Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess Read online

  Jaime was in the indoor ring, doing concentrated work with her high level competition horse, Sabre. Jess knew she wouldn't notice the arrivals, and wouldn't want to be interrupted. She stepped out in the aisle to greet them when they drew near, about to pass without noticing her quiet presence.

  "Jess," Eric said, and his voice gave the name more significance than a greeting deserved.

  "Eric," she returned, her own voice in the low end of husky and still awkward with the syllables. She looked at Dayna who, uncharacteristically, was allowing Eric's arm around her shoulders, plainly upset. In the unthinking honesty that was Jess, she sought to comfort. She moved close to Dayna, a hug without arms; it was only as an afterthought she added that human facet of the gesture.

  She was taken completely by surprise when Dayna began to sob. She didn't hear the grief and pain that came with her own cries, but instead, a frightened, childlike quality. After only a moment, Dayna's boyish frame ceased its shaking, and drew away from Jess, wiping her reddened eyes with the back of her hand, staring at Jess like she hadn't quite expected to find comfort there.

  Eric said quietly, "Dayna had quite a scare this morning."

  Jess heard the clop of Sabre's powerful stride and held her questions. Jaime was coming, and she would say anything that needed to be said, would ferret out the last bit of information that mattered. For Jess had no doubt that it would matter, that it was not coincidence that Eric had brought the shaken Dayna here.

  Jaime stopped just behind Jess and murmured, "Stand," to the horse. There was a pause, conspicuous in its lack of greeting. Then, "What's going on?"

  Jess stepped away, putting her back against the wall to allow Jaime into the group. She reached to retrieve Sabre's discarded halter and held it out as Jaime slipped the gelding's bridle off. Jaime gave him half a granola bar and left him in cross-ties. "So?" she prompted, tugging her gloves off and tucking them into her waistband.

  "I got into Derrick's room today." Dayna's voice husked into a low whisper.

  "He caught you," Jaime said, with a glower on her face that was meant for Derrick.

  Dayna nodded, then changed her mind with a quick shake of her head. "I hid under the bed."

  "Dayna, why? You're an employee—you could have told him you were checking on the plumbing, or the light bulbs, or anything."

  "I didn't think he'd let me go, knowing what I'd seen," Dayna said, regaining some of her natural asperity. "He had a man in his room, drugged and tied. Hurt. He called him—"

  "Carey," Jess breathed.

  "Carey," Dayna affirmed.

  "Carey!" This last was Jaime, caught completely by surprise. "Did you talk to him?"

  "Just a little. He wasn't in very good shape—and what he did say didn't make much sense. He was worried about someone getting hold of . . . something. I think he said 'spells.' "

  Jaime frowned. "Did you call the police?"

  "I thought you two didn't want the police in on this," Dayna said, looking from Jaime to Eric. "So I waited."

  "No! No police," Jess said decisively. She had not lost her equine memory, which was as formidable as any elephant's. The uniformed men had done nothing but blunder, as far as she was concerned—taking her unawares in the fountain, scaring the chestnut into his fatal run.

  "Okay, okay," Jaime said, holding a hand up for time out. She turned back to her horse and hauled up on the girth billets to free the buckles, tugged the saddle off the gelding's towering back. "Start from the beginning, Dayna. There's no point in arguing over what to do until we understand what's happened."

  Jess tossed her head impatiently, but Jaime caught her eye, and she responded to the directive within that gaze. She took a deep breath and blew softly through her nose, and listened.

  "I've told you most of it," Dayna shrugged. "This guy was tied to one of the beds. He was dirty and smelly, and had a pretty gross bandage around his arm. I didn't get much from him—I'm pretty sure he was drugged. He was worried about some kind of . . . well, 'spells' is what he said. And he talked about Lady."

  Jess stood straight up. "Lady," she murmured.

  Dayna scowled slightly. "He didn't say Lady was a horse."

  Jess snorted expressively but kept her thoughts to herself.

  "Well, he didn't. Just said he was worried about someone getting hold of these spells. I was trying to untie him when Derrick came back." A scowl. "Scum."

