| |
Dunham
Dunham paced a large square around the caged phoenixes. Heat radiated out of the Pyri’s cage. The pentagram restraining the divine dimmed enough to cause concern.
“Problem?” Viviane asked.
“The Terra is overdue.”
“I thought you had him under both control and surveillance.”
Dunham hated admitting any kind of failure to Viviane. He hated disappointing her after everything she’d done to see him to the brink of success. “She lost her watchers.”
“My agents have sold another pair of incursion points. We need to send a shield to the impending battle,” Viviane said.
Dunham examined the cages. Both the Vitae and Aquaylae had somehow escaped him thus far. Both their nests had been full when he’d acquired them, but in addition to fueling both pentagrams, he’d employed their essence to strengthen his abilities. He needed essence from all five elements to keep the divine in place. With the essence levels out of balance, he’d had to configure the circle to consume Aero, Pyri and Terra essence at a higher rate.
The Terra had contributed enough additional essence to keep the divine imprisoned and fuel a rebirth if necessary. Caelum hadn’t fully recovered from his punishment, but he’d set by enough essence as well. The Pyri had flatly refused even when tortured. The Pyri’s cage hadn’t been designed to siphon off essence from an unwilling captive.
Never thought something like that would be necessary.
On the one hand, Dunham needed the Pyri out of his cage and on a mission so that the confinement chamber could be modified. On the other, he really didn’t want to have more than one of his prizes absent at a time until he’d successfully proven them safely under control. Moreover, he’d planned on only dispatching one shield at a time, allowing him to avoid splitting his will controlling more than one. The strategy also allowed each phoenix to rest and regenerate essence in the case of deaths.
Dunham focused on the divine. Despite the amount of power Dunham had syphoned off the phoenix, he’d recovered far faster than the others. The stronger the divine got, the more important having essence enough to contain him became.
There’s no way I can send Caelum out in the shape he’s in.
Viviane watched him, an air of impatience beneath her smug nonchalance. She needed Dunham to act, to send a phoenix out against the battling Sidhe. The Pyri was all he had, but he couldn’t risk the Pyri vanishing like the Terra.
I don’t have any choice then, I have to accompany the Pyri.
The prospect offered innumerable risks. Of all the shields he’d captured, the Pyri offered the greatest outright physical danger and the greatest amount of resistance to control.
At least, I thought I’d had the Terra under control.
“Summon the Terra back with his egg. I will see to restoring him to his cage while you’re away.”
Dunham measured Viviane’s posture, the set of her face. He’d known her for centuries, a domineering but supportive mother. She’d frequently known the course of his thoughts, sometimes even before he’d known them himself.
“Is there any way to get more life and water essence to bolster our supply?” Dunham asked.
Viviane smiled, sashaying across the room to him. She placed her left hand on his chest and kissed up the line of his neck. “I’ve already seen to it, sweet boy. My agents will deliver it soon. Do what you must do.”
Of course, you have.
Without the duties burdening the other two of the Dark Trinity, she’d been able to focus her resources into other areas. She didn’t have underling rulers and their accompanying entourages presiding over shires like Atlanta. Wyldfae weren’t allowed more than a token voice in the regional councils, allowing Viviane to invest her more powerful faeries to act unchallenged in Creation—often masquerading as a lesser, weaker faerie.
Viviane controlled practically every transaction in the Goblin Markets by simple virtue of having her Anseelie servants serve as the drudge workers gathering resources and the merchants bartering the goods.
A chuckle escaped him. He’d taken her lead and grown a global corporate powerhouse much the same way. Her network of Anseelie had allowed him to acquire resources without respect to borders or border controls.
Dunham crossed to the Terra’s cage, bent over the foot and dug his fingers into the imbedded egg. “Return to your cage at once.”
He tightened his grip and repeated the command twice more. Thrice ordered, he left the Terra to Viviane’s care. He retrieved the ever-burning heart of the Pyri and held the sympathetic ruby in his opposite hand.
“Raise the cage shield.”
Viviane didn’t move.
Dunham glanced back at her. “Please raise the Pyri’s cage?”
