AS WE were talking, a plump little guy in a gold and white checkered robe poked his head through the door to the sanctum. His eyes widened, he managed a little bleat of surprise, and then a dozen hungry hands closed on him and jerked him into the room. As many angry Sidhe as could reach him closed him off from view. Chunks of flesh and strips of robe started raining down through the room.
Silverhand’s son stooped, rifled through the silent guards I had bound earlier and retrieved a dart pistol. Oisin shook his head. “I’ve dealt with them before. Whitesnakes are immune to nearly all poisons. It’s why they use the poison dart guns.”
Silverhand’s son tossed the pistol away contemptuously.
“Damn!” Oisin turned as I cursed. I had forgotten the Whitesnake immunity to poison. I thought I had killed my interrogator. That sadistic swine of a high priest had faked me out completely. I still had a score to settle.
We finished releasing the last prisoner to the sounds of savage violence behind us. It helped to remember that despite appearances, Fae were not human. Creyn looked ready to collapse as he bent to heal the last of the wounded.
The Sidhe moved back from a huddled shapeless mass. They were collectively shivering with rage. Entirely berserk with nothing significant remaining of the hapless priest to vent their rage on, the group lunged for the door to the sanctum. Oisin and I followed in a more leisurely fashion. The last of his brethren healed, Creyn tottered after the rush, looking like an elvish Methuselah.
I followed the crowd out onto the dais where the priests had gathered. Light poured through the room, gleaming from every rich, polished surface. The Whitesnakes had spared no expense on their sanctum. Around the dais, priests stood before stone slabs shaped to take the tables upon which the Sidhe had been chained. Stone mouths opened at regular intervals around the altars. The Whitesnakes obviously had refined the process of human sacrifice to assembly line efficiency, complete with wheeled gurneys built to support removable tables that could be set in place on the altars, where the blood from the sacrifice could be neatly channeled into the stone declivities waiting to receive it.
I had encountered mass production insanity before, but it never failed to give me the shivers. Scale and efficiency made any evil so much more dangerous, I had to wonder if the advantages were worth the potential price. In this doubt lay my ambivalence toward TechTown.
The mass of the Sidhe charged what looked like the full congregation. Every available cultist had apparently managed to make an appearance. They rose from their seats, hissing. Howling, blood-mad Sidhe swarmed over the priests standing at the front of the platform.
It was a sight to warm the cockles of my heart.
Serpentine sorceries flickered at the edge of my awareness. Sidhe sorcery rose to contend with the power of the priests. I coolly stood back by the door and struck the Whitesnake sorcerers down while the Sidhe had their attention. None of them would awaken from the sleep to which I sent them. Like any other total conflict, mercy and fairness had no place in that battle. I had less regard for the Whitesnakes than many of the creatures of NightTown, for each cultist had chosen to follow Whitesnake doctrine, whereas many creatures of the night merely followed the instincts nature had given them.
Screaming, cursing madness filled the Whitesnake Holy of Holies. Bright light lit the chaos as dark blood spattered the silver and gold of the furnishings. The congregation began swarming up the side of the platform. The son of Silverhand led a counter-attack. Priests, whole and in pieces, rained down on the heads of their followers.
I had to admit that the Sidhe were not to be screwed with when their blood was running hot.
As the last of the Whitesnake sorcerers went down and the Sidhe turned their attention to the mass of cultists, a stench of power fouled my mouth and nose. I walked along the edge of the conflict, searching, and spotted a familiar white robe straightening from where he had knelt in a tiny, curtained alcove in the back and center of the platform. A knife and a cup lay on the small table at which he had knelt. Both were covered with dark stains, as was his mouth. The body of a lesser priest lay unmoving at his feet.
His eyes glowed white. He smiled when he saw me. “The blood is good. The god approves.”
I could see the power of his god coiling inside him. A snarl twisted my mouth. I had banished the bastard once. I could do it again. The battle raging at my back, I met his eyes as he threw his arms wide and prepared to pour his power into his followers.
The demon incarnated in the flesh of the high priest may not have been a god in truth, but it had unholy strength. I didn’t have my Legion to lean upon, to distract it. At the same time, I did not have the distraction of managing my Legion.