  "I noticed." Jaime checked the heat of Sabre's chest and returned him to his stall. "Jess, do you know what Carey meant when he said 'spells'?"

  Jess sifted through memories of the time before, distinct but hard to translate into human terms. She knew Carey was most likely to be concerned about that which they took from Arlen's stable to the other stables—lately, usually Sherra's, a woody, friendly place with the best of grain, the leafiest green hay. And she also knew Arlen could make unexpected things happen, and that Carey referred to these things under the generic name of "spells." She wasn't sure how Carey could put one of those spells into the saddlebags, but . . .

  "Arlen did spells," she said finally, frowning in concentration, staring at the aisle's rubber mat floor. "He sometimes gave spells to Carey, I think. We took them from one stable to another. We were on a run when men chased us, and then I was here."

  They stared at her, offering various expressions of amazement. Finally Eric said, "I had no idea you could speak so well."

  "She's a smart one," Jaime said brusquely, responding to the uncertain look on Jess' face. "She knows there's no point to talking unless you have something to say."

  "What sort of spells did Arlen do?" Eric asked. Dayna stepped away from his arm and wrapped her own arms around her waist, listening without committing to acceptance.

  "I—" Jess started, and faltered. It was so difficult to be sure what they might consider a spell. So many of the strange things of this place seemed like things Arlen might have done. "He can move things without touching them," she offered tentatively. "He can make his voice come out of nowhere, when he's at a different part of his bar—um, house. Once I saw him stop a fight across the yard. He said words and pointed and the two foals—children—stopped. Tied by hobbles you could not see, I think."

  Eric and Jaime exchanged a frown. He said, "Are you thinking—"

  "That sealed document. With the strange writing. I'm beginning to think there's a reason the OSU language people couldn't ID it."

  "I don't like this," Dayna said. "It's beginning to make too much sense." And she tightened her arms around her slight torso and shivered.

  "Jess," Eric said thoughtfully, taking obvious stock of her strong, dusky features, "why haven't you told us any of this before?"

  Jess laughed, short and sharp, almost a snort. "You call me Jess instead of Lady. You whisper that I am mad. You give me Words: Easy, Jess. It's all right, Jess. When Carey said Words, he never lied to me. If he said, 'easy,' I knew I could trust him to take care of the scaring things. You—you tell me I am not Dun Lady's Jess. You tell me easy—but you lie! You have not taken care of anything!"

  Eric's brows folded together in dismay. "Jess—" he started, and then couldn't seem to find the words he was looking for. Jaime did better.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "It's easier for us to deny what we don't understand than to try to face it."

  Jess studied them a moment, her dark-eyed gaze resting longest on Dayna, who shook her head.

  "I'm sorry, too," Dayna said. "Because I still won't—can't—accept all of what you say."

  Jess took a deep breath that filled the most remote areas of her lungs, and let it trickle audibly between her teeth. "At least those," she said, "are true words."

  * * *

  Jess stared into the fizz of her glass while Jaime finished the inanities involved with pouring drinks for four people. It was all right, she thought, to play with bubbles when she had little else to accomplish. But now, Carey was found. And he needed her. Jess left the bubbles alone.

  "When you first got he
re, you didn't know our language," Eric said, ignoring his own drink. "But you learned it so fast. How'd you do that?"

  Jess watched Dayna draw squiggles on the bar with the condensation ring from her glass. Not listening, she concluded. "The words were not new," she said. "Just the meanings."

  "Except for a few," Eric concluded. "Blanket." He smiled, inner amusement. "I guess that's not surprising, given the rest of your story."

  Dayna seemed to suddenly realize what she was doing, and reached for a paper napkin to wipe up the water lines.

  "Tell us what happened, Jess," Jaime said abruptly. "Now that we're ready to listen—and that we seem to have some decisions to make."

