by C. E. Murphy
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Cameron was watching when it happened. Standing down there on the floor looking over the heads of short selkies—because even Kaimana, who came across as a big man, wasn't taller than she was, just broader—and specifically looking up at the balcony where Cole and Kaimana were talking. Cole looked more relaxed than he had in a week, though he had quite a grip on the balcony rail where he was leaning. Still, the banquet was going off well, the fact that it was for selkies no longer seemed to be bothering him as much, and his waitstaff all looked freaking magnificent in their white tuxedos. The only thing that could've made them more awesome would have been getting Margrit and her mother to bleach their hair blonde—Grit's dad had enough grey in his hair to be almost as light-headed, if not bright-headed, as Cam and the three platinum blonds—but Cameron didn't think there was enough tea in China to get Rebecca Knight to bleach her hair. They made a great looking waitstaff anyway, and Cam was grinning up at Cole, waiting for him to notice her, when he vanished.
It looked like a special effect, something straight out of the movies. For half a second she had an afterimage burned into her eyes, an impression of a man grabbing Cole from behind before they disappeared. Not even poof, more like fog blown away by the wind: there one instant, gone the next. Her breath froze in her throat, undecided as to whether it should be a laugh or a shriek.
Before she could make up her mind, Cole reappeared thirty feet above them, in mid-air over the gathered selkies, and fell.
Alban appeared out of nowhere, slamming his massive gargoyle form into the air with a leap that took him halfway across the ballroom. He caught Cole far more gently than could be expected, given the velocity they were both traveling at, and landed in the middle of the ballroom with a floor-rattling thud.
Cameron screamed, only finally catching up to the speed at which it had all happened. Cole, wide-eyed and pale, rolled out of Alban's arms but grabbed the huge gargoyle's shoulder, steadying himself. Biali, like Alban, had instantly shed his human form and leapt upward, broad white wings battering the air to keep him aloft, but he had no visible enemy to attack. Even Kaimana had barely registered more than shock, though something disturbing was happening to Margrit, whose fingers curved wide and whose jaw fell open a little, like she might use tooth and nail as weapons.
Of all of them, Rebecca Knight was the only one who looked calm or in control. She wasn't, she couldn't be, but there was no outward hint of perturbance on her regal features. It was she who said the word aloud, a word Cameron hadn't even had time to think of yet: "Djinn."
It echoed around the ballroom somehow, a crisp clear utterance that went far beyond the range her voice should have had. That was probably panic setting in, blowing things out of proportion, but it also seemed completely in character for Margrit's unflappable mother. If Rebecca had then taken guns from beneath her white tuxedo and begun shooting down the enemy with Matrix-style calm, Cameron wouldn't have been surprised. Rebecca didn't, but it would have seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing for her to do.
Instead Margrit arrived at Cole's side, not inhumanly fast, but pretty damned fast, and the undercurrent of her concern swept toward Cam as much as it was directed at Cole. She asked him something and he shook his head, lips shaping the words, "Fine, I'm fine."
Margrit gave a sharp nod and this time her voice carried, if not as loudly as her mother's had: "Good. Get out of here. Both of you. All of you."
All of you. The humans. Cameron and Cole, Rebecca and Thomas. Margrit clearly intended to stay for the fight along with the rest—the rest?—of the Old Races. For a fleeting instant Cam considered not retreating: she was tall, strong, physically as fit as most normal humans could expect to be, and Margrit was her friend.
A djinn materialized a few yards away, seized a selkie, and disappeared again as quickly as he had arrived. When he reappeared a second time, it was with the selkie woman thrust forward, so that she materialized around the back of a chair, her innards bisected by its presence. Cameron gagged, hot tears of horror and disgust burning her eyes. The room suddenly seemed full of enemies, too many people to decide which way to go, so she went forward, toward Cole and Margrit and Alban.
Hot hands closed on Cameron's shoulders and the world faded around her. She shrieked again, clawing at the nothingness that was trying to claim her. It hurt on every level, like her skin was being abraded, like her hair was being pulled out a few strands at a time, like her eyes were being pressed relentlessly into her skull, until each individual part of her was stretched and scoured and ready for removal.