I met its strength, holding it in place as the Sidhe slaughtered the Whitesnakes. Losing their sorcerers early in the battle had put the cultists in a bad position. The Sidhe had no intention of easing the pressure on them. The glow in the priest’s eyes brightened until he could have found work as a desk lamp. He stood unmoving as the demon infesting him focused more and more of its power on me.
The power of the Whitesnake god wrapped around me with a cold, strangling strength. I stepped forward slowly, as if bearing great weight, fighting as it tightened its hold on me. Each step came slower and slower, each breath came further and further apart, until my heart labored in my chest.
I stepped into arm’s reach and struck the high priest as hard as I could in his exposed throat with my right fist. The pressure eased on me immediately as pain splintered his concentration. Then the demon swept him aside and the possession became complete. The glow in the priest’s eyes took on a reddish hue.
I used the brief respite to lunge around him and lay my hands on the knife. I appreciated the irony of using the high priest’s own sacrificial knife on him even as my fingers closed over the cold hilt. I turned to see the possessed high priest spread his arms and rise skyward. I stabbed him in the small of the back, which was as high as I could reach with him floating toward the ceiling.
He whirled in midair. I hung onto the knife, which ripped free. He screamed like a damned soul. I stabbed him again, this time in the lower belly. I felt a surge of force lashing toward me and turned it aside with the edge of my will. The table behind me exploded, showering me with splinters. I stabbed him again, stepping close to his body, grinning when I realized that his shadow had fallen over me.
I reached up through the shadow to the thing inside and haled it forth. The body dropped like a marionette with cut strings. The demon I held in my will lashed and snarled and raged like a parasite torn from its host. It turned on me, trying to take me, but I felt other wills adding to mine. Caught in forces beyond its strength, torn from the host whose life had supported its presence, and unable to retreat back to the safety of its own plane, the demon died. The Sidhe who lent me their strength smiled with me as we crushed it under the heel of our collective spiritual boot.
I took the moment to draw a breath. Silence fell down around me. I could feel the larger barrier unraveling and fading to foul, ethereal smoke. The wrath of the Sidhe had shattered the Whitesnake sorcerers who had maintained the barrier. Their work followed them into the final darkness.
Creyn limped forth to do what he could for the Sidhe who were wounded. Silverhand’s son buoyed Creyn up, nodding to me gravely even as he fed the healer his strength which was used to succor the wounded Sidhe. Watching them, I remembered all the things I admired in the Sidhe—their strength, their joy, their bright and shining power, and their love. They loved as fiercely as they did everything else.
I caught Oisin at the edge of the Sidhe. “Be careful when you return.”
“I understand. The Whitesnakes are broken. The other remains.”
I nodded.
He cocked his head. “Will you tell me who you suspect?”
I thought about it. I owed him that much, though I doubted the news would be welcome. Had it not been for the Sidhe, the Whitesnake High Priest would have already been examining my entrails for defects. “I believe Titania is behind it. She has the most cause.”
Several heads snapped around at that, though I had spoken quietly. Oisin’s face hardened. “Do you have proof?”
I shook my head. “That’s why I have been reluctant to speak. But she involved herself. She set Fetch on my trail. Who else would it have been?”
“That’s a serious charge,” Oisin said.
“One I will make when I have the proof I need,” I answered. “Once I have dug into this thing as far as necessary, I’ll have evidence. Until that time, I make no formal accusations.”
“That would be best.” Oisin said. “And we will be careful. You be careful as well. If what you say is true, we will be safe once we have reached Nuada’s lands. If she fails to prevent us from arriving, killing us there would serve her little purpose. Nuada would be on guard against it. But you have no such refuge.”
“I know.” I sighed. “She’s forcing me to the course she fears the most.” I clasped hands with each of them, then I stood with them as they gave respect to those they had lost. Five of the Sidhe had died in the battle with the Whitesnakes, though the cultists had lost far more than that. Any surviving Whitesnakes had departed, leaving their dead to lie as they had fallen. Still, the price seemed high. The Sidhe are not a fecund race.
I watched as they lifted their dead to their shoulders and set their feet on the Way home. I worked myself out through the winding passages, and then found my own Way. First, I thought I’d see if the Wraith had turned up any evidence of the origin of the Whitesnake funds. After that, I intended to retrace my steps a bit, then seek my answers at the root of the conflict.