Chains and Memory (16 page)

Julian's hands curled tight behind him. He wanted to pursue this lead, follow it back to the Unseelie and nail them to the wall for their assaults on Kim. But he had little to no experience with investigation; that was part of the training Neeya was presently getting, the training they had locked him out of. Would Neeya help? He hoped so. Even then, though, he wouldn't be much use. Here he wouldn't be much better, but— “Can you get me in to see her?”

“Not until we're sure she's stable. After that . . . I'll see what I can do.”

Meaning that Grayson didn't think it was likely. After all, he was neither her lawyer nor family.

Julian went still.
Family.

Dr. Argant was on a flight back to Atlanta right now. Given the way she and Kim had parted . . .
No
, Julian thought. She would still want to know. Would Kim want her mother informed? He had to believe so. Whatever Dr. Argant's feelings about her daughter's changed state, she'd spent almost every moment she could spare in D.C. trying to make certain Kim remained free of the government's control. She needed to know about this new development, in case it changed the picture.

Even as he thought that, he knew he was being optimistic.

“Thank you,” he said to Grayson, distracted. “Let me know.” When she was gone, he pulled out his port and began to draft a message to Kim's mother.

~

My muscles were still twitching, the aftershocks of the fairy dust setting my nerves alight at random intervals. The fever had faded, though, courtesy of some weapons-grade medicine, and the massive shields locking me in meant my gifts were under control for the moment—if not
my
control.

“They can't blame this on me,” I said to Lotze, pacing the small room. I had to do
something
to burn off the twitch. “I mean—yes, okay, obviously I was the one who did all those things. But I wasn't in my right mind. I was drugged.”

Lotze nodded, but it didn't look like a gesture of agreement. “I know that, Kim, and so do they. But you did a
lot
of damage. Six people are in the hospital, and nobody knows how long it will take to repair and reopen the station.”

“So a few politicians and contractors will have to walk to the Pentagon City stop,” I snapped. Then I waved my hands, silencing Lotze before he could say anything. “Sorry. I'm just—never mind. They can't override the courts just because I was drugged.”

He exhaled slowly and spread his hands on the table's aluminum surface. “No, they can't. But they
can
keep you in custody. And they're going to.”

“For how long?”

“Until your legal status is settled one way or the other.”

I stared at him, appalled. “But—that could be weeks. The bill is still in conference. Unless the Supreme Court grants cert and shoves somebody else off the docket to make room for us.”

“Which they might do,” Lotze said. “This just became a lot more pressing. We'd better hope they don't, because if this pushes them into rushing the case, it might well be because the Justices are worried about the danger you pose, and are in a hurry to make certain that danger is controlled.”

“But this wasn't
me!
” I forced myself to stop, take three slow breaths. They weren't steady. “I'm not at fault. This was
done
to me. Anybody could have been drugged the way I was.”

“True. But an ordinary blood wouldn't have been able to wreck a Metro station. And an ordinary wilder . . .” Lotze sighed, eyes grim. “An ordinary wilder could have been stopped more easily.”

With the deep shield. I'd already thrown up twice, coming out from under the effects of the drug; now I felt like doing it again. The Unseelie had timed it perfectly. Setting me up to look unstable, then hammering the final nail in.

This was what Toby had foreseen. Not the continuing effects of my original change, but a new attack. I'd been afraid of the wrong thing.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked. It came out as a strangled whisper.

Lotze's expression said
no.
Out loud, he said, “Wait. Stay calm. I know that doesn't sound like much, but right now, that's what matters. They can keep you for seventy-two hours without charging you; I suspect they'll go right down to the wire if they can. That gives me time to prepare, though, and it will help if you look stable. Don't fight their shields—the temporary ones, I mean. I might be able to get them to release you into house arrest, once we know the drug has worn off completely.”

And that was the
best
I could look forward to. I felt numb inside, except for anger. I couldn't tell whether that was an effect of the drug, or just my spirit going dead with despair. “Can I see Julian?”