She smirked and sashayed over to the control console. A moment later the robotic arms whirred to life. Metal screeched against metal in a squeal like a thousand fingernails on chalkboards as the motors forced the heat-warped metal to move. A blast wave of fire canceled all the effort of the air conditioning system.
An angel of living fire threw itself at the magical barrier, eyes blazing with hatred. The Pyri hit the barrier twice more, trying to bash his way through the magic.
Dunham squeezed both the egg and the Pyri’s heart. “That is enough of that. You will be still.”
Both the objects in Dunham’s hands heated, searing his skin. He kept his grip, wishing he had the option of using silicon gloves instead of having to endure the pain to exert control.
“I like your rage, Pyri. You’re going to need it.”
“You’re going to need two billion SPF sunblock when I get my hands on you.”
Dunham tightened his grip and exerted his will. “You will obey my commands, Pyri. You will fulfill the mission I assign without deviation and return directly here for insertion back into your cage.”
The Pyri glowered for all he was worth, forcing Dunham to inflict pain through both heart and egg.
“I acknowledge receipt of commands and will obey.”
The Pyri’s tone set Dunham’s hackles on end. “Obey what? Who? I command you to answer truthfully.”
“I will obey the mandate given me by my creator.”
“In this case you are correct, you will obey your mandate by obeying my commands first and foremost. You will stop an incursion, exterminating all of the Sidhe, correction, all of the Seelie and Unseelie we find. Acknowledge receipt of command and your compliance to obey these orders.”
Dunham fought the Pyri’s towering will for what felt like an hour, eventually forcing the fiery creature to oath obedience. “You will not attempt to harm to me or any of mine before or during this mission. If you encounter one of your other shields, you will subdue, capture and return them here to me. Acknowledge receipt of command and your compliance to obey these orders.”
The Pyri didn’t fight Dunham as hard as before, but he didn’t relent or respond immediately either.
Dunham withdrew a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brows. He turned to find Viviane’s lips pressed into a thin line.
She’s displeased, but why? I won out in a battle of wills against a greater being many times my age.
I folded my hands behind my back and addressed the Pyri. “I’ve arranged a shower, fresh clothes and a meal if you are amenable. There is no reason for our relationship to be adversarial if you will stop fighting the inevitable.”
The Pyri’s eyes blazed the orange of hot coals. “Only the end of the world is inevitable, wafer. You will not cage me and my siblings forever.” The Pyri’s lips curled up in a menacing smile. “Your orders reveal you can’t even control those of us you’ve captured.”
“If you’d rather travel caged in a container like a beast than accept my offer of hospitality, then I can accommodate you.”
“Bring on the cage,” the Pyri snarled.
Quayla
I put the finishing touches on the last rune and stepped back to admire the aluminum catch pan turned nest. Notes littered the area, scribbled attempts to learn runes Anima described but couldn’t really show me after the Isaac’s reprimand. Even without being able to show me, she’d watched me inscribe the lines and corrected my technique until we both felt I could successfully inscribe the basin.
Apprehension knotted my gut. The runes normally had to be chiseled into the stone basins, but we’d been forced to use Sharpie. If I’d made a mistake, I’d have to try again on a fresh catch pan.
“Well?”
“I am now sensing your new nest,” Anima said. “Good work.”
Her praise made me smile. “Thanks, but all the credit for this success goes to you.”
“You did the scribing, and now you will have to do the even harder part.”
Fill the damn thing.
The shallow lip on the catch pan meant standing in the center, hacking off a leg and letting the water fall wouldn’t work. Too much essence would escape the basin that way. I sprawled across the floor and tucked my forearm into the pan. It took two tries to transmogrify only my arm, but my control improved with each time I pushed my abilities to a new skill.
Instead of extruding a serrated blade from one of my Karambit hilts, I grabbed the wooden flute that Ignis employed as his weapon hilt. The forward curving blade of a Karambit wasn’t suited to cutting inside the pan. I pushed essence out of one end of the alternate hilt until my head throbbed. The resultant short sword didn’t reach the length of a wakizashi, but it was the longest blade I’d ever managed. Sawing into my arm cut short my little victory celebration and put a damper—pun not intended—on my day.
There isn’t time for any kind of procrastination, not while the ogre has Dylan.
