Mate Bond(53)

"So?" Ryan struggled from Gil's grasp and finally managed to pull the sword out of the sheath. "It's worth a shot."

"What is?" Bowman demanded, his voice thundering. "Ryan, put that down."

A beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and thick trees and landed  on the sword. The blade glittered brilliantly. Or was the sword itself  creating the light? The lit runes seemed to dance.                       
       
           



       

Mists suddenly boiled up around Ryan. Bowman shouted and leapt forward.  Gil seized Ryan and held him tightly as the sword shot forward, trying  to pull Ryan with it.

"Damn it," Bowman yelled. "Stop!"

Pierce was right behind him, shouting as well. Cristian came running,  but Jamie bound past them all and reached Ryan and Gil before the others  could.

Ryan cried out as the sword pulled at him. Gil held him, but the sword  tugged hard, lifting Ryan's arms straight out. Jamie reached them and  wrapped his arms around both Gil and Ryan, trying to pull them back.

The mists whirled, and a wave of thick fog poured into the clearing, obliterating everything.

Bowman waved his hands in front of his face in the sudden whiteout,  calling for Ryan. Cristian, beside him, yelled for him too, as did Cade.

"Aw, shit!" Ryan's voice rose high and shrill above them all.

The fog shrank back, as though Ryan's cry had slapped it apart. The  dense whiteness lessened until it was nothing more than a dampening  mist, and trees, Shifters, and Turner's trailer swam back into view.

Ryan kept swearing, using words Bowman hadn't known he knew. Bowman  reached his son as Jamie and Gil set him down. Pierce was standing over  Ryan in a towering fury.

"You dropped it?" Pierce yelled. "You dropped the Sword of the Guardian into an unknown, out-of-reach, magical world?"

The sword was gone. Ryan didn't have it, Jamie didn't have it, and Gil looked as baffled as the other two.

Ryan stared up at Pierce without flinching. "Not on purpose," he said, meeting Pierce's gaze. "Obviously."

"Shit!" Pierce swung away, fists clenching, his face draining of color.

Cade scrubbed his hand over his short hair. "This can't be good."

"We must retrieve it," Cristian said. His scowl was fierce, the man more  troubled than Bowman ever remembered seeing him. "There is too much  magic in the sword for it to be safe there."

"No kidding," Bowman said. "But how the hell do you propose to get it back?"

"Aw, crap." Gil's exclamation dragged Bowman from his irritating uncle-in-law.

Bowman's impatience turned to fear a second later. Gil was standing by  swirling mist, and Ryan was gone. A sweep of the clearing showed that  his son was nowhere in sight-the others were looking too.

"He was standing next to me," Gil said, stricken. "And then he wasn't. Bowman, I'm sorry. I had him . . ."

The mist cleared again, revealing the trees beyond, as they'd stood in  that woods for centuries. Tall, serene, silent, dripping as the sun  began to dispel the early-morning frost.

The mists had taken Ryan, and now he too was lost.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR




"Mom!"

Kenzie lifted her head, which she found difficult. Grief was tugging  her, profound grief, wanting to embrace her in its darkness.

Don't give up, not yet, she told herself fiercely. There is a way out, a way back to Bowman. You'll find it.

Shifters found grief debilitating. Loss was something they'd had to  learn to live with, but getting through it was tough, and sometimes the  Shifter didn't make it.

Kenzie knew it could not be Ryan's voice she heard. She'd seen the  vision of Bowman and Ryan three more times, both of them waving madly to  her and looking puzzled when she didn't run to them. Each time, it had  broken her heart.

Turner was dead meat.

"Mom! Hey! Help me!"

Kenzie closed her eyes. There were bad things in the mists, Brigid had  told her-bloodsucking vampire-like creatures and other evils she'd never  heard of.

"Geez, Mom! You can't be that mad at me."

Kenzie's eyes popped open. Sure sounded like Ryan.

Brigid was alert, peering into the warm darkness. "I hear," she said. "Resist. Do not go to it."

"I'm stuck!" Ryan yelled. "In lots of mud. Sucking me down. I need  someone with longer arms than mine. Mom, what is wrong with you?"