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Grace O'Malley thrust a hand through Cameron's throat and clenched her fist around something behind Cameron. Cam felt it happening, felt the play of muscle and the strength in the vigilante's grip. She couldn't swallow around the other woman's strength, but for an instant she caught a glimpse of wry apology in Grace's expression. Then Grace yanked, and a djinn passed through Cameron and came out the other side, caught in Grace's deadly grip.
Cam's cells snapped and stretched and slapped back together, returning to normalcy with a bone-deep, skin-twisting pain. She staggered and caught herself on a nearby selkie, but he was focused on the djinn in Grace's hands.
The djinn himself was pale with shock, fingers clawed around Grace's wrist. Cameron could see he was trying to dissipate, but whatever magic had let Grace reach through Cam wouldn't let the djinn fade away. She tightened her fist, an inexorable slow squeeze that her long-fingered hands shouldn't have been able to maintain, and after long seconds that grip snapped his neck, as if she was a strongman playing with dolls. He collapsed onto the floor, boneless, lifeless, and Grace shook her fingers as if loosening a cramp. Then she met Cameron's eyes again, a pained expression sliding across her face. "Grace's secrets are coming unraveled at last. Get down, girl, and stay safe."
Cameron nodded wildly, then ran for the gathering of her friends. Biali had landed with them by the time she arrived, making a small core of non-selkie compatriots near the center of the ballroom. Cole grabbed her into his arms, wheezing relief, and she buried her face in his shoulder for a few seconds before steeling her gut and putting her back to the middle of the circle. Like they could protect each other's backs that way, against an enemy that apparated at will. Still, it was better than nothing, and then Grace stalked up and insinuated herself into the middle of the circle, which after her display meant maybe the djinn weren't going to go for the humans after all.
They weren't there for the humans anyway. Whether grabbing Cole had been opportunity or distraction, it was the selkies they'd come to make war on. Cole, shoulder to shoulder with Cam, whispered, "What the hell," even though Cam was reasonably certain he knew the answer already.
Margrit said it aloud anyway: "Revenge." The stories she had told them in the aftermath of the dockland fires were more than enough to illuminate the list of what required avenging: djinn bound to corporeal form by salt water and killed in the battles between the Old Races. The selkies' complete sweep of Eliseo Daisani's fallen empire, now controlled by and benefiting them. The selkies were already the most populous of the remaining Old Races, and with Daisani's empire in their pocket they were suddenly significant in the human world too. So were the djinn, but they had taken the underbelly empire, Janx's crimelord territories, and it was an uglier, darker place to be. If they could wipe out the selkie here—if they could destroy Kaimana Kaaiai in particular—they would be well-positioned to take over Daisani's empire as well, holding both sides of the gameboard in their hands. There was age-old bad blood between the selkies and the djinn as well: they were natural enemies, the salt-water-born selkie anathema to the desert-bound djinn. They had all the reasons in the world to fight.
And they were nearly impossible to stop. They had to become physical to hit the selkies, but they could wisp away again in less than a blink, and once they had their hands on someone they could take them into the ether. The selkies were strong—Cameron flinched back as a small, young woman ripped a chair apart w
ith her bare hands to provide herself with a weapon—but they couldn't dissipate. Once they were made incorporeal—
A djinn seized the young woman and misted away with her. A few seconds later they reappeared again, but this time it was the djinn screaming: the girl had shoved her chair leg backward, into the djinn's chest, and when he solidified it had pierced him through. It was as horrible as the first woman's execution, and yet somehow this time Cam had to force back a shout of approval. The selkie just seemed too vulnerable in comparison to the untouchable djinn. Without salt water—or vampire's blood, for heaven's sake—there was no way to stop them.
Salt water.
