Gillian couldn’t see much past the portal. It had sped up and was rotating so quickly now that she only saw the battlefield in glimpses. But she spied Mircea behind the ring of witches, along with a tall auburn-haired man she didn’t know.
They had been attacked by half of Morgan’s coven, but must have dealt with them, because they were alone now. She didn’t see Kit, but she knew he was out there somewhere. He was no longer in thrall, as her dear “sister” needed every bit of her power to attempt to wrest the staff away from Gillian.
Not that Gillian understood what her plan was, even should she obtain it. Morgan had said herself that she needed a Great Mother to wield it. Without Gillian’s cooperation, it was a useless piece of wood, and yet she seemed determined to take it from her.
But Gillian was determined, too—to end this. She didn’t know how to kill someone who was already dead, but she did know that Morgan would never stop otherwise. Defeat her here and she would only be back again—and again, and again, until she figured this out. It had been her one purpose for centuries; she wasn’t going to give it up now. And if she could make one demonic ally, she could make more.
But she didn’t seem to have expected Rilda’s unfinished portal system that, as yet, went nowhere.
But it worried her. She kept looking at it, perhaps because it had sucked down every spell and hex she’d tried so far, none of which had seemed to affect it in the slightest. Any magic that went into it only fed its insatiable appetite.
Possibly because it ran through the ley lines, the rivers of magical power that connected worlds and was said to have once been the highway of the gods. Gillian didn’t know whether the old stories were true, but she did know that the portal’s energy dwarfed their puny human power, and even the staff bucked and reared like an out-of-control horse whenever it came too close. She didn’t see how it could not tear apart anything that entered it, spirit or otherwise.
She and Morgan were dancing on the edge of an abyss that could consume them both at any moment, but neither would back away.
Gillian because she couldn’t, and Morgan, with her goal so near, wouldn’t.
Or perhaps she couldn’t, either. Her eyes were mad things, almost inhuman, as was her strength. She nearly wrenched the staff away, but Gillian wasn’t fighting fair and stomped on her foot, hard enough to hear her howl over the winds and the thrum, thrum, thrum of the portal.
Mistress Gillian.
The words were as clear as if someone was standing beside her, only no one was. Except for Morgan, who looked too power drunk at the moment to be capable of speech, especially in such measured tones. Gillian twisted away, only to have the woman grab her around the back and continue clawing at the staff.
Mistress Gillian.
“What?” she snapped, staring about. And almost taking a fall for it, as Morgan wrenched the staff hard to the left, got her foot between Gillian’s, and attempted to trip her up and throw her to the ground.
Gillian stomped on the woman’s toes again instead, and wrenched back, knocking her head into Morgan’s face and then spinning to try to force her into the great maw as it passed. But it was rotating so quickly now that she missed, and Morgan grabbed the end of staff, laughing and spinning them around and around as if not understanding the danger. Or no longer caring.
“How are you this strong?” Gillian yelled.
“I stole some of the demon’s power, when he wasn’t looking. Enough, perhaps, to do what you won’t!”
“Or to be ripped apart for your trouble! The staff was made for the fey, not for us. You said it yourself!”
“Yet you wield it. If you can, so can I!”
She let go abruptly enough to send Gillian staggering, then jumped on her back, pummeling her with her fists.
The voice came again. It is Mircea, and I am speaking to you mind to mind. Please do not be alarmed; it is an ability that comes with my kind, although I have it more than some. Nod if you understand.
Gillian nodded, although she didn’t understand anything. Except dropping to the ground on her back, stunning her unwelcome passenger, then rolling when Morgan let go and getting her fist in her face. She got up and staggered away, shaking her head and trying to clear it, while the mad woman scrambled back to her feet.
My companion and I are going to try to drain Mistress Morgan of enough blood to allow you to overcome her, Mircea said. But she is shielded, and the portal you have opened to keep the other witches at bay is difficult to focus through. But we will try.
Do not give up.
Gillian almost laughed at that, at how little he seemed to understand. She hadn’t summoned the portal to keep Morgan’s coven back, although that had been a useful side effect. It was supposed to be her tomb.
The vampire might not want to risk killing her, but Gillian had no such qualms. Yes, it would alter history in unknown ways, but Morgan was about to change it more! There was only one way this ended, and they were running out of time.
