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Viviane
Viviane reached into her power, seeking the mote of her spirit separate from the rest. She forced a tear from one eye, letting it drop into her left hand. She brought both hands together with a crack, then split them like releasing a bird to flight. “Jahriss!”
Energy coursed between her palms as the tear flew from her fingers. It hit the glade before her, a single drop of water duplicating itself over and over with the burble of a swift brook.
The water foamed into a liquid elf. Clear water shifted to milky then brackish, eventually muddying to the point of bronze skin and muscle.
A naked Jahriss fell to his knees the moment his consciousness merged with his new body. “My Queen.”
“Welcome back, Jahriss,” Viviane said. “You’re fired.”
His head shot up, accent thick in his shock. “What?”
“You are no longer my champion,” Viviane said.
“But Your Majesty, have I not served you loyal—”
Viviane shot to her feet. “Be silent! You are lucky I spent the power to lift you from the grave.”
Jahriss buried his face against the ground. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Viviane bent, lifting him with fingertips beneath his taut jaw. “You are not totally out of favor, Jahriss. Your time masquerading as a nymph will serve you well in my harem.”
“May I ask whom has served you better than I?” Jahriss asked.
“Scurith has served far more effectively than you and proved himself twice as loyal.”
Jahriss’s mouth opened in shock. “You’d elevate a coyll?”
Viviane found Jahriss’s shock mirrored on her sisters’ faces. “No, but only because I need Scurith’s services interfacing with mortals. Did you perhaps mean to ask who has taken your place?”
Jahriss nodded.
“Recent evidence has proven elves to be untrustworthy champions.” Viviane eyed her sisters. “Too easily bought, wouldn’t you say?”
Titania and Mab hardened their expressions but neither answered.
“For what is to come, I’ve chosen Axeford to carry the mantle of Anseelie Champion,” Viviane said.
Jahriss darkened. “Axeford is a gangster, a glorified caravan thug. He doesn’t have the brains to be a Champion.”
Viviane smiled. “You are dismissed, Jahriss. I have business with my new champion.”
Jahriss glowered through his locks but marched into the trees. Axeford emerged before Jahriss reached them—a dark olive-skinned ogre in a tailored suit. They stood toe to toe, neither willing to step aside and let the other pass.
Viviane cleared her throat.
Jahriss glanced back, bowed his head, stepped around Axeford, and slipped into the woods. The set of Jahriss’s muscles offered Viviane hope the elf would try to thwart Axeford or prove himself worthier than the ogre.
Their rivalry will keep them both sharp. Pity Scurith is too weak to survive such a game.
At the foot of Viviane’s throne, Axeford dropped to one knee and bowed his head. The ogre’s dark topknot draped forward from an otherwise bald head.
“Axeford.”
His head came up, one intelligent eye gleaming amidst a nest of talon scars. A large ruby set in bronze seemed to mirror the eye from atop a patch of black leather. Melted flesh and talon scars marked the missing eye victim of a fire phoenix.
“You are my new champion...”
A lopsided grin curled his lips.
“...if you have completed Phase Three preparations.”
“Of course, I have, Your Majesty,” Axeford glanced toward the trees. “I am not some fop with a bird fetish.”
“And Phase Four?” Viviane asked.
“Most of the dwarven construction teams are in position awaiting Scurith to finish acquiring permits for their cities. Now that the last team is no longer pacifying Atlanta’s Vitae, there shouldn’t be anything to keep them from timely completion of the next phase.”
Viviane rose, glancing around. “Faery’s nice, but I think it’s time to return to Creation.”
“You can’t,” Titania blurted. “The Articles cage us here.”
Viviane smirked and extended her hands. Axeford removed a wrapped parcel from his suit coat and placed it into her hands with a clink of crystal. She unwrapped the gift, enjoying the texture of the supple leather, soft as a fuzzy peach.
She raised an eyebrow.
Axeford smirked. “Infant Mesopotamian.”
She handed back the tanned skin and placed the three crystal pylons on the ground in an equilateral triangle.
“What are you doing?” Mab demanded.
Viviane stepped into the triangle. “Giving them back Atlantis...for starters.”
