Part 23 (1/2)
”Arrest us, probably,” Masera said absentlya”though his gaze on Druid was anything but absent.
”He came from the spring,” she reminded him. ”With memories of things that haven't happened yet, and a vaccine that doesn't exist yet. He came from Mars Nodens. Nuadha. From thea”” and then she couldn't say it. Not quite. It was too absurd when put into words.
Masera was never so shy of such things. ”The future,” he said, but then even he looked surprised at what he'd said.
Brenna shook her head. ”No. No way.”
Masera said nothing. He looked at Druid and said nothing, although his mouth opened as he hunted for words. Finally he swore, a single emphatic word.
”Anyway,” Brenna said, nonsensically enough, ”Nuadha liked hounds. All his statues at his Lydney shrine are hounds. So if he was going to send a dog back from . . . if he was going to send a dog, he'd have sent a hound.”
”Gaze hounds,” Masera said, and shook his head, waving the printouts at her. ”They were all gaze hounds. Aloof dogs. Laid-back, except for those moments they're on their prey. Cardigans are people-oriented herding dogs. Intensely loyal. The kind of dog who could connect with you so strongly, so quickly, that you'd put up with his problems.”
”The future.” She said it out loud, trying it on for size. And then realized, ”A world where no one stopped the rabies,” more horrified than ever to put the borrowed memories into perspective.
”Or Parker,” Masera said. He reached over her legs to give Druid a gentle scritch, as much full of awe as affection. ”He's here to change that. With your help.”
”Our help, I hope,” Brenna said. ”We. Us. I don't think I can do this alone.”
”We and us. Oh, yes.” He gave her lower leg a squeeze, still looking at Druid. ”Nuadha of the Silver Hand,” he added. ”That's what they called him.” He dropped the paper in his lap, through with it. ”He had a prosthetic hand made of silver, and an invincible sword that could not fail to slay his enemy. Looks like Druid here is one package meant to be all of it. No wonder he's nuts.”
”I don't know,” Brenna said, realizing that to Druid, even being in the Pets! parking lot for the first timea”seeing Masera for the first timea”could pull up conflicting memories of his own past. His own past . . . in the future. ”I'd like to think I'd have done half as well under the same circ.u.mstances. Though that does explain why he's Nuadha's Silver Druid. I'd thought maybe it was for the speckling on his ears.”
”Maybe it is,” Masera said. ”We could go nuts, too, if we give too much meaning to every little thing. There are enough meaning-laden things going on here as it is.” He rubbed a hand along his jaw, looking speculative, still watching Druid. ”Hold on,” he said, carefully lifting her legs so he could get up, and not explaining further as he left the house. She heard his vehicle door close a few moments later and when he returned he had a hypodermic and packaged alcohol pad. She watched without questioning as he scrubbed the inside of Druid's front leg, held his thumb over the vein, and withdrew a full syringe of blood. Druid allowed it with a much put-upon sigh, his ears planing down to indicate his displeasure. Masera capped the needle and left again, just long enough to deposit the collection in Brenna's refrigerator.
She didn't ask why, as he returned a final time and reclaimed his seat beside her. She didn't have to. Instead, she asked, ”What next?”
He gingerly rubbed his eyes. ”Next? Are you hungry? I am.”
”I missed dinner,” Brenna admitted. ”Not that I ever have what you might call a real dinner, but I missed it all the same. That's not what I meant, though.” She put her hands over her face, covering her eyes with the sweater cuffs. Thinking, suddenly, that she had to return to work the next day, and that she had a groomer interview along with all the customer appointments. And she had the distinct feeling their work was far from done tonight.
”I know,” he said. ”Thought I'd fit it in while we still could. Because I don't think we have any choicea”we've got to figure out a way to reinforce that spring anchor to Nuadha, and we've got to do it tonight. If Parker gets to it, if he reorients it back to the darkness, we'll lose anything you might have gained today.”
”The darkness,” Brenna said, suddenly overcome by a moment of great silliness, just peeking out from above her fingers and cuffs. ”Let's just call it Harvey. Or Fred.”
”Parker Junior,” Masera suggested.