I regrew the arm by rebalancing my essence only to saw it off again. Repeatedly mauling myself was more torture than the hours of tear jerkers I’d used to fill my nest before, but it was much faster. I bent over the basin to ensure my agonized tears dripped into the rapidly-filling basin.
Rebirth essence always had to be concentrated. Otherwise, a nest required enough volume to contain the liquid equivalent of three whole bodies. The shallow depth of my aluminum basin required me to will even higher concentration.
I chugged another pitcher of healing slurry, washing it down with an equal amount of water. It took extreme will not to vomit up both.
My stomach distended enough that had my body been female I would’ve looked four months pregnant. It would take a few hours for the slurry to replenish my essence. I could dope the water instead of drinking it, but thinning my essence bodily weakened my abilities and diluting the content of my new nest risked rebirth complications like I’d suffered defending the sanctum.
Rebalancing my essence for the last time left me a bit thinner than strictly healthy. “Ani?”
“You will lose mass, but I am confident you will be reborn.”
“Let’s hope I can stay alive long enough that we don’t have to test that.” I slid the almost-full nest into a prepared closet, careful not to splash any over the shallow sides.
The chocolate in my bag called to me, but if I intended to risk vomiting, I was better filling my stomach with the last of the high fat, high protein healing slurry.
Really rather have chocolate though.
I rewarded myself with a mini square of dark Ghirardelli and thought positive thoughts.
There’s always room for chocolate.
Anima’s voice drifted out of the closet rather than the angel figurine. “What now?”
I paced back and forth in front of the closet. I wasn’t sure how to answer her. The best course of action was sleep. Without Vitae’s essence to speed my recovery, sleep would do the most to rebuild my essence. The problem with that action was the hours it left Dylan at the nonexistent mercy of the Sidhe.
I’d hired Cember to find where they’d taken Dylan. The Unseelie had a far greater chance of ferreting out where the ogre or the Four Clowns of Sweeney Todd had taken my former lover.
Unfortunately, that meant waiting. Waiting meant I should rest, but neither appealed to me. I turned back to the hideous apartment and squared my shoulders. “Clean up.”
Staying at the apartment was part of an agreement with Mrs. Cox to clean up the mess left behind by the last tenant. The sharp, old woman wouldn’t tolerate me laying down on the job and I’d never put it past her to check at random intervals. I needed to make some progress to prevent her coming in and cleaning the place out herself—including my new nest.
“You really should rest, Quayla,” Anima said.
“I hear you, Ani, but I just can’t settle right now.”
“But cleaning?” Anima asked. “You’ve never seemed naturally drawn to tidiness.”
“Yeah, but I need to do something.”
“Then you are in luck,” Anima said. “I’ve detected a large amount of Terrance’s essence. I cannot be sure, but it seems he’s left some behind for retrieval.”
My pulse quickened. Getting Terrance back meant help on so many levels. It meant not having to carry the burden of the entire territory on my shoulders. It meant having an older, wiser shield to help me plan my rescue of the others.
Viviane
She pursed her lips as Dunham escorted the specially-designed mobile cage he’d built. The battle of wills between the captured Pyri Ignis and Dunham remained far too close for her purposes.
The boy had always been strong willed, but Ignis’s temper proved Dunham’s superior. Without both the egg and Ignis’s heart, Dunham would’ve lost, costing her decades of preparation.
I’ll have to see what I can do about that.
A thought struck her.
Did Dunham invoke the divine essence he consumed? If he didn’t, then the only reason for so close a battle of wills was his own hubris.
A flicker of anger kindled in her heart, but she willed it down. The boy was pliable if handled correctly. She’d see that he employed all of his resources next time he ordered Ignis to a task.
Viviane strolled to the dumbwaiter installed in the small kitchen, pulling open the door to flood the room with the aroma of garlic, herbs and grilled rabbit. She shifted the trays onto a rolling cart and wheeled them over to the control console.
The robotic arms raised Caelum and Terrance’s cages. The air phoenix’s eyes flicked open, and he inhaled stealthily.
A smile curled her lips.
Little Caelum is playing the little lamb.