She closed the triangle with an infusion of will-backed power. When she’d first reentered the glade, she’d been afraid Titania and Mab might attack her. She had no doubt that the power stolen from Summuseraphi would’ve allowed her to triumph over Mab and Titania, but the stolen power wasn’t inexhaustible.
And I need his power to affect Creation directly.
Viviane sank her will into the crystals, reaching out to a single set of three crystal spires grown from the seed pylons at her feet. She linked the master crystals to a trio planted during her exile and pushed divine power through the link into their thaumaturgical twins.
She chose what mortals called Atlantis before Atlanta—not because raising it would expend the most power, but because its place in international waters would give her a large, uncontested foothold on Creation for what came next.
And they’ll probably blame its return on someone’s wish.
Viviane distended her will and her domain into Creation. The hungry maw of a black hole drew power from Viviane and yanked her to the dirt.
She screamed her travail.
The Lady of Water, Queen of the Anseelie, fed the ravenous draw with her own strength and that of her subjects—both laced with threads of divine power.
The pain rose as the power drain doubled.
This would’ve been easier with a seventh son.
Viviane pushed away Dunham’s betrayal and bore down on the labor before her.
At long last she felt the shift, felt her first foothold force itself fully into Creation’s reality. She collapsed to the grass, sweat-covered and gasping.
Blighted Angels, that one hurt like birthing a horned babe.
“I shall see to securing your new territory.” Axeford inclined his head and hurried into the forest.
Mab and Titania towered over her just beyond her triangle’s barrier. “What have you done?”
The self-satisfied, if exhausted smile, of a new mother curled Viviane’s lips. “For all intents and purposes, given birth to the start of the apocalypse.”
Mrs. Cox
Hadley Sage Cox wrapped her arms around herself as if she could somehow stop the invisible hand squeezing her chest. The building she and her husband had scrimped and saved to buy lay in ruins, a million happy memories crushed to rubble.
Her arms couldn’t hold in the tears.
They couldn’t stop her body from shaking.
They could no more hold her together than the home she’d shared with her husband and countless others.
A fragment of an old black and white picture caught her attention, memory resolving it into a honeymoon photo despite the heavily burned edges.
Her knees buckled, dropping her to the ground. Air refused to enter her lungs. The world swam, blurred by unending tears squeezed out by her knotted chest.
She caught glimpses of debris from lives not her own.
Please, God, let no one have been hurt.
Hadley forced herself to her feet and into the debris. She scanned the wreckage through her tears. Tiny remnants of burned and blackened pictures quivered in the breeze. Curios and souvenirs peppered her former home. Nothing survived the destruction, but her search turned up no sign that her tenants had been present when the building fell.
Thank God for small miracles.
With fear for the other residents eased, she took a long look at what remained. Everything collected through her long life had been destroyed with a thoroughness explained only by malice.
Growing heat edged the ache in her chest.
And who do we know that’s this petty?
Hadley pressed her lips together before angry words escaped her, fists tightening to hold in screams eager for escape. She knelt once more.
Dear God, please protect my tenants and help them find shelter in these dark times. Even in her mind, her voice hardened. Bless and keep the perpetrator of this act. May he find in you the healing he needs, and may you keep him far enough from me that I am not tempted to stab him again...maybe a little higher this time.
Anima
Alarm surged through Anima, but though her territory was in turmoil, she wasn’t sure why her pulse should suddenly hammer through her body and pound against her wingtips.
She spun, wings reorienting her within a storm’s eye of mist and magic, Creation and Infinity. A translucent phantom Atlanta surrounded her, dotted by sparse constellations of Terrance’s, Quayla’s, and Vitae’s few surviving seeds. A dark miasma fogged Atlanta’s soul, far darker than it had been before Caelum’s death.
Her heart lodged in her throat, every eye from her wings to her fingertips teared up. Only the darkened topaz eye that had once linked her to Caelum remained dry.
Dunham’s death hadn’t eased the taint. Instead, Sidhe magical attacks had intensified, assailing her with doubt or self-loathing. Dispelling the newest attack took more of her incorruptible fire than previous salvos, but she burned away the spell-slinging spirits and their dark magic attempts to hobble her.
I will not be diverted from my duty when my Shield needs me most.
