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Terrance
Terrance completed the Shield link. A sudden wash of Aquaylae’s unease verified the link working.
What troubles you, little sister?
Aquaylae stiffened, eyes flashing up to meet his. <I, uh, I’m fine. Please don’t let him realize how worried I am.>
A warm chuckle bubbled out of his chest. “There’s no need to concern yourself, though when time permits, I’ll need to teach you better shielding for thoughts you don’t wish to share.”
She blushed to her roots. <Oh, God, will I ever stop screwing everything up?>
No, Aquaylae! There will be none of that. You have proven yourself time and again, and I will not listen to you parrot Vitae’s poison.
Her apologies bubbled from her thoughts and lips.
“When together, we can just speak.”
Aquaylae’s thoughts reached his mind moments before the words touched his ears. “But how do I avoid thinking and speaking to you at the same time?”
“Wrap your thoughts in an eggshell.”
“But how do I let them out?”
“Release what you wish by cracking the shell,” Terrance said.
Confusion bombarded Terrance chased by guilt and shame. “I...I think I understand.”
“Lying to me, particularly when I am feeling what you don’t shield, will do neither of us any good.”
“If the shell is cracked, wouldn’t what’s inside leak all the time?”
“The shell is only an example of a thin barrier you can easily breech when desired.” Terrance considered. “Perhaps in your case, your thoughts should go in one of the plastic egg shells mortals hide for Easter, easily cracked open and closed.”
Her relief hit him before her thanks.
“We can work on this later when things are less dire.”
Shame returned. “In the meantime, I’ll be blasting you with every random thought running through my head.”
He cupped her cheek. “Dylan was a good man, and his fate wounds me. Still, Mare and I will be thankful not to be included in your bed.”
Anguish and embarrassment washed out of her in alternating waves.
Anima’s voice reached out to them across the foyer. “Terrance, Quayla, I’m sensing several massive incursions. Two of them coincide with the location of Rusty’s team at Perimeter Mall.”
“Who’s coming through?” Aquaylae asked. “The Anseelie?”
“The Seelie and Unseelie are attacking all four Anseelie positions.”
“What is the putti’s status?” Terrance asked.
“An Unseelie force has Rusty’s group pinned against the Dunwoody market. A force of mortals engaged with the Perimeter Mall construction site Quayla reported are now flanked between warring Seelie and Anseelie forces.”
Aquaylae’s worry flooded the link. Inspiration lessened her concern a moment later. <Sounds like we’re going to need all of us for this. I’ll send the Skylings with Terrance, help Mare clean up, and we can flank the Sidhe.>
“Well planned.”
She blinked at him a moment, cheeks reddening as he let his amusement and approval leak.
“This is going to take some getting used to,” she said.
<If Terrance hadn’t told me how to shield, I’d pretty much be humiliating myself constantly.>
Terrance chose not to let her know her last thoughts hadn’t been shielded. Practice would teach her proficiency.
Vitae
My thrall hung in Jahriss’s hand, glowing of magic. At first, I thought him one more of the countless Fae Kissed traitors, but something about his magic called to me. “My apologies for the delay, Shieldheart. I had to take them through Faery to slip your Watcher, and things became complicated.”
I transmogrified, shifting not to my blood form but the scarlet and gold swirling plasma state. A gravity I didn’t understand drew me to my former thrall—the one I’d sent away for being loyal.
My gaze flicked to the mortal in Jahriss’s other hand. “Who is this?”
“She took exception to his abduction, so I thought perhaps you could make use of her as leverage,” Jahriss explained.
I opened my mouth to tell him that the mortal thrall in his other hand had proved his loyalty over and again no matter how many times I found myself suspicious of his motives.
The words died unsaid on my lips.
“There is something odd here, Jahriss. Set him on the carpet then remove her to a distance. I must be sure it has nothing to do with her presence.”
“Could it have something to do with their short sojourn beyond the Veil?” Jahriss dropped my thrall unceremoniously onto the ground with a thunk. My thrall grunted in pain.