She had scarce had the thought when the whole sky changed, with filaments of what looked like starlight rushing upward from the ground toward the great storm, as the Mothers finished their task and prepared to launch their great weapon at their enemies. She remembered this part vividly, remembered staring in wonder and no little awe at the collective power flowing from rock and tree and ground to the sky, breathtaking in its intensity.
Like a bowman drawing back the bow, she had thought then. Only now she thought differently. Now it was a warning: time was up.
Morgan recognized it, too, and threw herself at Gillian.
“Cease this foolishness,” Gillian gasped. “I’m not helping you, and whatever you think, you can’t do it without me!”
“Then I’ll do it with you!” And this time, Morgan didn’t grab the staff.
She grabbed Gillian.
* * *
Kit stared at the sky, as what looked like a silver waterfall of power met overhead, flowing upward instead of down. It made him dizzy, as if he was running across the great vault of the heavens with stars all around. It was such a vivid impression that he almost stumbled.
But the dhampir was there, and grabbed his arm. And then the mad horde of ghosts streamed by overhead, pale blue and pink, green and yellow, lavender and silver, and every other color imaginable. Like a living rainbow flowing through the trees, turning it from the strange to the unimaginable.
The dhampir seemed to feel the same, looking at him with ghost light in her eyes.
“Don’t see that every day.”
That pretty much could be said about his life lately, Kit thought, and redoubled his speed.
She kept pace with him, yet both of them were too slow for the ghost army they had collected, which burst into the glade moments before they did. They arrived to find witches screaming and shielding and scattering, the portal wobbling madly, trees whipping and cracking and breaking and the sky going mad overhead. It was bedlam, and that was before a group of war mages burst through the trees, likely drawn by the portal spiraling into the air like a giant, blue-white snake with an open mouth.
One that was about to swallow Gillian.
Kit started forward, because the hedge of witches was gone now, but the dhampir grabbed his arm.
“You are not going in there!”
“Leave me be—”
“I’m responsible for you! You can’t—”
She broke off and they dove for the ground when half a dozen spells burned through the air where they’d just been standing. And they had barely gotten back to their feet when they spotted a group of mages running at them, full tilt. Only to stop abruptly when a huge, bumpy, tentacled creature swooped out of the sky, massive maw open and screeching.
He and the dhampir jumped in opposite directions to avoid her ghostly friend, and Kit took the chance to all but fly back to the portal. Where he found the situation far worse than before. Not only was the damned thing much closer to the ground, to the point that he had to bend over to see inside, but it was spinning far faster as well.
And then the Corps started firing at the portal, probably thinking that their enemies planned to use it to escape.
It had no noticeable effect on the mountain of blue-white light, but Kit was far more vulnerable and was silhouetted perfectly for them in front of all that brilliance. He felt rather than saw several bolts coming his way, their heat tearing through the rain laced coolness behind him, and didn’t care. He was too focused on the whip-whip-whip of the revolving bands, and the miniscule gaps in between them.
And then three things happened almost simultaneously: he jumped through a gap, the bolts smashed into the portal behind him and were absorbed, and Gillian turned to face him, her eyes burning with blue fire.
Kit had an instant to notice Morgan’s body, appearing unconscious and breathing rapidly, on the ground behind Gillian, before the staff hit him, sending him staggering.
He almost fell back into the vortex, and came close enough to feel its power clutching at him, like a thousand tiny, fiery hands. But he tore away and grabbed the staff, only to have it burn his palms almost to the bone. He jerked them back and Gillian laughed, only it wasn’t Gillian was it?
Her face changed as he watched, a dozen expressions passing over it in quick succession, to the point that it was almost grotesque. Or perhaps that was the flames flickering over her, warring with the bluish-gray light from the portal. The firelight lit her expression in a reddish haze as the portal circled, so that the red-blue-red-blue-red-blue coloring switched sides constantly, confusing the eyes. And the mind.
Because it wasn’t just the light that was changing.
“Kit!” Gillian gasped, and for an instant, she was back, the person he knew, the woman he loved. But her eyes were wide and terrified. “Kit, she’s so strong, and she’s using everything she has. And the staff can’t help me, as we’re in the same body now! I can’t—”
The face changed again, a sly expression coming over it, and he could do nothing, nothing! He wanted to put a fist through it, but it was Gillian’s face. And when he grabbed the body on the ground, Morgan’s discarded body, and looked up, the spirit inside of Gillian merely laughed. “Kill it,” she taunted. “And I’ll keep your lady’s form when I’m done! I’m starting to be comfortable here.”