When the assault eased, her focus narrowed to search every mote and seed in her corner of Infinity for the source. When she found nothing, she pinned a lip beneath teeth—a learned habit that infuriated The Isaac—for several heartbeats.
She cast her attention beyond her own swirling nebulae, leaving Atlanta behind. As her search expanded, the pools of Eden-born spring water in the mist around her reflected panicked Watchers. Too many voices overlapped each other, reducing the noise to gibberish. She reached an eye-tipped finger to query the Isaac, but hesitated. With as many Watchers as seemed to all be shouting, the first of their kind would be inundated.
I’m not going to add to the Isaac’s burden.
She pulled her fingers back, shifting around in a slow circle to See the faces flashing in and out of the pools. The Watchers she recognized spanned countless shires—most from among the varied Atlantic coastal prefectures.
She gave Atlanta’s semitransparent soul a last scan, grabbed the edge, and pulled it towards and behind her. The expansive excitement drew her into the Atlantic. The leading edge of an immense tsunami caused her a moment’s pause.
She chose not to dwell on the wave, using its trajectory to adjust her search direction.
Atlanta was far enough inland that the massive tsunami wouldn’t reach her shire. She gave the other Watchers a moment’s thought and their charges three heartbeat’s sympathy but didn’t stop looking for the source of the calamity.
A risen island lay as foci for the tidal effects where no island belonged. Drawing near brought her into sight of countless Watchers observing dumbfounded. A tsunami of taint hit her—not from a powerful Sidhe or even an army of them, but a small continent of Faery intruding on Creation.
Glamour cloaked every surface, aligning to fanciful science fiction and fantasy tales surrounding the sunken city of Atlantis. She Saw, and what she Saw was the largest Goblin Market ever.
And it somehow intruded into reality.
A handful of Divine Ones led their entire Shields in an all-out assault on the island continent, but a shimmering dome of magic held them all at bay.
This is bad, really, really, bad. I must contact Summuseraphi for guidance at once.
Detective Foxner
Mary ordered a ten-minute delay before Sabrina and the others were to cut the chain and surround the building in teams. Her own group disdained the gate drive, jogging a few blocks further down the road before descending an embankment toward the foot of a bridge.
Sabrina glanced at the fleeing sun.
Why is she dragging this out? Much longer and we’ll be attacking werewolves in the dark.
When the timer ran out, they went through the gates like a mob of well-armed marathon runners. Several teams shifted left across the front of the main building toward what was probably an office, while an even braver team disappeared into the parking structure.
Four groups, including Sabrina’s, swept down the truck road beyond the parking area and around the back. Everyone working the raid wore an Atlanta badge, but the mishmash of green and deskbound, careless and distracted officers left Sabrina feeling like a soldier watching a bunch of weekend warriors rush into a paintball arena.
Do they have any idea how dangerous this is going to be?
Sabrina moved . She eyed the bushes, the brambles, and the brick islands in between. She checked corners and shadows, ultimately forcing those grouped with her to fall behind the other teams.
They cleared the corner around the parking structure. A pair of turn-of-the-century rails cut down the wide concrete center, besieged by dry, brown weeds but clear enough for train traffic. Her group shifted away from the building, using the rail as their path.
Cars lined either side of the loading area, parked in a haphazard menagerie of new luxury vehicles and rusting junkers. A spur of rail shot off the main line, cutting a gap into the left row of cars that led to a huge loading bay door.
Lagging, they were forced to continue around the building and jagged sections of broken concrete to the truck loading doors. Reeking stagnant water and rotting flesh reached out of the mud-edged sinkhole, wrinkling Sabrina’s nose.
Not all dead bodies smelled the same, but the ripe, almost sweet, nastiness attacking her senses seemed more animal than human. She left the checking to forensics, hurrying across the narrow loading area to catch up with her team.
Too narrow for modern semis. When was the last time this place was in business?
The sheer scale of the building forced the undermanned teams to stretch out even further than planned. The spacing left unmanned gaps between their assigned breech points. Either Mary hadn’t bothered looking at the intel or underestimated their suspects.
There’s no way we can cover all the exits if they start to bolt.