Fury flashed through me like wildfire, shoving his question away.
Fear filled the area of the elf’s gaze around my burning reflection. He raised his empty hand in supplication. “Apologies, Shieldheart. I did not realize you meant literally.”
“You will take care with that which is valuable to me.”
“Yes,” Jahriss backed away with the unconscious woman. “Of course.”
The energy coming off of my thrall reached out to my essence as my being reached back. A deep inhalation brought the scent of copper and magic. Sidhe power didn’t wrap him like a Fae Kissed but wafted off him in wisps of Seelie and Unseelie, Anseelie, and a magic entirely human.
Words escaped me in an awed whisper. “Oh, my dear and loyal servant. You’ve remade yourself in my image.”
“If anything, I’d say phoenix is the weakest of the elements.”
My scowl quieted Jahriss.
His assessment hadn’t been incorrect, but the Anseelie mired his observation in the result rather than the potential. If my thrall could remake himself to be more like me, then he could remake other mortals too.
I can build a new Shield impervious to coercion and corruption.
The growing number of Fae Kissed no longer mattered. Even the betrayal by my former shieldmates ceased to be a concern. My thrall could create Phoenix Kissed to serve me. No matter if our foes numbered like stars in the heavens, we need only recruit enough mortals to serve as heaven’s newest host.
With an army of improved mortals, we could take control of Atlanta. We could rewrite the masses, cleanse the world of Aquaylae’s sins, and set the world right once more.
How could the Almighty question my worth or my loyalty if I deliver such a victory to him?
Three days remained for me to prepare myself for what the Isaac foresaw. We had a lot of work to do. My focus shifted to the woman in Jahriss’s hands.
We have no time for distractions.
Five strides crossed the distance. My essence quickened her back to consciousness. We met gazes through her thick lenses.
“You must be that asshole Vitae.” She smiled. “I have so many questions for you. Do you have any coffee?”
“You will find all the sustenance you need in my gaze.”
“Pretty words, but that isn’t how the human body funct—”
The woman’s frown eased into a vapid smile as the female version of my thrall fell beneath my will.
“You will call me Master.”
Her head tilted to one side. “Master?”
Bliss washed across her features.
“Oh, that’s nice...Master.” Her enrapture intensified. “Master, Master...oh, my...”
Mare
Eric burst out of a cloud of shadow behind the elven knight. Writhing power shot out of his hands. Dolumii whirled, blade describing a line guaranteed to bisect the Skyling.
Mare’s shrill cry cut through the din. “Don’t let it touch you!”
Eric vanished a moment before the sword devoured his soul.
To Mare’s left, Billy winked in and out of existence around a small knot of elves, goblins, and a stunted ogre that kept hitting his head on building supports. Short, heavy iron blades hacked at the Sidhe from random points, though faerie bronze deflected most of the blows.
A swarm of imps fell on Eric the moment he appeared. Black tendrils sprouted out of the concrete, whipping at his flying assailants as his swirling dark bolts held off a wave of goblins pouring into the room.
Two more ogres stomped toward Mare. Large, knobby, bone clubs fell upon her with the speed of shooting stars.
Mare slid around them, sliding into Hep-Silat—the fluid Egyptian martial art. One sword cut slashed through an ogre knee. She pushed back, allowing essence to lubricate her retreat into a rapid slide. Taint washed into her through her sword’s length. She shifted the blades to ice and leapt atop the downed ogre.
The second ogre’s club came down hard, missing Mare by a raindrop’s width to smash the downed ogre’s shoulder.
Mare’s evasive leap turned into a transmogrification. Talons flashed across the second ogre, opening his reeking guts while a rapid spin turned blade-edged wings into a thresher that chopped away his head and shoulder in Julien slices.
She transmogrified again, thrusting her sword beneath the first ogre’s chin. A surge of magic whirled her around.
Billy’s sword knocked away a blast of eldritch fire from an elven spell slinger. He hurled the sword end over end at the elf, vanishing to drive another heavy blade in to meet the evading spell slinger’s back.