She spread her arms to the skies, the staff in hand—
And had it knocked out by Kit and sent flying into the side of the portal.
But unlike the spells that the witches had been throwing, it wasn’t destroyed, but simply thrown back, hitting the ground and bouncing once before they both flung themselves at it. But Morgan grasped it first. And blasted Kit with its power, flinging him backward through the air, toward what amounted to whirling, fiery blades from hell.
* * *
I slammed an elbow back into the stomach of a war mage, then whirled and punched him in the jaw. And forgot about the hand I’d cracked on the vampire’s stupid face, which was probably broken now judging by the pain radiating up my arm. Because dhampir bones are resilient, but there were limits!
But wasting time nursing a non-lethal wound in battle only assured that you received more of them, so I didn’t. I knelt down beside the mage instead, who was unconscious and whose belt had all sorts of goodies on it. A surprising amount, considering that the Corps had been fighting for a while now.
But they had expected the conflict, and were likely resupplied. At least, this one had been, or else he was a relatively new arrival, because his potion belt was half full and he looked to have an assortment of other, lethal aides stuck all over him. His nasty tempered coat kept me away from those, snapping at my hand with some sort of spell whenever I tried to access one.
So, I left them, and the weapons that were probably spelled to accept only his use, and grabbed the belt instead. And started back to my feet, only to drop back down again almost at once, because the glade had gone to hell in the moment that I’d been distracted. The free-floating battle seemed to have concentrated here, with mages pouring in from all sides.
The witches were outnumbered, but the Corps hadn’t expected a bunch of panicked ghosts, who were zooming about everywhere, getting into people’s faces. And spooking the hell out of the mages, who didn’t seem to know what they were. And, as usual with the breed, they assumed that what they didn’t know could hurt them, and started firing spells at beings who were already dead.
The Corps might have figured that out fairly quickly, only the witches definitely could hurt them and were busy doing so, and between the spells that they were firing off, the smoke, the fires, the massive portal spinning in the center of it all, and the crazy sky overhead, the war mages looked alarmed and confused, as if they didn’t know what to target first.
So, they were targeting everything.
I therefore hugged the ground, hoping that the dark cloak I’d stripped off of a bad-tempered witch would help to hide me, and scurried toward the portal.
I had one job tonight, since Mircea wouldn’t allow me to kill Morgan. And I was damned well doing that job! One way or the other, I thought grimly, watching as Marlowe was thrown free of the death spiral, and lay sprawled on the ground for a moment, appearing stunned.
But I knew that vampire, or I was beginning to. As soon as he got his senses sorted out, he’d be on his feet, throwing himself back into the fray—and the energy field that should have already consumed him twice. I didn’t like his odds on a third attempt, or of avoiding immolation from a passing mage while he tried it.
Of course, the same could be said for me, I thought, as a fireball nearly took off my head. I ducked, threw something from the belt at the bastard who had hit a defenseless woman while she was on the ground, and heard him yelp. And watched him go running while green flames licked at his heels, his shields protecting him for the moment.
And then the librarian came up beside me, drooling through her maw of fangs. “Need some help?”
“Love some,” I breathed, and we took off.
And, suddenly, I found my path a lot clearer, as even veteran war mages quickly found somewhere else to be. A moment later, I slid to a halt beside the vampire, who had just started to come around. For an instant, he stared at me in confusion, still half stunned.
But then he shook his head and looked around, spied the witch through the spiraling bands of light and wind, and—
“Not a chance,” I growled, and grabbed him.
He hardly appeared to notice. “Gillian!”
We could see her, but only because we were all but prone against the ground. I was doing it so as not to present a target for the frenzied mages and witches battling on all sides. Marlowe was simply trying to see his lover.
And as hard bitten as I was, the expression on his face as he stared at her was almost painful. I wanted to look away, but couldn’t, but I also didn’t try to drag him off, despite the filaments of power that kept radiating out of the portal and snapping at the sky and ground. It was dangerous here, but it was dangerous everywhere, and I didn’t think I was likely to be able to pull him away.
I didn’t think a team of masters could have done it.