She let free an exasperated sigh. “As adorable as your attempt to deceive us is, Caelum, if you are in the state you’re portraying, you aren’t strong enough to eat, so I might as well enjoy your dinner myself.”
Caelum made a show of struggling up toward exhausted attentiveness.
Viviane rolled her eyes and gave him slow applause. “You do realize I can command you through your egg too, do you not?”
Caelum’s feminine voice was pretty, birdlike, but with the steel behind it, that bird was all raptor. “I didn’t know that, Viviane.”
She picked up the half rabbit, hot grease sizzling on contact with her fingers. She muttered a spell as she approached Caelum’s cage and pushed the roasted carcass through the barrier.
Caelum threw a fist at her through the wall of magical force just above where the rabbit penetrated, shattering the bones in his delicate hands.
Viviane shook her head, tsking and licking her fingers. “I’m a bit smarter than that.”
He snatched the hot, greasy meat from his naked lap with one hand while his arm blurred to a cloudy, swirling essence from injured fingers to shoulder. Moments later, the arm solidified, and both brought the hot flesh to pert bowtie lips.
“Eat up. You’ll need your strength soon.”
Viviane left Caelum to his meal, muttering the spell twice more. She deposited the rabbit into Ignis’s and Terrance’s cages under the ravenous watchful eyes of Summuseraphi. Summus had recovered well thanks to the double portions she fed the divine, but she’d been forced to feed him only occasionally to prevent Dunham from learning of his special treatment.
Without all five shields available to provide balanced essence, Dunham wouldn’t want Summus’s strength returned so quickly.
She had plans for the divine’s strength.
Viviane rolled the cart over to the summoner’s stone and carefully positioned the two rabbit halves. She stripped off her clothes and stepped onto the stone. A slight laugh escaped her.
Dunham’s poor performance has me distracted.
She crossed to the Arch created for travel into her special pocket of Faery. She’d been exiled from Faery proper, but her rivals had allowed her the simple, little sanctuary since it served to remind her of all she’d lost. Little did they know that while she’d never left her tiny island, she’d created plenty of ways from her sanctum throughout all of Faery.
“Pardon me, my Queen.”
Viviane turned to find a coyll on the top stair to Dunham’s quarters. Her brows rose. “You’re not supposed to come here, Scurith.”
“I know, Your Majesty, but I have news I thought best in your hands while the chance offered itself.”
“Speak.”
Scurith related Vitae’s desperate search for the other Champion swords, his hatred of Aquaylae and his newest designs. Viviane listened, astounded at the Vitae’s temerity as much as his cleverness. The mortal thrall the life phoenix had enlisted seemed almost heaven sent, a troubling possibility she’d rather not have considered.
“Convince him Dolumii’s failures will make him reluctant to enter Creation,” Viviane said.
“You wish him to pursue the blade into Faery?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want the others to have him before I am ready.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Play your part, Scurith. Whisper rumors of faerie magic freeing prisoners from the Champion blades. Stoke his hunger for the blade tempered with cautions that make him desire more Sidhe magic.”
“He’s becoming unstable, Majesty.”
She smirked, withdrawing four small vials. “I expected that. Dose his nest with these, two now and one with each rebirth.”
“When these are used up?”
Viviane gave him a bright smile. “Vitae’s hubris will take over from there, Scurith. Everything is falling into place.”
“May you reign soon and long.”
She dismissed the coyll and turned back to the Arch. Will and power fueled the gateway. A shimmering gateway opened. Her assorted servants waited on the other side—one more than she’d expected.
Yarque rested on a nearby stone in Zwiesel-style attire, the diminutive old faerie made larger by the eggplant atop his head acting as a hat. His legs dangled from a stone bracketing a runed amphora filled with Terrance’s essence. Oshyn and a pair of his brownies toted smaller, wax-sealed vessels full of Caelum’s essence. Thatch balanced two jars hung from a staff across his diminutive shoulders, each filled with life essence taken from a distant Shield. The surprise however was her Champion—Knight Jahriss, standing bold as a brass brazier in his true form.
Her brows rose.
He kneeled beside a large cider jar of watery essence. “My Queen. Shield Aquaylae discovered my true identity.”
