Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

“Cara!” he bellowed, though her name was quickly swallowed by the wind. He could still hear the barking, though, along with a new sound, a deeper-throated roar that prickled a whole lot of bad down his spine.

It was the sound of water in the desert. A flash flood.

Gut knotting, he whipped around the corner, hit the brakes, and brought the four-wheeler to a slithering, slewing stop, cursing as the headlights shone on a bad situation rapidly going worse. “Son of a bitch.”

Mac was running up and down the bank of what had probably been a dry wash or slow-moving trickle an hour ago, but was now a rushing, seething mass of muddy water. Right where the coyote was pacing in fast-forward, the water foamed slimy brown against a wall of rock and then slipped through an opening in the stone, where a cave mouth was just barely visible.

Killing the ATV, Sven bolted toward Mac, past him, splashing to the edge of the water and staggering when the ground gave beneath him like quicksand. “Cara! Are you in there?” Please, gods. Holy fucking please. “Cara!”

He didn’t get anything but Mac’s background litany of: Yes, yes, yes!

“Shut it,” he snapped. “I can’t hear anything.”

The coyote went to quivering silence, but between the pissing rain, the churning current, and the grumble that wasn’t quite thunder, he couldn’t hear dick.

Then, faintly, his name. “Sven?” The word was nearly lost beneath the din, but it was real. By the gods, it was real.

“Cara?”

“Hurry! I’m trapped, and—” Thunder drowned out the rest.

“I’m coming. Hang on!” He forged deeper into the water, forcing his feet through the shifting sand and cursing when the icy cold bit through his clothes and the current dragged like a bitch.

Mac howled from the bank, racing up and down. Followfollowfollow!

Sven lurched back around just as his familiar gathered to leap into the deadly current. “No!”

The big coyote skidded into the muck at the edge, then floundered back to solid ground, barking, yipping, whining, and sending a steady stream of, Followfollowfollow!

“You can’t follow. I need you to get help.” When that didn’t register, Sven sent it in thought-glyphs, pushing them hard through the familiar bond. Need help. Get friends. Then he pictured JT, who had unexpectedly clicked with the coyote during the xombi exterminations, playing hours of fetch and cracking a series of Lassie jokes that had gotten real old real quick, but had lightened up the horror a little. The winikin might not grasp how close they were to “Timmy fell down the well. Lassie, get help!” but he would know there was a problem, and he’d be smart enough to follow the coyote.

Hopefully.

Mac barked. Friend!

Sven pictured a crowd of people, everyone he could think of who was at Skywatch, then the Jeeps. All friends. Jeeps. Then come back. Fast! Fastfastfast! He didn’t dare send more than that, hoped that wasn’t too much. But, damn, he needed help and he needed it twenty minutes ago, and both his armband and the comm device on the ATV were dead, killed by a storm that had to be something more than weather.

Mac barked twice in answer, and lightning flashed as he wheeled and bolted away, flying back up the way they had come. Sven felt him heading away, moving fast, purpose fixed in his mind. Hurry, he thought, though the mind link was already growing faint with distance. Then he turned back to the cave, bellowing, “Cara?”

There was no answer.

Roaring her name, he forced his legs through the clinging muck and shoved his body through the churning current, slogging, gutting it out, aiming for the cave mouth. The force of the water pounded into him, dragged at him, but he held fast. Ten more steps. Eight. Seven.

Then he stepped onto emptiness as the ground disappeared beneath him. And, bellowing her name, he flung himself into the foamy churn.

The icy water closed around him, blocking out the sound of the storm. For a second the freezing liquid felt entirely alien, like he’d never surfed the big waves or dived the Great Barrier, never even fucking dog-paddled. Then the current grabbed him and yanked him into its flow, and nearly two decades spent above and below the ocean came back between one heartbeat and the next.

He instinctively read the undertow and the countercurrent that said he was headed for the rock wall. Instead of fighting it, he wrapped his arms around his head and went limp, and let it happen. He slammed into the rocky surface with bruising, slashing force and smothered an underwater groan. Fuck, that hurt! But when his head broke the surface, he struck out, swimming with the current that curved around the base of the wall, knowing that when he reached the cave mouth, the undertow was going to be a bitch.

The roar of water surrounded him, threatened to consume him, but he had to get in there; the seconds were ticking beneath his skin. Please, gods, let her be okay.

Then he was at the huge vacu-suck where the floodwaters raced into the cave. Every survival instinct he possessed said to get the fuck out of there, but instead he frog-kicked down and in. The current grabbed him, yanking him down and corkscrewing him in a dizzying spin. Blood pounding in his head, he let the current carry him, pummel him, pull him, spin him around. Then, finally, it softened, eased, let go, and he broke back into blessed air.

“Son of a bitch.” He sucked in huge lungfuls while registering that the water noise and eddies around him said he was in a big cave. “Cara?”

“Sven.” It was barely a gasp, but he heard it. He heard it!

Calling on his magic, he cast a foxfire that lit a water-filled cavern and illuminated bright, vivid cave paintings. The images moved and swirled, and he wasn’t sure if that was a trick of the light or some sort of storm magic. Because there was definitely magic in the cave; it suddenly hummed in his bones and sparkled in the air, making it seem that a zoo’s worth of animals spun and dipped. Lower, down near the waterline, coyotes danced in a circle.

For a second, his eyes locked on those coyotes and something stirred inside him. Then he tore his attention free to scan the cave. “Cara!”

There was no sign of her. There was only the water.

Gods!

He’d been going with the current, but now he struck out swimming, casting around, trying to find her. The water coming in through the cave mouth piled up against the far wall in a foamy mass, but not nearly as much as he would expect; it had to be going somewhere. Which meant there was an outlet somewhere in the chamber, submerged. Had she been swept farther downstream?

But her words echoed in his head. I’m trapped. Okay, but how? Where? He dived beneath the surface, searching for some clue, but the water was murky brown, the current chaotic, the base of the pool nothing but smooth sand.

“Cara!” He shouted her name each time he surfaced, calling her over and over again. And, finally, he thought he caught a gurgled scream. Kicking to rear himself as high out of the water as he could, he cast another foxfire, a third, lighting the cave day-bright. And he saw a place at the center of the pool where the water swirled and churned rather than flowing. There was something down there!

He floundered toward the spot, sucked in a breath, and submerged, hands outstretched. He found stone and followed it to a cargo strap, felt along the tight strap, and touched a hand. It grabbed on to him instantly, clutching in panic.

The move brought a spurt of relief. And he’d found her just in time too, because although the churning water had given her some extra chances at oxygen, she was fully submerged now, wide-eyed and scared, spitting bubbles as she screamed his name and begged for air.

Rearing up, he gulped a lungful, then ducked down, slanted his lips across hers, and gave her his breath in a kiss that wasn’t a kiss, but was full of feeling anyway. Once, twice, and again he did it, until her eyes lost a little bit of their desperation. Then, racing time, he hooked his legs on either side of the stone slab she was bound to, pulled his ceremonial knife, and started hacking at the nylon straps, which were tough and slippery. Come on, you bastards. Come on!