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man's hand, and he peered down at it as though dazed,
blinked, then gripped it tight. Combat-cool again, Dallin didn't
even register the swing of the man's arm, didn't feel his own
arm tighten or his fingers close, didn't hear himself shout,
"Hold!" a second time. The man was aiming into a small
cluster of people huddled behind the bar and didn't even
twitch at Dallin's command, only smiled a little, that same
look of crazed triumph in his eyes Dallin had seen in the man
outside.
Dallin's instincts had taken over completely now. He
squeezed the trigger gently, and again once in the right
shoulder and once in the left thigh and he watched as the
bullets thumped into the man, rocked his body from one side
to the other. The gun he was holding flew out of his hand to
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skid across the rough pine floorboards, coming to rest under
an overstuffed chair by the fire. Dallin made a mental note to
retrieve it after he'd assessed the immediate damage.
All three were now on the floor, the big one and Calder
lying very still, but Dallin could see that Calder was at least
still breathing. The other didn't appear so lucky too still, with
a grisly flap of scalp peeled back to expose the pulp of his
skull and what Dallin was fairly certain was a mash of brains
and bone so Dallin focused on the one he'd shot himself,
moaning and thrashing weakly in a spreading puddle of blood.
Dallin quickly checked the door then stood, put his head
cautiously around the frame to peer out into the moonlit
night. No movement from the yard, but he reminded himself
not to put his back to the door.
He peered about, into too many frightened and confused
faces, blinking back at him as though he were some bogey
they'd just been dreaming about and they were caught
wondering how he'd managed to follow them from nightmare.
No gasping shrieks, no stampede toward the door their
silence was unnatural and unnerving.
There was talk of conjuring, Jagger had told him, the
assailant seemed tranced.
Dallin shook himself, said, "Who is the law here?" No one
answered, only kept blinking at him, so he scanned the room
again, found alert intelligence in the eyes of a young woman
behind the bar and so addressed his question directly to her.
"Have you a local constable?" he wanted to know.
She nodded, wide-eyed, then turned to bark at a scrap of
a lad behind her who blinked himself into some kind of focus
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then turned without a word and disappeared out the front
door hopefully to find whomever represented law and order
in this place and bring him or her along. Dallin wished he'd
had a chance to ask the boy to fetch a physick before he'd
bolted, but no help for that now.
Dallin shook his head, brought himself back to the matters
at-hand, trying to decide which was more pressing. He
crouched, turned Calder over carefully, somehow not at all
surprised to see he was battered and bloodied and thoroughly
unconscious, but the pulse was steady beneath Dallin's
fingertips. Keeping a sideways eye on Calder, Dallin made his
way over to the man he'd shot cursed. Colorfully. He'd been
aiming to disarm and cripple the man, but his second shot
had hit inside the thigh, instead of outside, and bright red
blood pulsed and spurted from the wound in a way Dallin
recognized all too well. There would be perhaps one minute,
maybe two, for questions; if he wanted answers, he'd best
stop inadvertently killing suspects.
He leaned over into the man's line of sight, slapped lightly
at his cheek same damned tattoo until dull blue eyes
fluttered and tried to focus.
"Who are you?" Dallin demanded.
The eyes cleared abruptly, sharpened, and the man looked
up at Dallin with a calm that was almost beatific. "So," he
whispered, "you have come." He gave Dallin a smile that
made his skin crawl. "The Aisling is recalled." He reached up
with a shaking hand, made as if to stroke Dallin's cheek.
Dallin flinched back but the man only widened his smile,
dropped his arm limply to the floor. "He belongs to the
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Brethren now. You will not have him, Guardian you have
already failed."
Dallin nearly growled in frustration. Damn it, he really
wished people would stop calling him that.
"Failed at what?" he wanted to know. "What is the
Brethren?" The man's eyes closed and Dallin took hold of his
lapels, shook him. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"I am... a failure." Black eyelashes fluttered again, slid
back halfway to reveal eyes once again gone cloudy and dim.
"But for the fact that I did not abandon my charge," the man
whispered, smiling again. "I am you."
And then a long, whispered sigh left his throat, eyes fixed
to Dallin's in a last smirking smile. Dallin didn't need to check
for a pulse to know the man was dead, but he did anyway,
pulled back and sat on the floor with yet another curse.
What the bloody hell did that mean?
What the bloody hell did that mean?
"Shit," Dallin growled, set the safety on his gun and gave
his head a shake.
He crawled across to Calder, gave him a quick once-over
then blew out a long breath, peered about. The patrons of the
inn were still staring silently, but thankfully, they seemed to
have come back to themselves. Gazes met his with
awareness behind them, and no small amount of fear mixed
with morbid curiosity.
"Is anyone here a healer?" he wanted to know.
No one answered at first, but some of them turned to scan
their fellows, apparently looking for the familiar face of one of
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the local healers; a soft murmur bloomed and several heads
shook.
"Is he dead?"
The bold voice came from behind the bar, a hint of nervous
challenge in the tone. Dallin looked toward it, found the red-
headed woman who'd caught his attention before. There was
a man behind her now, tugging on her elbow and attempting
to shush her. She ignored him, pulling away from his grasp,
her bright eyes flicking from Dallin and then down to the
splayed body of Calder beside him, a bit of accusation flaring
behind her gaze. Dallin met it, focused on her alone.
"No," he answered steadily. "Not yet, at any rate. D'you
know him?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Why?" she wanted to know.
"Miri," the skinny man hissed.
She ignored him again. "What's your business with him?"
She pushed past the man and another great, burly fellow
Dallin guessed was the owner of the inn. A few servers had
huddled behind the bar, and she bullied them out of the way,
stepped out several paces toward Dallin. "Who are you?" she
demanded. Then she jerked her chin toward the other two
dead on the floor. "Who are they, and what business have ye
with the lad?"
Brash and bossy, and protective as a mother-hen she
reminded him of Corliss, right down to the hair. The girl
would've made an excellent sergeant in the army.
"My name is Brayden," Dallin answered, keeping his
demeanor calm and matter-of-fact. "I am a constable from
the city of Putnam, and my business is not for public ears."
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He shot a quick, pointed glance about the room before
looking back at the woman.
Her eyes narrowed, her own glance moving keenly over his
travel-stained get-up and lack of surcoat. She said nothing,
only raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Dallin sighed, reached a bloodstained hand into his breast
pocket and withdrew his badge, held it up. "Now, if this
satisfies you," he said as he tucked it back into his coat, "I
should appreciate it very much if you could send someone to
find a healer or physick to see to this fellow here." He leaned
over Calder, lifted one eyelid and then the other; the pupils
were even and reacted normally. "It doesn't look like he's
been addled, but he's had at least one good knock..." Dallin
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