“I thought you said she was too dense to look beyond your pretense,” Viviane said.
“The Unseelie refugee Cember revealed me.”
“I assume you’ve killed him?”
“Not yet, my Queen.”
“Did you reveal to her the purpose behind the animal thefts?” Viviane asked.
“I did, my Queen, though I have not been able to work out your reasons for letting such important intel reach her—especially without cost.”
“She hasn’t the resources of a Shield any more, Jahriss. She is young and impetuous. Knowing what we’re doing with those animals will pierce her bleeding heart, bringing her to me.”
“What if she lets the cat out of the bag to the other Sidhe?”
“How much damage do you think she can do revealing something we’re doing openly?”
“Your wisdom rivals your beauty, my Queen.”
Viviane rolled her eyes.
She motioned the other faeries into Dunham quarters, stepping aside until Yarque stepped through the Arch. “A moment of your time, Yarque?”
The Kobold glowered at her. His words dripped power, hatred and contempt. “This is the last payment, Lady. With this our debt is square and my service as your gopher is complete.”
“You have my thanks, powerful Yarque. I wonder if we might enter an agreement of continued cooperation.”
Yarque spat at her feet. “I’d rather be turned into a sex thrall by one of your sisters than spend a single unnecessary moment in your presence.”
Anger roared in Viviane’s ears. “Watch your tone, Kobold. My star is ascendant.”
A cruel smile lit his features. “Think you so? Shall the Morning Star’s least servant dare rise higher than he did?”
The other Anseelie tensed.
“Take. Care. Yarque.”
“Rise higher or not, the impact of your fall will shake the Earth almost as much as mirth will rattle my belly.” Yarque backed through the portal, his container left at her feet.
Viviane glared at the amphora. “This is all you have for me? All you’ve stockpiled after all this time?”
“This fulfills our bargain.”
He’s holding out on me.
Viviane held her temper for all she was worth. Yarque was a Power, not as strong as one of the Dark Trinity perhaps, but neither was she as strong as she should have been.
Now is not the time to engage in uncertain contests.
“Your debt is paid.” Viviane turned her back on the Kobold. “Be gone and let our dealings be done.”
Her servants hurried to the standing stones, all but Jahriss’s head lowered into their collars. They poured or scooped essence onto the eggs, refilling the basins enough to bolster the pentagram.
“Not too much, Dunham must not sense the difference.”
Once they finished refueling the circle, they hurried the essence containers back through the portal to her pocket of Faery.
Sir Jahriss stopped on the Arch’s threshold. “What orders, my Queen?”
She considered. It would have been more beneficial to keep him near Quayla, but that broken trust could not be repaired. “Where is she hiding?”
“The same apartment complex, merely one door over.”
A laugh escaped Viviane. Quayla had gall. Hiding beside the first place a hunter would look and cloaking her presence beneath the shadow of the essence seeped into the building from her long residence was brazen and brilliant.
She is everything I thought she’d become, now to enlist her.
“Leave her to me. Prepare my forces for stage three of my plan.”
Sir Jahriss bowed his way through the Arch, closing it after himself.
Viviane returned to the summoner’s stone. “I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting, Summuseraphi. I had to ensure you couldn’t break free of your current lodgings.”
“I will escape eventually, demon.”
She smiled, kneeling down to touch a hand to each rabbit. Power rushed through her limbs, seeping into the carcasses as she muttered the incantation. Both rabbit halves vanished from her circle, appearing inside the one containing Summuseraphi. He fell upon the meat at once, not bothering to keep an eye on her.
She waited until he’d consumed most of the first quarter, anchoring her power firmly into him. She rose, sweeping hands upward. Her circle blazed to life. His ignited brighter than an acetylene torch.
Summuseraphi doubled around his gut. His knees buckled, and he crashed to the stone beneath him. Power flooded into her. Dunham had stolen Summuseraphi’s essence. She’d led him to the scrolls, fed him the truth in small enough bits to make him think he’d found a great treasure without her knowing.
Except I only gave him most of the truth.
Summuseraphi wasted away in his cell, his rejuvenated strength crashing into her like a tsunami.
We shall see who is the least, Kobold. We shall see.