It never came. Just as Graeme raised his arm, ready to strike, he was broadsided by a blinding torrent of rage and fire.
It was Graeme's turn to smash into the side of a container, and smash he did. Before he could get up, Conleth was there, holding him up by his chin so that the incubus was on his tiptoes. Con then went totally nuclear, and I'd never heard anything like Graeme's screams as Con applied himself to what I can only describe as melting the incubus's face.
“I told you I'd see you again, motherfucker,” Conleth cried in triumph, even as he burned brighter. Graeme's screams echoed through the warehouse, bouncing eerily off the metal containers.
That's when the spriggan came reeling into my peripheral vision, a very angry barghest clinging to his back like a leather-clad burr. Anyan was clubbing at Fugwat's head with both his fists and all of his power, but, unlike me, Anyan wasn't losing any strength. His barrage was ceaseless, which was a good thing, as the spriggan obviously had an incredibly hard noggin. But eventually even Fugwat's cranium gave way, and he shuddered to his knobby gray knees before keeling forward onto his face.
Anyan looked from where Conleth was still torturing Graeme to where I lay prone against the container's wall, before darting toward me. But before he could make it, Con threw Graeme straight at the barghest. Anyan was bowled over by the incubus, whose shuddering whimpers testified to the fact that he was still alive, if terribly burned. Con was instantly at my side, where he tried to haul me up. I cried out at his touch, since I'd not only just gotten the shit kicked out of me but also because he'd forgotten to bank his fire and was searing my already sliced-up forearms.
“Oh, Jane, what did he do to you?” Conleth hissed, his eyes wide as he pulled his fire inward.
I went ahead and kept crying. At this point, after being rescued by my kidnapper, I'd lost all sense of who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. I don't think I even cared anymore. I just wanted the pain—all of my various pains—to go away. Whatever injury was causing the dull ache inside of me, however, was also making it difficult to breathe, so my sobs sounded more like a series of tear-strangled gasps.
The ifrit halfling picked me up, cradling me to his chest. He started to walk away but hesitated at Anyan's harsh cry.
“Conleth, stop!” the barghest commanded. “Stop and look at her. She's badly hurt. What can you do for her?”
My one good eye made out Conleth's face peering down at me. I licked my swollen bitten lip and whimpered piteously.
“Please, Conleth,” I wheezed, my voice breathy and unnatural.
Conleth stood there, studying my face. So I really turned on the waterworks, which only made me cry even harder as the tears brought fresh agony to my swollen, bloody eye.
“I can heal her, Conleth, and we have an even better healer coming. I can smell him; he's near. He'll fix her, and I swear to the gods I won't let anyone hurt you or capture you. You saved Jane, and I owe you. I'll guarantee your safety, and she'll get the help she needs.”
Conleth didn't respond, but his arms around me tightened.
“Please,” the barghest pleaded. “I'm begging you.”
Con gave me one long, last look and then turned around toward Anyan.
“You heal her and you let me go?”
“I promise.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can't, Conleth. You don't know me. But look at Jane. She needs to be seen to; that you can trust.”
Conleth's bright blue eyes met my good one and he nodded sharply.
“Fine. I set her down; you come get her. But when you're done with her, you give her back to me.”
“Of course,” the barghest lied smoothly. “Just give us the chance to take care of her.”
Con stalked forward a few paces before setting me down on the cold, damp floor of the warehouse. Then he scuttled backward, raising his flames. Anyan gave the ifrit just enough time to return to his corner before the big man was at my side.“Jesus, Jane,” he whispered, gathering me to him. “Caleb!” he shouted. “Here!”
While we waited for the clip-clops of the satyr to get nearer, Anyan began to heal me himself. He didn't seem to know where to begin, and I felt his right hand touching me all over as the healing warmth of his power shifted from my eye to my cheek to my mouth to my neck and then to my forearms before returning to my eye. I gritted my teeth against the pain of the injuries and the occasional pain of the healing and concentrated on Anyan's other hand. It was clutching my hip, holding me close, but I found it with my own. I wrapped my fingers around his, needing the comfort of his strength, and he responded by shifting his hold on me so his big hand engulfed mine. He was trembling.