“I'll try to get that approved,” Lotze said.

It wasn't a yes, but it was the best I was going to get. I swallowed hard, then said, “And somebody should tell my mother.”

~

The twitching faded. I collapsed, exhausted, onto the cot in my cell. My heavily warded, nuclear bunker of a cell, in a detention facility designed to hold psychics, with two agents watching over me to maintain the active shields locking my gifts down. How long would I be stuck like this?

I tried to focus on calming exercises, old ones from when I first manifested gifts, newer ones from my therapist in Atlanta. My mind kept outrunning my ability to settle it, though. The only hope I could see for myself was to prove this was an Unseelie conspiracy. It wouldn't change Lotze's point about me being vulnerable to attack, but it ought to get me some sympathy from the people who would decide my fate. But I couldn't do that from within a federal jail, and I didn't have much time regardless.

In fact, I had no time at all.

Lotze was the first one through the door, and words began pouring out of his mouth before I was even on my feet. “Kim, I'm sorry. I've asked for an extension of the stay, something to give us time to look for other options—”

There were agents behind him, fresh ones, four of them, and I felt the ripple as they took over the shields. “What's going on?” I cried, as two of them took me by the arms.

“The Supreme Court denied cert fifteen minutes ago,” Lotze said. One of the agents shouldered him out of the way as they began to lead me toward the door. “They aren't going to hear your case. The previous ruling goes into effect
now
.”

The ruling that said I was a wilder.

The one that said they could put the deep shield on me.

I began to fight against their hands, reflexively, even though I knew it wouldn't do any good. “No—they can't—let me go! Let me
go!
” I struck out with my gifts, hit the smooth surface of the active shields. I couldn't breathe. It was the Unseelie dragging me back into the cave, holding me pinned for the drug.
Fairy dust.
It took you away under the hill, and when you came back everything was changed. I screamed, kicked, tried to burst through the shields, until one of the agents took my jaw in her hand and caught my gaze before I thought to look away. Then her mind wrapped mine up in soft wool, silencing my protests, and I went limp as they took me to be gutted.

~

Julian hit the doors at a run. His mind was a white blank of horror. Somewhere beneath the shock, he knew running wouldn't change anything, he was too late, he'd been too late forever. Too late to protect Kim on the Metro, too late to keep the Unseelie from kidnapping her last fall. But he had to run, because there was nothing else he could do.

Grayson caught him as he came through into the waiting room. Literally caught him: she clotheslined him with one stiff arm, got a double handful of his shirt and brought him around to face her. “Julian. Stop. They already took her in.”

Of course they had. They'd been given the order to gut Kim months ago, when the lower court handed down its initial ruling; only the stay had kept them from following through. With that gone, they would chain her as soon as they could.

He hadn't even gotten the chance to see her first.

Julian found himself gripping Grayson's wrists, fingers digging into the cuffs of her sleeves, holding onto her as if she was the only thing keeping him up. It was very nearly true. A lifetime of training was collapsing into dust. He realized there was a shield around him—not his own—Grayson's, holding in what would have otherwise flooded free. For once in his life he was grateful for it, as he was grateful for the hands still holding his arms, keeping him on his feet.

She met his gaze squarely, not flinching from its effect. Her voice was low and firm. “Get yourself under control.
Now.
”

They weren't alone in the room. Two people stood near the far wall. One watched him: a middle-aged white man, dark hair going to grey. Julian had only met him once, but he remembered Dr. Dubois, Kim's father. The other, resolutely looking away, was her mother.

Julian dropped his hands, and Grayson let go of him. Dr. Dubois gave him a moment to collect himself, then came over, clearing his throat nervously. “They said it would be a little while. You might want to sit.”

As if anyone here could. Julian looked past Kim's father to Dr. Argant, pitched his voice to reach her. “You should have been here.”

