone, and in this was a door, which looked to be made of copper.
A guard opened the door to reveal a long, narrow room of the same stone. Joanne realized after a second that the room was mobile—it rested on the ground now, but wheels could be attached to axles so it could be moved, like the container on a semi-truck. A mobile strong room, or a prison.
That wasn’t the most surprising thing, however. The most surprising thing was a human man wearing the ragged remnants of a US Army combat uniform, who stood at the far end. Near him lay all kinds of junk—cables, ropes, metal boxes, piles of quartz, wires, and what looked like handmade paperclips.