  So Jess told them, using the words she hadn't been able to find on that first morning at Dayna's small house. She painted for them her unique view of the uneventful morning's ride, of the sudden ambush as they'd entered the patch of woods that was after the grassy scrub and before the deep, dry riverbed. With her inner eye on the memory, her body unconsciously following the dip and shove of her narration, she missed the grim look that traveled between Jaime and Eric as she told of knocking two riders to their death. When she told of her own fall, she faltered, and her dark eyes refocused on Jaime's kitchen, and she gave them a puzzled little look. "Maybe Arlen . . . ?"

  "You think it was one of his spells," Eric said thoughtfully, reaching an absent hand to capture Dayna's, which had moved to clean up the condensation and little spills from all their glasses. She gave an annoyed sigh and sat still, obviously against her inclination.

  Jess shrugged. "What else besides a spell could change me like this?"

  "Are you really listening to yourselves talk?" Dayna asked.

  "We're listening," Jaime assured her. "Maybe it's about time."

  Jess brought them all back to the subject uppermost on her mind. "Carey."

  "Yeah. Right. Carey." Eric frowned gently. "What about this guy Derrick, Jess?"

  "He aimed the flying stick at Carey. We were almost upon him when we fell."

  Jaime repeated, "Flying stick."

  "Arrow," Dayna said without thinking; her own words seemed to catch her by surprise. "Derrick had a bow and a full quiver in his room."

  Eric grinned indulgently at her. "Pretty helpful for an unbeliever."

  Dayna frowned and waved him away with a flip of her hand. "I saw them just hours ago. It made me realize what she was trying to say."

  Jaime ignored her. "Right. He was chasing you then, and he's got Carey now. And you want him back."

  "Damn straight," Jess said emphatically, creating a moment of astonishment in Eric before he burst out laughing.

  "Got it from Mark," Jaime said through her own smile. Then she grew serious again. "Jess, the easiest thing to do is report Derrick to the police."

  "No!" Jess cried in refusal.

  "Sweetie, I know you had a bad time with them once. It was a misunderstanding. But the cops are the ones used to handling this kind of thing."

  "Jaime," Eric said slowly, "what will they do, once they free Carey from Derrick?"

  "They'll ask questions, that's what," Dayna said with assurance. "They'll want ID. They'll want things to make sense."

  "They will believe him no more than you believed me," Jess said, just as assured. "And what will they do then?"

  After a moment in which no one offered an answer, Jaime asked, "So then what? What other options do we have? You want to walk in there and take him, ourselves?"

  "It doesn't have to be such a big deal," Eric said. "So we watch and go in when this creep's gone. Dayna's still got the key—all we have to do is go in and get him. You and I can help him out if he's still all drugged up, and Jess can convince him we're okay. And if it doesn't work, we can still call in the big players."

  "If Carey happens to think Jess is a horse, he won't exactly recognize her," Dayna pointed out acerbically.

  "Carey will know me," Jess said confidently.

  * * *

  Which is how they came to be outside the hotel after dark, lurking. Mark was in the office, and had already told them there was no answer at room 26. They milled uncertainly at the end of the building, close to the room, hesitating, until Dayna broke away and marched up to the door, more frightened of the anticipation than the action. The others, after the hesitation of realizing what she was up to, followed her into the dim unit.

  Jess' eyes adjusted quickly to the low illumination, the only source of which was the bathroom light at the back of the room. Her gaze searched out Carey and found him before the last of them had made it past the threshold. The door was left open; they didn't intend to be there long enough to make closing it worthwhile.

  "Carey," Jess said urgently, kneeling by the ropes that tied his wrist. Jaime slid in beside her and went to work on the knots right away.

  His eyes flew open, clear and piercing hazel. They showed no sign of drugs as they rested uncomprehendingly on Jess. It was only as his gaze went from face to face of those that hovered around his bed and prison, and landed on Dayna's, that his expression cleared. "You were here earlier."

  "Yes, and I nearly got caught," Dayna said dryly, flipping the covers back to discover his feet were tied together as well.

  "But you came back."

  "With reinforcements," Eric said from the foot of the bed, taking an instant away from his vigil of the parking lot to look at Carey and nod. "Eric, Dayna and Jaime. We're friends of Jess'."