Kenzie took a few steps into the trees, the darkness closing around her  like a glove. She heard things out there, faint snarls, saw a flash of  red eyes.

Ryan's voice cut through the night. "Shit, what is that? I thought Dad said zombies weren't real."

Kenzie's heart pounded as she quickened her pace.

"Aw, man, this would never happen to Harry Dresden." Ryan coughed. "No, wait, this would totally happen to him."

Kenzie ran forward. "Ryan! Keep talking. I'm on my way!"

Brigid dashed after her. "No. Kenzie!"

The Fae woman, surprisingly fast, seized her by the arm. Kenzie shook her off, and the mists closed around them both.                       
       
           



       

Kenzie almost fell into the bog that opened at her feet. Only Brigid  grabbing her again kept Kenzie from plunging straight into it.

Ryan was up to his neck in mud and goo, both hands wrapped around a  low-hanging branch. His eyes were round, his face frozen with fear. When  he saw Kenzie, tears trickled down his cheeks, cutting through black  filth.

"Hold on to me," Kenzie said swiftly to Brigid.

Not waiting for Brigid to answer, Kenzie threw herself on her belly and  inched forward into the bog. Brigid's strong fingers gripped her ankles,  the Fae woman cursing in her Celtic-sounding language.

"Let go of the branch," Kenzie commanded Ryan as she began to sink into softer ground. "Grab my hand."

Ryan didn't want to release his desperate hold of the overhanging limb.  He was terrified, and the distance between it and Kenzie's hands was a  stretch.

"You can make it," Kenzie told him. "It's like jumping up and grabbing  the zip line as it goes down. Don't think I didn't see you do that."

"Sorry, Mom," Ryan said, voice breaking. "They dared me, and I'm leader's son. I had to."

"I know. But I saw you succeed. You jumped up and grabbed that bar and rode it down. This is the same thing."

It wasn't at all the same, but Kenzie didn't know what else to say to  him. If she inched any farther, she'd be diving face-first into the bog.  Then Brigid would have to find a way to haul them both out before they  drowned.

"Come on, son," Kenzie said, voice shaking. "Let's get out of here, find  your dad, and then kick some anthropology professor ass."

Ryan sucked in a breath, coughing when mud came with it. He threw  himself forward, let go of the branch, and scrabbled frantically for  Kenzie's hands.

He missed one; Kenzie caught him with the other. Her arm jarred with the impact, her aching fingers wanting to jerk open.

Kenzie made herself clamp down on Ryan's wrist. She swung her other arm  around and fixed her hold on the back of his neck, his scruff if he'd  been wolf. She hauled him up, the bog releasing him slowly, slowly.

The mud sucked at him greedily, not wanting to let go of a life. Kenzie  didn't think a patch of mud could be sentient-then again, around here,  who knew?

With a boiling, sucking sound, the bog abruptly released Ryan. The  sudden lack of resistance sent Kenzie rolling backward, Ryan in her  arms.

She sat up, clinging to him and bawling like a baby. Kenzie rocked him,  her son, her precious cub, who was real, filthy, and stinking like  rotting vegetation.

"It's okay." Ryan patted Kenzie, though he was sniffling back tears  himself. "I'm all right, Mom. We're all right. What took you so long?"

Brigid was down on one knee next to them. "She thought you were an illusion. This place is full of them."

Ryan lifted his head and stared at Brigid with wet eyes. "Hey, did you  know there was a Fae next to us? I've never seen one before." He  wrinkled his nose. "Do they all smell this bad?"

Brigid frowned, her long braids touching Ryan as she leaned to him. "You have no room to speak, young offspring."

"You don't, you know," Kenzie said to Ryan, holding him close again. "You stink something terrible."

Ryan looked offended, and Kenzie started crying again. This was her son;  he was alive and with her. Hope broke through her despair, and her  heart warmed anew. They'd get through this. And home. They had to.


* * *

Bowman kept moving because he knew that if he stopped, he'd die. Having  both Kenzie and his son ripped from him had made the world grow surreal,  outlines flowing and blurring into unimportant shapes.

Voices around him were hollow as his Shifters continued to search for a way into the mists.