”Parker Senior,” Brenna said. ”It's bigger than him, I think. And wild. He just doesn't know it.” She dropped her hands, struck by a sudden thought. ”You know, as long as old Fred doesn't have access to the spring, I think it's working through Parker. After it went for us at the spring, Parker looked beat. Just as bad as me and Druid. That's how I got out of there. He might actually be its weak point right now.” Then she grimaced. ”I don't really want to take that thought to its natural conclusion.” She should have pulled that trigger.
She still knew she couldn't.
”Then let's not,” Masera said quietly. ”Let's get something to eat.”
She opened her mouth to protest, thinking of Parker and the darkness and the spring, but Masera shook his head. ”I know,” he said. ”I don't want to wait, either. But we'd better not be hungry and exhausted when we go out there. It doesn't mean we have to wait till morning.”
She still didn't want to wait . . . but she was hungry. And exhausted. She leaned her head back on the couch and sighed out some of that exhaustion. ”It's dark now already,” she said. ”It's not going to be any darker later on.”
”No,” he agreed. ”Not under this moon.”
”Medusa Moon,” she said.
”Not great for us,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face. ”Be better if we could put off any more confrontation with Parker until Beltane and after the new moon.” He glanced at his watch. ”Going on nine, now. That pizza place on Main Street should still be open.”
It was. They split a large pizza between them, eating enough to make Brenna waddle back into the house when they returned. Masera disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared wearing gla.s.ses, cla.s.sic and un.o.btrusive frames that somehow turned his generally ruffled appearance into something more refined . . . if at the tail end of its day. By then Brenna was on the couch, trying to turn her mind to ways of strengthening her connection with Mars Nodens.
Nuadha.
When Masera sat next to her, she pulled the afghan over herself and curled up against him without saying a word.
And with the fate of the world riding on her shoulders, she did something so mundane as to fall asleep.
Chapter 18.
URUZ.
Strength & Endurance
Something pushed her leg, gently. Something cold. Brenna muttered in irritation and swatted at it, connecting with nothinga”but there it came again. Slowly she woke enough to recognize the nudge of Druid's nose. Had she forgotten to let him out? No, he'd gone when they were returning from pizza. Then . . . ?
Then maybe he most of all of them still had Parker and the darkness on his mind. Or maybe he was still dog enough not to know what bothered him, but had some link to Nuadha, urging him on.
Nuadha. It was hard to think of Mars Nodens by that name. But if that's how Druid had come to her . . .
She realized, then, that her generally pliable but firm sleeping surface wasn't the sagging couch to which she'd grown accustomed. No, it was flat muscle and bone and gently rising ribs.
Masera.
No, Iban.
How strange, she thought, that things between them had coalesced so suddenly. How strange that they needed to say so little about it.
But then, that was Masera.
The living room lamp was on its lowest setting, and Brenna carefully moved back from him, far enough so she didn't think she'd wake him, and still close enough to watch hima”the gla.s.ses slightly askew on his face as he leaned back against the arm of the couch with his head tipping to the side in a way that he would surely rue once he woke. She considered waking him with a kiss, and then reconsidered the old-pizza taste fermenting in her mouth and moved away instead. She padded to the bathroom to brush her teeth, plait her hair into a quick braid, and wash her face.
The bruises looked both better and worsea”already less swollen, but the red parts turning dark and more obvious. She'd spend the next few days inventing excuses for that, no doubt. I walked into a door. An elephant used me for mortar and pestle. An ancient source of angry power got p.i.s.sed with me and tried to kill me.
They all sounded about equally plausible to her.
She rummaged on the bedroom floor for a pair of jeans that wasn't too dirty. Shoving her cold feet into slippers, she moved quietly to the kitchen, turning on only the light over the stove.
There was a particular feeling to creeping around one's own house while trying not to wake a guest who needed to sleep a little longer. A caring thing, almost like a conspiracy between her and the house, and something that made the quiet time special. Even Druid seemed to be in on it; he'd curled up on the part of the afghan that draped onto the floor, and though he followed her with those big chocolate brown eyes when she pa.s.sed by the entryway, they were the only things about him that moved.
Chocolate.