Sabrina mounted the loading dock stair, taking up a crouched position on one side of a loading door. A seasoned and greying street cop took position to throw open the huge door once Mary gave the eventual order. Another officer, also in blues, crouched down to mirror Sabrina.
They waited.
Summer heat and Georgia humidity coated Sabrina in sweat. Her blouse stuck to her skin and an errant bead of perspiration ran down the back of her collar to further expand her sweat stains.
What the hell is taking so long?
The answer wore an SNat uniform and didn’t seem to be in any hurry at all despite how long everyone had had their asses hanging in the wind waiting for the word. He filled a joint in the loading door with clear gel, pushing an electronic device into the center before loping down toward the next door.
“Hey,” Sabrina said in a harsh whisper. “Do we need to get back a little?”
He rolled his eyes and snorted, continuing without answering.
The older cop shot him a dirty look before catching Sabrina’s eyes. “These SNats think they’re something special, don’t they?”
Sabrina nodded, gesturing for the other two to give the door a little more space.
An eternity later and without any warning, the line of gel flared to blinding in the approaching twilight. Door slats fell like a decapitated accordion, only to wedge into place a few feet down.
All hell broke loose inside.
Unfortunately, the door didn’t fall away. Instead, the five feet cut away from the door collapsed into a two-foot barrier. Sabrina ducked her head around the wall, blinking away the orange line in her vision. She’d barely glanced into the three-foot-tall opening when Anima’s voice exploded in her ear.
“Get back!”
A blaze of hot pink fire shot through the opening where her head had been only moments before. Gunshots exploded everywhere around the building.
So much for checking IDs.
Sabrina ducked around cover once more trying to get the lay of the land. The large warehousing area had been broken up into little cells by furniture ranging from discarded pallets to high end IKEA. High above the floor, crisscrossing catwalks, and platforms hung from the rafters. The space teamed with werewolves, werebirds, wererats, and even something that might’ve been a weretree. Like the cars and the furnishings, they ranged from brightly colored live-action furries to terrifying creatures from Hollywood monster factories.
An old Cadillac had been welded together in some kind of the throne in the room’s center. Atop it, a young, anorexic woman uncurled from the seat so fast she seemed to have teleported to her feet. Her shorts, crop top, and vest seemed out of an 80’s movie remake but showed off lithe limbs marked in a tiger-striped pattern.
Her feline face drained of color, but the gunfire and snarls drowned out her shouting. She leapt out of the big chair, landing in a crouch on the edge of a fighting pit.
A half woman, half flamingo hurled another bolt of hot pink fire. Sabrina ducked out of the way then back into the gap with her gun trained on the wereflamingo. “Get down on your knees, hands behind your head!”
The werecreature crouched, bending her legs backward. Without warning, she sprang forward and up, twin fire bolts slamming into the fallen door slats. A heat shimmer hid the woman for a moment, but Sabrina didn’t let it distract her.
She tracked the pink blur as it resolved into a large pink blur. Sabrina fired twice into the bird’s wing. Mary might take issue later, but Sabrina wasn’t about to risk killing the woman unless she had no other choice.
One of the bullets struck home.
Sabrina vaulted through the door’s opening.
“Sabrina, wait!” Anima said.
The Watcher’s caution wasn’t unwarranted with all the bullets and magic flying around. Sabrina had shot down her assailant and needed to get the woman in restraints before the healing Anima claimed common among lycanthropes allowed the wereflamingo another chance at escape.
Something hit the back of her vest. The impact pushed her off her stride. She staggered, tripped and slid face first into a couch that had seen better curbs.
The couch burst into flame—regular not pink. Sabrina whirled to see a living Horus wannabe collecting fire in his hands.
“Drop the spell and—”
She dove sidelong, flames licking her heels. She gave the vial of iron shavings a pained thought and put two bullets into the hawk-man’s chest.
“No! Stop! This isn’t how this is supposed to be!”
Sabrina pounced atop the downed man, yanking the iron shavings free of her belt. The man’s bird head was gone, but the bullet wounds were already healing.
If I use the iron, will it stop him from healing and kill him?
With a frustrated snarl, she checked for more attackers, flipped the man over, and bound him with the restraints Mary provided. She traded iron for a Miranda card, rattling through it in a rush before shoving it into the bands of his restraints.