Cameron's gaze snapped to the buffet tables, to the long troughs of ice that kept the food on the tables cool. Cole had used salt water for the ice, even though it took much longer to freeze and melted faster. It had been keeping in the theme, and that had been worth it. "Margrit—"
Half a dozen djinn came out of nowhere, grabbing for Alban. His wings snapped out, knocking their circle askew. Biali leapt over his head and landed on one djinn, flattening him even as his huge stone fists smashed at two more. Margrit, who was faster than she should be, ducked under Biali's wings and bashed another djinn in the nose. Of the others, only Grace kept her feet under the buffeting power of the gargoyles' wings. Cameron was knocked aside, then gasped as more djinn appeared above her, around her, everywhere, and she finally realized that it wasn't only Grace at the center of their protective circle: Kaimana was there too, his own meaty fists lashing out damage but risking far too much of himself.
Cameron reached below the djinn, searching for Cole's hand, and latched on hard when she found it. He gave her a wild-eyed look as she dragged him forward, scrambling between djinn determined to reach the selkie leader. They could not pass Grace, who was everywhere at once, doing the bone-shakingly awful thing she'd done to the first djinn, but there were so many of them that she would falter soon, and it would be over.
Cole blurted, "Grit said run—!" as Cam hauled him forward, but she shook her head and got her feet under her, pulling Cole upright as she ran for the catering tables.
He figured it out before she reached them and put on a burst of speed himself, knocking platters and trays aside as they both snatched up the ice troughs. They were half melted already, long sticks of ice floating in cold water. Cam spun around with hers, spraying salt water back at the group they'd escaped from, then bellowed, "Margrit!" at the top of her lungs.
Margrit's gaze snapped up. Cameron threw a stick of ice at her, water dripping as it flew through the air. Margrit caught it, bewildered, then yelped as its cold bit her hands. She licked one palm instinctively, trying to warm it, and her eyes widened before a grin split her face.
The djinn were already suffering the effects of the first splash, exacerbated as Cole flung water the same way Cam had. He threw a second ice stick toward Alban, who caught it with inhuman grace, then slammed it across the faces of the djinn trying to get past him. It streaked them with salt water, binding them to corporeal form, and Biali gave an ugly howl of pleasure as his next blows landed to great effect. Cole spilled more ice water onto the floor, sending ice sticks skidding toward the fight. Rebecca Knight, of all people, picked one up, though she didn't begin to fight with it. She used it defensively, though, moving elegantly and smoothly. Her surgeon husband was more efficiently brutal, clobbering the now-solid djinn with the skill of a man who knew where a body's most vulnerable areas were. Beyond them, in the wider ball room, selkies were starting to realize what Cameron and Cole were doing, and ran for the buffet tables too, arming themselves with the one weapon that could equalize the fight.
Maybe more than equalize it. The selkie were strong, not as strong as the stone-born gargoyles, but they had the physical strength of the seals that were their natural form, and that, translated into human bodies, was disproportionately powerful. The djinn, it seemed, lacked that strength: their power was in their ability to phase in and out of physicality, and with that talent neutralized they were suddenly as outmatched as the selkies had been minutes earlier. Cameron's stomach lurched again as the tide turned, the fight turning bloodier and messier by the moment. After a minute Cole caught her shoulders and turned her away, tucking them both beneath one of the catering tables, out of sight and out, she hoped, of harm's way.
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Cameron was tall, strong, physically fit. Not ever the sort who seemed to need holding or taking care of, which was part of what Cole loved about her. She'd crawled out of a car wreck mess as a teenager—not literally, but physically and emotionally—and had become someone who helped others, not somebody who often needed help herself. But she curled tight in his arms as they hid beneath the tablecloths, her face buried in his shoulder and her breath coming short and hard against his chest. Cole knotted his hands against her spine and held on as tight as she did, trying to keep his own breathing steady, but they both flinched and gasped quietly into each other's bodies at the sounds and screams from beyond.
It wasn't heroic. It wasn't the stuff legendary men were made of. It wasn't even in any real way protecting his woman: they were both hiding, no bones about it. And given his hackle-rising reaction to the Old Races, Cole thought he should have a problem with that.