“I'm so sorry, Jane,” he whispered, stroking his healing fingers down my cheek again and again. I shook my head.
“My fault. Get diapers next time,” I croaked out between my swollen lips. “No more potty breaks. Ever.”
“No more ‘next times,’” the barghest responded grimly. “Ever. You're not allowed to leave Rockabill again until I say so.”
I might have argued with that if I hadn't started coughing up blood.
“Caleb!” Anyan shouted again, turning his attention to my chest and sides. “Hurry the fuck up!”
Just as I was starting to feel distinctly woozy, I felt another set of hands on me and Caleb's powerful healing magics flood through my body. Although unsure of exactly how long I'd been held unconscious by Conleth, I knew it had to have been quite some time for Caleb to be fully operational and for everyone to have found me.
Suddenly, Ryu's voice was there, then Julian's and Camille's. People were yelling but I couldn't see why, mostly because Caleb had given up trying to heal me one injury at a time and just went ahead and enveloped me with his shaggy body, blasting me with wave after wave of healing magic.
When Caleb finally unwrapped himself from me, I understood why there was so much drama. Anyan was standing between an extra-fiery Conleth and a very pissed-off wall of baobhan sith. Camille, Julian, and Ryu were all poised to strike, but Anyan wouldn't let them. Meanwhile, Conleth couldn't seem to choose between staring at the barghest in surprise and glowering at Ryu.
Caleb wasn't done healing me, and his magics were still whizzing around my body as I watched Anyan negotiate with the others. I heard something about how Con had saved Jane. The barghest was pointing at the motionless lumps that were Graeme and Fugwat. When Julian walked over to prod the spriggan with the toe of his Vans, he noticed I was awake. So he wandered over to give me a boost.
Lying there in Caleb's arms, soaking up his healing energies while Julian began to recharge me, I let myself believe, for a split second, that everything was going to be okay. I imagined Conleth getting the help he needed. I imagined Graeme and Fugwat brought to justice for killing Edie and Felicia. Maybe they'd even squeal on Phaedra, and then Phaedra would turn on Jarl. The good guys would win, and we'd all ride off into the sunset, safe and whole.
Which was why Phaedra chose that exact moment to show up, Kaya and Kaori in tow.
Sometimes I felt like Murphy's Law incarnate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The harpies came first, both their power and their wings beating the air around us. One of them cried out when she saw Graeme, rushing to his side to crouch above him and murmur endearments. Kaya, or Kaori, began weeping when she saw his face, before we felt all of her power shift toward healing him. Kaori, or Kaya, went to poke at the spriggan with one dun wing, before sending her own blast of healing magic at Fugwat.
We were so distracted by the harpies, and especially by the fact that Graeme, the sadistic rapist, appeared to have a girlfriend, that none of us noticed Phaedra's entrance. Except for Conleth.
“You!” we heard him shout, and we all turned first toward him and then toward where he was pointing.
The little Alfar emerged from the shadows, still clad in her leathers and knives.
“Me,” she said drily.
Suddenly, I remembered Con whispering to himself. “The woman and her pet psycho,” I recalled him saying as I looked from Phaedra to Graeme. “I told you I'd see you again…” Suddenly, Con's ramblings made sense.
Everything fell into place.
When we'd seen those claw marks on Silver's legs, we'd feared Kaya and Kaori's involvement in his death, but we hadn't known their motivation. Or the motivation of their mistress, Phaedra, or her master, Jarl. But now I knew.
“She's been behind everything the whole time,” I whispered. I'd had my suspicions, but now, to me at least, it was all as clear as day. Jarl had to be the sponsor; Phaedra wouldn't have the resources to run an operation like that. When Con escaped, she and her team wiped out everyone who could have known of Jarl's involvement in those laboratories. In case anyone was watching, she'd burned the bodies to make it look like Conleth had done it.
And she'd known where Conleth was the entire time; after all, she must have sent that note about Felicia to Conleth. Donovan must have tipped the girl off, like she did Silver and her boyfriend. Told Felicia to hide. The young woman did a good job, and so Phaedra used Con as she'd used him this whole time: to camouflage her own crimes.