Swallowing Darkness (Merry Gentry #7)(52)

“If you raise the window, I can’t do this spell,” I said.
“The bomb is still going to go off.”
“You said it couldn’t hurt this car,” I said.
“You’re our protectee. I’d rather not take the chance.”
She eased us forward, and started angling around the truck in front of us. The radio was asking why we were moving. The word “bomb” seemed to galvanize everyone. Engines roared to life, and unfortunately, there was confusion. Too many people had fallen to the illusions and tricks, so there were just a few moments of confusion while they sorted who would collect the people who were hurt or dead. Seconds only, but seconds count.
I don’t know what I had thought would happen. I simply put the bomb inside Siobhan’s body. Had I thought that her flesh would be enough to contain the explosion? I think I had, but I was no solider. I wasn’t truly even a warrior. I made the mistake of someone whose main ability is magic. I didn’t think of the physical, and suddenly the physical was all there was.The concussion of the bomb rocked the Humvee, splattering it with bits of flesh, bone, and shrapnel. My window was open. Something smashed into my right shoulder and upper chest. I was rocked backward, thrown onto the seat, and ended on the floorboards.
I’d lost my grip on Aben-dul. I managed to yell out, “Don’t touch the sword, whatever you do! Don’t let anyone touch the sword!” I forced myself to get up and grope for the hilt. If Gregorio or Lance touched it, they’d be turned into what Conri and Siobhan had….
Gregorio’s face was over me. “You’re hit!” She turned back to the driver. “She’s hit. The princess is hit!”
I just kept trying to reach the sword. It was as if the world had narrowed down to me getting the hilt back in my hand. I couldn’t let them touch it. They wouldn’t know. They wouldn’t understand.
Gregorio ripped my cloak away. I crawled back up on the seat as Corporal Lance drove us over the uneven road. My hand closed on the hilt as I felt Gregorio behind me. “I have to see the wounds, Princess, please.”
She’d climbed into the back with me. Her hands were bloody as she reached for me. I turned from her, and used every bit of concentration I had left to slide Aben-dul into its sheath and set the locks.
Gregorio turned me to face her as the Humvee bounced over the road. “Fuck! We need a medic, now!”
I looked down where she was looking, and saw nails sticking out of my body where the leather coat had left it bare. I stared down at the blood and the things sticking out of me, and thought, “Shouldn’t it hurt more?”
“Her skin’s cold. She’s going into shock. Shit!”
I thought, “No, I can’t go into shock. That might kill me. Wouldn’t it?” I couldn’t seem to think clearly. But the moment I decided not to go into shock, the pain hit me. It was like a smaller cut, when it doesn’t hurt until you see the blood. But this was not small, and the pain was shearing, burning. Why did it burn? Was it my imagination, or could I really feel the nails embedded in my flesh?
I grabbed Gregorio with my left hand, because I couldn’t raise the right one. Something was very wrong with my shoulder. “I need Doyle. I need Rhys. I need my men.”
“We’re getting you to safety, then we’ll worry about your guards,” the driver yelled back.
Corporal Lance kept us moving, and the other Humvees moved so that we could. We were moving past the car that had held Galen, Sholto, and Mistral. They weren’t in it. Gregorio was trying to get me to lie down. I batted her hands away. Where were they?
I sent my magic seeking them, and felt a tug on that line of power. Someone who was attached to my power was hurt, very hurt. His life flickered like fire in a strong wind. Death was coming. 
I couldn’t think of anything else but that I had to get to him. Had to get to him. Had to…. I touched Gregorio on her face, and whispered, “I’m sorry,” then smiled at her. I called my glamour and let her see not what I wanted her to see, but anything she wished to see. Anything if it would get me out of here, and to that flickering light I could feel out there in the dark.
Her face softened, and she whispered, “Kevin.”
I smiled, and when she leaned in to kiss me, I kissed her back, ever so gently, and laid her down on the seat with a smile still curling her lips. She would dream of the man who had given her that kiss. It was a type of glamour that was completely illegal, under the same heading as a date-rape drug. But I had no interest in anything but getting out.
I opened the door. Lance slammed on the brakes, and yelled, “What are you doing, Princess?”