Eric appeared and disappeared, trading spells with two more spell slingers while combatting a harrying force of winged Sidhe.
A mob of smaller Sidhe forced Mare back into the air in winged human shape. The remaining imps dove at her, poison claws lashing at her watery wings.
Every strike knotted Mare’s gut, but she fought on, purifying essence, and ejecting the toxins as she went.
Heads rolled.
Limbs fell twitching mere paces from lifeless bodies.
Two elven knights pressed her. Their combined blades met over and again so rapidly as to sound like pouring rain on a tin roof. A prickle of gooseflesh gave Mare just enough warning to distend her center.
Dolumii’s blade thrust at her unprotected back.
Shadow tendrils snaked around the two elven knights. “Take the big bad, babe. I’ll deal with these Rivendell rejects.”
The Unseelie Champion drove at her in a flurry. Cut and parry, faint and riposte, sword met sword in an exhibition of deadly mastery. Dolumii’s sword found an opening, slicing along Mare’s shin. A throbbing glow swallowed the blade.
“It wants you,” Dolumii leered.
“It can’t have me.” A rapid flurry of strikes and feints left Dolumii bleeding but still on his feet.
A tumultuous roar proceeded the sound of rending metal. Fingers the thickness of a human pushed into the building’s roof, tearing away the ceiling like it was tissue. An ogre the height of a fifty-year oak roared once more, scarred lips parting to reveal a broken mountain range of rotting teeth.
Its massive hand stretched filthy fingers out to grab Mare.
Billy appeared on its forearm, roaring twice as loud as he drove his swords into the beast’s flesh. A wall of fingers slammed into Billy, smashing him through the building’s wall in a cascade of shattering bones.
Dolumii lunged.
Mare dismissed the leg just before the champion blade pieced her limb.
“Mare, watch your six!”
Eric’s warning made no sense to her, but the urgency wasn’t to be questioned. She threw herself sidelong, transmogrifying into a cloud of vapor.
A wyvern slammed onto the concrete where she’d been only moments before. Talons cracked the stone floor and a wicked barbed tail jabbed mist three times.
Eric appeared on its back, tendrils lashing around the creature’s neck. The wyvern’s tail stabbed where he straddled its spine. He vanished in a puff of smoke that orbited the wyvern’s neck and solidified once more astride the beast. “Damn it, no one saw that!”
Aquakinesis turned Mare’s essence into a vaporous whirlpool. A storm of feather icicles rocketed toward Dolumii in a barrage. His sword swept back and forth in a blur, but several spikes impaled both armor and flesh.
Mare reformed her body into liquid, wings hard-edged and crisscrossed to decapitate the Unseelie knight. A massive bare foot covered in out-of-control fungus stomped down atop Mare, shattering every bone.
She screamed in agony, releasing her form to limit the damage.
Mad cackles echoed through the room.
Dolumii roared in fury, darting around the puddle of Mare to Eric’s flanks. The Unseelie knight blindsided the mortal drawing away the wyvern’s life. The Unseelie’s blade impaled Eric’s back, devouring both mortal and wyvern.
Vitae
My thrall’s mate muttered where she stood, hands fidgeting. I ordered her to stop repeating my title. Even silent, her presence irritated me. My exploration of the building had revealed a bower—no doubt used by the Anseelie whore who double-crossed me. Its furnishings exceeded appropriate levels for a cell, but it would house my thrall and his woman.
“There is an apartment at the foot of that spiral stair. You will go there now while I await my thrall’s return to consciousness.”
“Bradley,” she said.
“What did you say?”
“Your thrall’s name is Bradley, Master.” Miri’s eyes rolled up into her head in rapture. “My name is Miri.”
“I don’t care. I gave you an order.”
Anguish replaced bliss. She doubled over, bleating like an injured ewe. Several pained moments later, she shambled unsteadily to the stair, leaning heavily on the railing to descend.