Another check showed the immediate coast clear, but the flamingo had gone. She locked eyes with the tiger woman. Terror flashed through the other woman’s already pale expression an instant before she vanished entirely.
“The fuck you will!” Sabrina scrambled to her feet and bulled through the place where the tiger had stood, but there wasn’t an invisible body to be found. She swept the iron filings out around her in a wide arc. A pixie appeared out of nowhere, shrieking as her melted butterfly wings dropped the Sidhe to the floor.
She wasn’t sure how well they’d work, but Sabrina cinched a restraint around the pixie’s arms and torso. A flicker of movement drew Sabrina’s eyes to a wobbling, empty Natural Light can. More trash quivered in a direct line from the can.
Sabrina checked herself clear and launched into pursuit. The trail became clearer as the invisible tiger woman picked up speed through the ongoing conflagration.
A werewolf dove onto Sabrina, driving her to the ground.
She kicked it in the balls, pistol whipped its muzzle and shoved it off her. “You, restrain this thing and read it its rights.”
“SNat said they have no rights.”
“Do it anyway!”
It took all of her restraint to leave the uniform untouched to handle the werewolf. She wasn’t going to let the tiger escape like the flamingo had.
She scanned the debris for more movement.
“The door,” Anima said.
Sabrina caught the movement of the door pulling shut and hurried through into the office areas. Pursuit led her deeper into the dark hallways. Fortunately, she hadn’t encountered any branching corridors, allowing her to quickly clear rooms with her dwindling supply of salt and iron filings.
She turned with the hallway. A fluorescent light housing hung by wires halfheartedly lit the filthy corridor.
A shadow passed over Sabrina’s grave.
There’s someone here.
No doors branched off the thirty feet before her, but she’d seen enough magic to know seeing didn’t necessary cover all contingencies.
“Anima? Someone’s here with me, aren’t they?”
A sudden rush of motion distracted Sabrina from Anima’s warning. Sabrina darted down the hall in pursuit of what she could only describe as a smudge on reality. She tackled the shape as it turned the corner. The wiry figure wriggled out of her grip, but Sabrina caught it by its literal tail.
“Show yourself or I will shoot you...with silver.”
The young, anorexic woman covered in exotic tiger-stripe tattoos faded into view. She crouched, looking up piteously at Sabrina. Tears welled in wide cat eyes over facial features more cat than girl. Her voice was slurred. “P-please don’t hurt me.”
Claws tipped the girl’s hands. Predator teeth capable of ripping Sabrina’s throat muffled her speech. Just the same, her body language was all prey.
Sabrina stepped forward, readying a set of zip ties.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she said in a rush. “I just...Cinnamon, she—”
“Who’s Cinnamon,” Sabrina bound the girl’s hands.
“A character from a book,” she sniffed. “She was abused, but she was strong, so tough. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore.”
“I’m going to have to arrest you,” Sabrina brought out a Miranda card and started reading through it.
The girl sobbed so hard Sabrina had to raise her voice as she hefted the girl onto her feet.
She let out a panicked wail. “No!”
Sabrina tensed for a struggle.
“Detective, watch out!”
A massive weight drove into her from behind before Sabrina could react to Anima’s warning. She hit the concrete, trying to turn over toward the threat. A massive paw slammed into her, nails shredding her shirt, and gouging her arm. Sabrina careened into a wall.
She pulled her gun.
A gigantic wolf that had to weigh almost three hundred pounds slapped the weapon away and lunged at her throat. She got an arm up. Canines sank into her flesh.
Sabrina shrieked.
Jaws crushed the forearm, breaking bones and then jerking to compound the injury.
She kicked the beast between his legs, jerking one knee up between them.
The wolf yelped.
Sabrina yanked her backup weapon from her ankle holster. Thunder exploded between them over and over.
Hot, salty blood sprayed Sabrina.
The pistol clicked empty.
“This is for kicking me,” the werewolf growled. “Twice.”
Wolf teeth seized the gun, crushing the hand holding it. They sank into her shoulder, teeth ripping muscle.
Sabrina’s throat burned, but she couldn’t hear her own screams beneath the thundering waterfall of agony.
Darkness answered pain’s summons.