Turned out he didn't. There were more important things to worry about, when it came down to it. Surviving, for example. Making sure Cam survived. He'd thought that would mean needing to fight, needing to make himself visible among the Old Races, needing to prove his place. But putting himself out there in the middle of battle, having seen even just a minute or two of it, seemed stupid now. Kaimana had been right: there was no chance Cole could compete physically with the Old Races. He wasn't afraid of them anymore, but he no longer had any impulse to try himself against them or worrying about—in Cam's words—who was the alpha dog. He wanted to live and he wanted Cameron to live, that was all. It didn't feel cowardly, just smart.
It ended faster than he expected, but he stayed still, hanging onto Cam and waiting. The djinn could be so silent, slipping in and out of reality, that he didn't know how he could know that it was—
"It's safe to come out now. You may…wish to keep your eyes closed." It was Rebecca Knight who came for them in the end, her unfailing calm in some ways more unnerving than the sounds of battle had been. Cole glanced at Cam, then nodded when she did.
"Sounds like a good idea." His voice was hoarse. He swallowed, then caught Cam's arm as she started to climb out from behind the tablecloths. "Maybe you should use your cummerbund or bow tie for a blindfold. I…it's going to be hard not to look."
Cam shuddered and nodded again, un-wrapping her cummerbund and offering Cole her bow tie. Neither of them tied them in place, just held them over their faces with one hand as they crawled out from beneath the tables. Rebecca took their free hands as they stood, murmured, "I'll move slowly," and led them through the nearly silent ballroom.
Cole couldn't resist one glimpse, and wished he'd been able to. The opulent Daisani ballroom was streaked and sprayed with red, bodies lying in unrecognizable lumps and pieces all around. The floor was pink with water-thinned blood, darkening where it still drained from the dead. The food he'd prepared was smeared in a macabre mess among the bodies, a few plates strangely still pristine and untouched, as if nothing untoward had happened. Cole's stomach roiled, bile rising behind his teeth, and he clapped the fabric over his face again.
It had been impossible to tell, at a glance, who lay among the bodies, whether more were selkie or djinn. Djinn, obviously, or he and Cam wouldn't be walking away with Rebecca Knight in the lead. But there had been so many of them coming for Kaimana that it seemed unlikely the selkie leader was alive. Without him, Cole wasn't sure the selkies could hold onto their newly-gained empire, and for the first time he actually cared. It wasn't so much that he wanted the selkies to hold it as he didn't want the djinn to, given the ruthlessness they'd shown again and again. The idea of their tribes with that much power and influenc
e in the human world scared him, though when he got right down to it, anybody with that much power and influence was alarming. The djinn generally seemed actively malicious, though, whereas the selkies had seemed to just want to survive.
Right now, that was something Cole felt a lot of sympathy for. He stumbled as Rebecca led them up the first of the balcony stairs, then found his pacing and climbed steadily. Rebecca murmured, "It's safer to remove the blindfolds now," and Cole dropped his to see a few remaining smears of blood, but far less carnage than had lain below.
Margrit burst out of a hallway and flung herself at both of them, offering a hard hug Cole could feel her trembling through. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never imagined—"
"Of course you didn't." Cam's voice was shaky but a little teasing. "C'mon, Grit, in what universe would you deliberately ask Cole to cater a bloodbath? Is everybody—your mom's okay, but everybody—?"
"Dad took a couple of good hits, but he's okay. Alban and Grace are fine. I think Biali's still jumping on the pieces of people he ripped apart." Margrit smiled wanly, then drew herself up, pulling on a mantle that Cole recognized as much as he knew her lawyer body language and jargon: she was becoming The Negotiator, the human woman entrusted with the fates of the Old Races. "There are some people who would like to see you two, if you don't mind."
"Do we have a choice?"
Margrit, looking incredibly serious, met Cole's eyes and nodded an affirmative. "You do. You can walk away right now and they'll let you. But they would like to see you first, if you're willing."
"You're the one who's said nobody gets to walk away from the Old Races."
"You've earned an exception." Margrit moved her hand, though, gesturing them to the door she'd burst through, and Cole exchanged glances with Cam, who nodded and went so far as to tug his hand a little, ushering him toward the door. She was braver than he was, he thought, but right now his fear was pretty much wiped out, so he went with her.