My focus returned to my thrall. Studying him harvested my imagination. He wasn’t dead like the kyrie or trollmen. Unlike Dunham, he was capable of functioning without supervision. He’d even gained use of Sidhe magic.
Essence sharpened one finger into a talon. I slashed it across my thrall’s palm. He winced but didn’t awaken. Red blood beaded and bled from the cut. The skin reknit itself, leaving first an angry red line that faded to white scar tissue before disappearing all together.
Magnificent. He must’ve used troll marrow on himself like I instructed.
My thrall lacked the wings of the kyrie, and he didn’t look immensely strong of body. However, his attempt to emulate me made him an exceptional replacement for my enforcers.
Once he wakes, we will capitalize on this God-sent gift.
“Jahriss, watch over my thrall—”
“Bradley,” Jahriss said.
I glowered at the Anseelie Knight. “See to it he is neither harmed nor departs while I attempt to access the druid’s secrets once more.”
Jahriss inclined his head.
“Dunham, follow me.”
“You call the undead by name but not your valued thrall?”
I opened my mouth to rebuke the Sidhe, but realized he was correct. The reason for addressing the druid by name had to do with his reluctance to obey without the direct address. Even so, the mortal who’d served so well had earned a modicum of respect—more, at least, than that due the undead Fae Kissed.
I chose not to answer Jahriss, leading Dunham to his office for another attempt to access his computer. His company’s legal department would eventually settle access to most of the druid’s accounts, but I had little doubt a man of his stripe kept his most valuable resources where only he could access them.
Movement caught my eye as I stepped off the spiral stair. My thrall’s woman stood within the bower, hands twitching at her side.
Yet another queer wafer.
We entered the office. “Dunham, sit at your desk.”
Directing the druid’s every action had long since passed tedious, but the damage done to his brain when bisected required no less. “Place your hand on the biometric scanner.”
Dunham set his hand on the desk. Blue light haloed his hand for a moment. A door opened on the black surface. Small projectors rose into view. Another section of desk split apart, allowing Dunham to set his hands on a previously hidden keyboard.
A holographic screen more advanced that what we’d had in our downtown sanctum stretched out the width of the desk.
“Type your password, Dunham.”
Dunham’s fingers flashed across the keyboard in a rapid series of clicks. He froze, eyes dead ahead on the holographic screen.
“Dunham, depress the carriage return.”
Dunham’s right pinky stretched out, depressing a key labeled as Enter. Tiny motes appeared where his password had been, floating rapid circles for several breaths only to be replaced with a message forbidding access.
My blow hit the undead druid hard enough to knock him from his chair. “Stop whatever nonsense you’re doing and grant me access to this computer!”
My thrall’s woman entered, stepping around the desk to take the vacated seat. I opened my mouth to reprimand her when her fingers became a zephyr across the keys. The screen blanked. Information washed up the holographic landscape, pausing to offer a menu I hadn’t seen before. A stab at the Enter key filled the screen with unending lines of text. She leaned over, jerking Dunham up by his wrist and planting his hand on the biometric reader.
The screen went blank. A single input field appeared in its center. She stood, stepped to one side around Dunham and faced me. “Please enter your new password, Master.”
Taking her place, I entered a phrase in Sumerian and depressed the carriage return. The screen went blank for a three count before cascades of icons, folders and open windows filled the entire space.
“How did you do that?”
She shrugged.
“Speak, slave.”
“Is there coffee?”
“No, tell me what you did.”
“I reset the master system password.”
“You are proficient with computers?” I asked.
“I’m capable of hacking most security levels.”
Hacking...she’s a modern mortal pirate. Without the Isaac’s services, such a skilled thrall will be useful.
“Are you and my thr—are you and Bradley intimate?”
“We’ve only gone to first base.”
I furrowed my brow, unfamiliar with the idiom. “Are you mated?”
“No, Master.”
“What is the likelihood that a pairing between yourself and my—Bradley would result in offspring of equivalent capabilities?”
“None. Such skills aren’t inherited.”