“He’s dying. I have to help him.” I stepped out into the road. I used my good arm to cradle the injured one, and began to move through the trees. I would have run, but that line of power was flickering too low. If I ran, I would lose it, as if my running were a stronger wind than his life could survive. I prayed, and wrapped glamour around me. Glamour to keep our driver from seeing me and dragging me back. Glamour to hide from the sidhe who wanted me dead. Glamour to make me look like whoever the person expected to see, and would be glad to see. It was a type of personal glamour that I had never tried before, but I just suddenly knew that I could do it. I hid by being whoever or whatever they needed to see, and I moved away from them all. I had to find him before he died. I wouldn’t let myself think who it was that I chased in the dark. There would be time enough to see who I had lost when I got to his side.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
OF EVERYONE I HAD EXPECTED TO FIND AT THE END OF THAT powerful drawing in, a soldier was not among them. The man lay on his stomach, hidden where he’d crawled into the woods. His uniform had done what my glamour did, hidden him.
I would have questioned whether I’d taken a wrong turn or followed the wrong scent, but the sense of urgency and rightness was too clear. This was the man who had drawn me, blind with magic, through the edges of battle.
I knelt in the leaves and weeds in the winter-locked forest. I had to turn him over with my left hand, for my right shoulder was still full of the nails. I could flex my hand, but I could not raise it high enough to do anything but steady the man’s body as I pushed. The pain from just that small helping movement was excruciating. It left me breathless, and the bare trees swam in streamers of sickening black and white. I rested on the man’s chest for a moment, eyes closed, not sure if I was going to throw up or pass out.
Then something fell against my cheek. The touch made me raise my head. A single pink rose petal slid onto the man’s chest. The Goddess was with me. I would not fail.
I raised my eyes and found the face under the uniform. It was the wizard Dawson, with his pale hair and paler face. So terribly pale among the darkened trees. He looked like his own ghost.
I touched his face with my good hand. He was icy to the touch. I checked for the big pulse in the neck. My chest tightened, because there was nothing. Then…a tenuous, hesitating pulse. He was near death, but not dead.
I whispered, “Goddess, help me help him.”
The pink petal blew or rolled onto his lips. His eyes flew wide, and he grabbed my injured arm. The pain took my vision, filled the world with white starbursts and nausea.
My vision cleared, and someone was holding me in their arms. It was Dawson, sitting up, looking down at me. “Princess Meredith, are you all right?”I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He’d been the one who was almost dead, and he wanted to know if I was all right. His hand hovered above my shoulders and arm where the nails were still embedded. He held up a bloody hand, and showed me a nail.
“I woke up with you and this on me. I was dying. I know I was dying. You saved me. How?”
I had no idea how to explain. I opened my mouth to say “I have no idea,” but what came out was, “Remember when you felt the call of my touch?”
“Yes.”
“I followed your call.”
“But you’re hurt.”
“But you’re not,” I said. “Help me up.”
He did what I asked, no arguing. Maybe it was shock, or maybe he couldn’t refuse me. I neither knew nor cared. There was more need out there in the dark. I could feel it.
Dawson kept a steadying hand on my good arm, and let me lead us through the trees. The fighting was a distant sound of guns, the flashing of lightning, and green fire. The fire meant that Doyle was still alive. I wanted to go to him, but another single pink petal fell onto the front of my coat. In that moment, more than any other before it, I trusted in the Goddess. I trusted that she would not have me save the soldiers and lose the men I loved. I prayed for courage enough not to falter or question. My reward was another body on the ground.
The man lay on his back. Dark eyes stared up at the sky. His mouth opened and shut as if he couldn’t figure out how to breathe. The front of his uniform was torn away from one side of his chest. It had been peeled away as if by something stronger than human hands. His chest steamed in the winter air. I’d never seen a wound steam in the cold, never thought, “The warmth of life is floating away.”
Dawson helped me kneel. He said, “Brennan, this is Princess Meredith. She’ll help you.”
Brennan’s mouth opened, but no words came out, only a trickle of blood that was too dark, too thick. I laid the pink petal on his face, but there was no miraculous waking. He was awake, and the terror in his eyes said that he knew he was dying. I did not know how I had healed Dawson, so I did not know how to repeat it.