“Gillian isn’t here,” the redhead said bizarrely, and laughed.
“Morgan’s spirit invaded her body. She can’t overcome it,” Marlowe informed me, before I could ask.
“Then Morgan is in control?”
“I don’t know. It switches off. But I have to get her out of there—”
“You’re not going back in!”
“—and sort this out after Gil is out of danger. Or would you prefer for time to be upended?”
“I wouldn’t,” someone said, and I jerked my head around to see Rhea standing there, with Hilde by her side.
And talk about better late than never!
“Get her out of there!” I said, remembering the ease with which they could move objects from place to place in the blink of an eye.
But Hilde shook her head.
“We’ve already tried. We came in on the other side of the glade, saw what was happening and tried to shift her out. But the portal is attached to the ley lines—”
“And?”
“And they’re not of this world. They flow around it, but they aren’t in it.”
Rhea nodded. “And our power is tethered to Earth. It cannot leave it.”
“Then you can do nothing?” I asked, before having to pause to haul Marlowe back, who was trying to scramble back in there.
“Let me go!” he snarled. “Damn you, let me—”
“You can’t help her!” I yelled, and got a leg over him. Not that it was going to be enough.
“I’ll do it,” the librarian said. And before any of us could ask what she meant, she flowed underneath the few inches of open space and entered Gillian’s body, disappearing inside her skin.
And suddenly there was a fight, all right, there was a huge one. Gillian abruptly fell to the ground, convulsing, and Marlowe reached an arm through the barrier to try to grab her, only to have it cut off. I dragged him back, the wound seeping blood rather than spurting, because his heart wasn’t pumping, and yet he was still fighting me!
And I was also essentially one armed, thanks to my injured right hand. But the rest of our group took that moment to arrive, with Mircea and Louis-Caesar grabbing the hysterical vampire. But like with me, they didn’t try to drag him away.
“Gillian!” Kit yelled, and she turned her head. And I was fairly certain that it was his lover staring back at him this time. The blue cloud that had been in her eyes a moment before was missing, and then the librarian stumbled out, appearing dazed.
“That’s all I can do,” she gasped. “And it won’t hold!”
“No, it won’t,” Gillian whispered, looking at Marlowe.
“Listen to me,” he told her intensely. “We can fix this. We can—”
“I can fix this.”
“No! Listen—”
“You listen,” she said, and smiled slightly, her eyes full of tears. “You like to talk, but this time, you’ll hear me. If I stay, I’ll falter. I’ll lose to Morgan, or I’ll give in to temptation and save Rand, and change who knows what in the process—”
“No!”
“—or I’ll win but she’ll survive, and we’ll do this all again. We’ll do it forever. There’s only one way out—”
“I’m coming in there,” he said, and somehow managed to break the hold of two master vampires, one of them first level, something I would not have believed if I hadn’t seen it.
And expected it, and tethered him to the ground while he was distracted, using one of the spelled restraints from the belt.
He stared in disbelief from it to me, and then to Gillian. I did look away then, feeling a variety of things, the foremost being shame. I knew that he couldn’t help her by dying with her, yet it was his right.
But it wasn’t his destiny.
So, I didn’t see his face when he spoke, but I didn’t have to. If ever I had heard anguish in a voice, it was then. “Please. There are predators here, ones who eat spirits; I’ve seen them in the woods. We can—we can find some, and force her out, and—”
“How?”
“—and she’s powerful! They’ll be drawn to her—”
“She’s too powerful. They would run from her.”
“—and we can destroy her, once and for all! You don’t have to do this! We can fix this! Please—”
The last word broke, because he knew what she was going to say before she said it. “I’m sorry. I love you—”
“Gillian!”
“Watch over Elinor for me—”
“We all will,” Mircea promised, his voice low.
Unlike Marlowe’s agonized “No!” And then he somehow broke the restraint, too, and leapt—
At nothing, because just that fast, all of it was gone: the portal, the woman it had protected and now consumed, everything. I had looked back just in time to see Gillian thrust the staff at the sky and the portal take her, disappearing along with her and leaving nothing behind—except for Morgan’s body, lying unconscious on the ground, and only now beginning to stir. Because her former self was still in there, wasn’t it? I thought, and then had to grab onto Marlowe as he screamed and leapt for her, and it took three of us to drag him away.