Kim's mother pivoted sharply to face him. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” Julian said. Grayson made a warning noise, but he ignored her. “Kim's been talking for months about your influence, how many people you know in D.C. You could have done something to stop this.”

Dr. Argant's face stiffened with outrage. “I have done what I could, young man.”

“Everything but using my name,” Julian said, advancing toward her. “Everything but accepting what your daughter is now. Say it:
she's a wilder.
”

“I do not need you lecturing me on my relationship with my daughter!”

He laughed, short and cold. “Assuming you still have one, after this.”

Dr. Dubois interposed himself between the two of them, hands extended. He was putting out a calming surge, trying to ratchet down the tension. It didn't work. “There's no need for this. We're all exhausted and worried for Kim. The least we can do is be civil to one another.”

“Civil.” Julian spat the word. “This is a fine time to be worried about manners, with them in there torturing your daughter.”

“It's not torture,” Kim's mother snapped.

“Let's put the deep shield on
you
—see if you change your tune.” Julian glared at her. She looked away; she had to, if she didn't want to meet his eyes, but it also was a gesture of defeat. “You don't have the faintest fucking clue what it feels like to be gutted. Don't talk to me about what constitutes torture.”

“
Julian,
” Grayson said. It cut through the building fury, recalled him to himself. He breathed hard through his nose, grinding his teeth until his jaw hurt. Dr. Dubois put a hand on his wife's shoulder and began to speak quietly in her ear. Julian retreated once more to the other side of the room.

Too little, too late. He should have found a way through the planar injunction, contacted the Seelie as soon as he realized the Unseelie had gone after Kim again. Then they might have had enough time to help. It would have landed him in jail . . . but that would have been better than this.

It was his imagination that told him he was feeling anything from Kim. There was no way anything was getting through to this room; they would have taken her in under shields, and the ritual room itself would be layered twelve deep in protections. Nothing could possibly leak through. But his mind was perfectly capable of inventing the torments for itself.

He could do nothing but wait, and endure.

~

Whatever was in the IV made me feel increasingly disconnected from my body. It did nothing to dull the terror; it just cut me off from my surroundings, leaving me floating, with nothing to hold on to.

My head rolled around on the pillow as the gurney rattled down a hallway. We passed through a set of doors, the light briefly dimming. Then I heard echoing voices, and knew we were in the ritual room.

The air was chill around me, but I smelled candle smoke. Hands lifted me, mattress and all, off the gurney and onto a new surface. Tears slipped down my face as more hands bound my limbs to the surface beneath with brisk, efficient movements. Someone pried my mouth open and put in a plastic bit that would keep me from biting my tongue. My body began to tremble uncontrollably; I heard a murmur about the IV, and then the shaking subsided.

Stalagmites, forming a ring around me —

An echoing thud as the doors shut. Candlelight glinted off the ceramic-tiled walls. I was distantly aware of movement, of people, making a circle around my bed.

The stone vanished, transforming into the lithe forms of the Unseelie.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn't command my body.

Hands grabbed my arms, stretching them wide; someone else pulled my head back roughly. They brought the tube up to my face —

“No,” I whispered. The word barely made it past my lips.

A puff of powder, and fire enveloped my soul.

~

Sweat poured down Cooper's face. The power in the room made the air thrum, made his bones vibrate. He'd known going into this that he was tackling something nobody had ever done before: installing the deep shield on a fully-grown psychic, a young woman already trained to use her gifts. He'd been preparing for this since the DSPA approached him four months ago. But there was only so much he could predict, even with the assistance of a skilled diviner, and he hadn't known to prepare for
this
.

He didn't even know what was going on. The wilder wasn't fighting back; she was too thoroughly shielded and drugged for that. But her body was trembling, as if she were having an epileptic seizure. Lunetta's face was white, but the anesthesiologist had reassured him it was safe to continue. Cooper had to trust her. The sooner they got this over with, the better. No matter what the officials at the Division for Special Psychic Affairs said, he was beginning to think that putting the deep shield on an adult was a very bad idea.