  "Jess?" Carey asked, wiggling his wrist around in impatience as Jaime swore and dug in her pocket for a knife. "You'd better hurry. If he meant to be gone long, he'd have drugged me."

  "Great," Dayna muttered. "Hand me that knife."

  Jaime finally sawed through the tough rope around Carey's wrist. She folded her little pocketknife and tossed it; it landed with a thump between Carey's knees. He tried to rise far enough to reach it, grunted with failure, and fell back.

  "Take it easy," Jaime said. "Looks like you've been this way far too long."

  "Jess?" he asked again, eyeing Dayna as she hacked away at the ankle bonds with the inadequate little knife.

  "Me," Jess said, touching his arm, wanting to lay her head on his shoulder like she had so many times before, knowing he wouldn't understand that gesture from this human form. "Lady," she added softly.

  His head snapped around; his gaze trapped her and examined every feature, every facet of the woman who was now Jess. Or of the Lady who was now woman. "Lady," he said, accepting the fact as easily and simply as that. "Good job, Lady." Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. "That crazy wizard," he said wearily. "He didn't warn me half again as much as he should have. And you had no warning at all."

  The ropes at his ankles gave way and Dayna rubbed some circulation back into the joints through his high, worn boots. "Talk about it later," she said shortly. "Let's get out of here."

  Jaime pushed him upright from behind and Eric moved around to haul him to his feet, discovering that he was too tall to offer a shoulder to the unsteady captive. Instead he grabbed the back of Carey's belt and let Jaime move in to offer the shoulder. Jess jigged, trying to hold back for them, and Dayna did nearly the same from behind, trying not to run them over.

  So it was Jess who, just out of the doorway, ran squarely into Derrick; beside him stood a slick-looking companion.

  "Lady, run!" Carey blurted.

  It had the effect of all his Words. Jess obeyed without a second thought, evading both grasping pairs of arms with her quickness, long lean legs putting instant distance between them, running hard, full out, not concerned for the darkness and the unfamiliar ground. Noisy hard-soled pursuit spurred her on, and she raced over pavement to the long uncut grass behind the hotel. Small town turned instantly to dairy country and she ran along a barely visible wire fence line, pulling away from her pursuer with every stride. It was breathing space, and it gave her the room for thought—for the realization that hers were the only running-away feet. Jaime, Dayna, Eric—Carey—all still at room 26
.

  Thought took away attention and the dark line of a drainage ditch escaped her notice. She sprawled hard with the misstep, skipping across the dew-slick grass like a stone across water, finally spinning to a stop against the solidity of a deep-sunk wood fence post. There she gasped, hearing her pursuer come on, his steps now awkward and irregular with fatigue. And something else: the faint zzzt, zzzt of an electric fence, just above her.

  She found the line, a ribbon of wire-woven plastic that ran inside the top tensile wire strand. She recognized it immediately as the same kind of ribbon that discouraged Jaime's horses from leaning on her board fence. And when her eyes fell on the wheel-like bulk that hooked on the tensile wire, she knew it was an insulated reel attached to the end of the ribbon.

  She rose and snatched at the reel in the same movement, pulled it back down the way she'd come and stripped the ribbon loose of its guiding insulators. Then she fell back into the wet grass and waited, listening to the extra loud zzzt of the line grounding out beside her, hissing in time to her own pulse. She made herself very small, very flat in the tall grass and, when Derrick's companion stumbled to a stop in front of her, cursing her and searching for her, made herself lie absolutely still. When he took another step she sprang to her feet, ignoring his first startled exclamation and the second, more heartfelt cry when the initial pulse of electricity hit him.

  She looped the line around him once, twice, and then had just enough left to hook the reel back to the tensile fence.

  Out of his reach.

  The curses increased in intensity as he was jolted again, and again, and he realized his predicament. Jess backed away, warily eyeing his jerking silhouette against the starlit country sky. Then she turned and loped back toward the hotel.

  In her innermost self, Jess was a prey animal, elegantly suited for running away. She forced every step against her body's will, and all too soon found herself on pavement again, tossing her head in protest against her inner struggle. She moved up against the hotel to hide against the brick as she stared at the open door of room 26.