Страница 58 из 72
“Don’t let go.” Lindsay squeezed Dane’s hand.
That got Lindsay a smile. He was used to the flash of fangs and a feral glint in Dane’s eyes, but Dane
was human again—or more than human—and this smile was beatific, like an angel or a saint, and the heat
in Dane’s eyes was pure gold. For a moment, Lindsay forgot about everything except for Dane’s beauty
and the realization that he was looking at his lover. His lover.
“We’ll be home soon,” Dane promised, ducking his head so that his words drifted warm against
Lindsay’s cheek. He pressed a kiss where his words had landed and a shiver ran down Lindsay’s spine.
Lindsay slid his free hand up along Dane’s neck, feeling the beat of Dane’s pulse alive and strong
against his fingers. Home. It sounded so good. Moore and her lackeys were a small shadow on the brightness that was his life right now. Home, magic, future… Months earlier, Lindsay’d had no hope of
anything, and now he had it all.
“I’ll try to get us there.” He kissed Dane’s silky golden skin where his fingers lay and tasted that
familiar musk that was home already. “If you can find our luggage, you’ll be my hero.”
“I’m not already?” Dane pulled away, laughing. “I’m wounded.”
“You’ll heal, remember?” Lindsay said dryly, elbowing him. “Look for our luggage, so I can do my
job.”
“Get to it.” Dane squeezed his hand and Lindsay took a slow breath.
There was a hollow in the center of his magic, like the eye of a storm, and Lindsay made sure that he
and Dane were safe within it. He began to erase them from everyone’s attention. In the confines of the
156
www.samhainpublishing.com
Tatterdemalion
luggage area, it was easy to do, but he couldn’t make things quiet. The chatter around him increased,
intensified, until he was wincing from the noise.
“Are you okay?”
Lindsay could barely hear Dane’s voice over the clamor, but he nodded. He was aware of Dane
gathering their few things, slinging bags over his shoulder, sliding his other hand into Lindsay’s.
“Time to go. Seems like it’s working.”
They moved in a blank space in the world, people veering around them without looking, always at the
same distance, like there was a wall around them. A wall of nothing. People’s eyes slid off of them as though even the air around them was hard to look at.
I can do this, Lindsay said sternly, trying to calm the panic that started to rise in his chest. He felt claustrophobic. Had it been this noisy before he’d put his magic up?
I think he’s cheating on me. What? Dane wasn’t, wouldn’t, they weren’t even… I wanted to go to Hawaii, but, no, she had to have Disneyland. Hawaii, who wanted to go there? Lindsay had never even considered Disneyland… I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry! A toddler’s wail cut through Lindsay’s focus.
Oh, God. Lindsay clung to Dane’s hand so hard that his own knuckles cracked.
“Lindsay?” Dane’s gentle rumble cut through the noise.
“I’m okay,” Lindsay lied. There had to be a way to make it stop. Why now? It would have happened
on the plane, if… Lindsay bit his lip, trying to breathe through his nose and not panic and keep the illusion up all at once. Someone was watching, looking for them. He could feel it like paranoia creeping up the
back of his throat.
On the plane, there had been a soft whispering that he’d ignored because Dane’s kisses felt so good.
Maybe he’d been able to hold on because of that distraction, maybe there’d been fewer minds on his. It was
so loud, Lindsay just wanted it to stop. Please.
They wouldn’t be in the airport much longer. Lindsay’s head was throbbing, but he made himself
hang on to the illusion. The idea that they were being watched was getting stronger and stronger. If he was hearing the thoughts of everyone around them, there could really be someone there. If he dropped the
illusion and they were found—or worse, followed—it would be his fault. He didn’t want to be weak.
I’m so tired of being afraid. Dane was a tall, dark shadow at the margin of his awareness. Safety.
Haven. Dane would protect him. Lindsay just had to hold it together.
Taniel had talked about shielding the mind. Lindsay hadn’t thought it was necessary, he hadn’t felt
anything from Taniel or Dane, so he’d never thought to pursue the idea. It was too late for that. When he
could, if he got through this, he’d work on it. But now, he had to survive.
The Institute had taught him things, Lindsay realized. He recognized the sensation of drawing into
himself, detaching from his own body. There was something about working magic that was akin to
www.samhainpublishing.com
157
Anah Crow and Dia
clenching a muscle rather than sustaining a thought. His mind could hold the illusion even while his
thoughts—his self—slipped away.
It still felt like hell, but Lindsay had survived hell before. He had survived Moore and her artifact. He
could survive this. I am stronger than you. Remembering that gave him more strength against the bullet thoughts firing through the minds that were all linked to his in the moment. It let him keep walking.
Lindsay had no idea where they were. He was blind. Belatedly, he realized that the last thing he’d
seen outside of the illusion was the sign as they’d left the baggage area. His eyes were working—how he
knew, he couldn’t tell—but he couldn’t see, and he couldn’t hear, either. His mind was full of so much
vision, so much sound, everything anyone under his spell was experiencing, that he was deaf and
blind…and dumb. If he opened his mouth, he had no idea if his own words would come out or someone
else’s.
And that was when he panicked. He tried to pull out of the illusion, tried to get his mind back. He’d
been under an illusion of his own—that magic worked. That it was simple. That he’d been defective and that was why he couldn’t control it, why he couldn’t use it to save himself. But he’d been wrong. There was nothing magical about magic at all.
Lindsay tried to talk, to tell Dane he couldn’t do this anymore. He fought to get into his own body, to
be the one behind his eyes— his eyes and no one else’s eyes. He couldn’t draw attention to them, he couldn’t give in to the urge to claw at his head and tear at his hair so he could feel it and know that this was his body, his own body. His jaw was clamped—he thought it was his jaw—on desperate whimpers.
Just when he felt a scream about to break out of his throat, everything was silent, even him. As though
someone had dropped a bell jar over a candle, the world was utterly still and the fuel for Lindsay’s panic
was used up and gone. He was locked in stillness like an insect in amber, alone except for a sense of
sympathy.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” It was a woman’s voice, one Lindsay had never heard before.
Dane was drawing him off to the side, so they were close to the wall, out of the immediate press of
bodies, but everything was still moving around them, everything was chaotic. Someone’s luggage fell off
of a cart with a crash, and a mother with two suitcases and three children stopped right in front of them,
forcing Dane to step away from Lindsay or run them over.
Dane. Lindsay reached for Dane, but the impulse never made it to his hand.
“Don’t worry,” the woman said. “It’ll get easier once you learn. I’ll be there to teach you this time.”
“Lindsay…” Dane said his name, trying to reach for him, but that was all. Lindsay watched him wind