“Would offspring be capable of learning your skills?”
“Easily,” Miri said. “Though some variance is possible.”
“Then you two must breed as soon as possible.”
“All right,” Miri jogged around the desk and headed upstairs.
“Not right this moment,” I said. “Retake this seat. Locate and transfer all private resources from Dunham Heffernan to myself.”
She replaced me in Dunham’s chair. “I’ll need your name and Social Security number.”
“My outstanding documents no longer fit my current body.”
“I will create a new identity for you,” Miri said.
“You seem to be a fitting match for Bradley. I’m not one to condone the keeping of pets, but I must find a way to keep you both where I need you.”
She didn’t look up from the windows coming and going within the holographic screen. “Pets are often contained using shock collars and invisible perimeter. Such tech allows owners to ensure pets are kept within necessary boundaries.”
“Excellent, please purchase three collars and the invisible fencing you mentioned.”
She nodded. “How much fencing?”
“Enough to cordon off the top three floors of this building and your sleeping chamber.”
“Will do. Do you have a name you’d prefer on your ID?”
“The name is unimportant. Choose whatever you like.”
She typed for several moments. “You are now Juan Valdez. Is there anything else I can do for you, Master?”
I pondered. “Are you able to provide a means for tracking Sidhe movement throughout Atlanta?”
“I could hack into the traffic camera system, or, considering Dunham’s resources, you could deploy camera drones around the city.”
Delight filled me. “Do both.”
She shuddered with pleasure. “Yes, Master.”
Quayla
A fifty-foot ogre stomped down on something inside Howell Mill. Mare’s cry rent the air followed by Eric’s mad cackling and an eerily familiar roar of outrage. Billy lay broken but still moving feet from the corner I’d once considered for a hiding place.
I extended my talons, folded my wings, and dove.
Taint shot through me as I shredded the huge ogre’s remaining eye. Rather than twist pinions to rise again on my remaining momentum, I anchored my talons into his cheek. Inertia whipped me around his face, tearing the cheek away from his skull in a deluge of foul blood and worse breath.
Mantling wings beat at the ogre’s face, keeping him blind as the inside of Howell Mill came into view. A puddle beneath a disgusting foot in desperate need of antifungal medicine could only be Mare. Eric rode the back of a furious wyvern, throbbing violet magic connecting the withered, weakening beast.
Dolumii thrust his Champion blade into Eric’s back.
Even at a distance, thunder shook my insides. Eric’s body shifted to shadow. The tendrils tying him to the wyvern thinned. Eric and the wyvern collapsed in on themselves like an imploding star. A moment later, they were gone.
The ocean screamed, but not enough to drown out the sound of my rage. I hit Dolumii with the full force of my body, my talons tearing into him.
He threw himself forward and into a roll, losing a lung and a shoulder to dislodge me. I whirled around as his blade came down. I flashed to water, warping around his blow, and coming back to my solid phoenix form. My beak grabbed his sword arm at the elbow. I jerked my head back, pulling his groin into my waiting talon as my beak severed the arm in two.
A weak blast of Unseelie magic threw me into the wall.
I swung both wings forward end over end, driving him away from reclaiming his sword while I reformed my human body. Rather than draw my hilts, my right arm shot forward like a Stretch Armstrong doll, scooping up his sword on the run.
I rammed him, slamming the sword tip of God’s Sword of Judgement through his chest.
A thunderous explosion of God’s wrath shook my every molecule. The sword’s hilt—delighted about being fed—writhed beneath my grip trying to find a good fit for its new benefactor.
I hurled the vile thing away, impaling Mare’s giant opponent in the ass. The sword consumed the ogre a moment later, dropping to the ground between Mare and myself with a heavy thunk.
Mare stood on unsteady feet, fine without my care. Leaping to wing to expedite exiting the building, I landed next to Billy.
He looked up at me and groaned. “God, this hurts.”
“Are you all right?”
“Ugh, yeah, I think so, but I’m never calling Deadpool a whiny bitch again.”