Ashes Of Memory

by Aiden Bates

  The incident itself?

  “Spader,” I whispered. “James Spader, right?”

  Mikhail nodded, and opened the book, and pointed to the paragraph where Monroe described the people involved in closing a gate to the abyss. “He was one of the six mages that sealed the rift,” he said. “It was blood magic. There are no details about how it happened, exactly—probably because Monroe didn’t want some asshole dreaming up how to undo the seals. But”—he turned the page to show a photo of the six mages, six dragons, and six fae who had done the work—“all the mages in the photo have the same injury. Bandages on their left hands. And this lady here?”

  He pointed to one of the women in the picture. Below the old photo, the names of the eighteen were listed, left to right. “Carolina Paulson,” I read.

  “AKA,” Mikhail said, “Carolina Spader?”

  “Makes sense,” I agreed. “Something like that... they all had to have been close afterward. But, so does that mean Sophia was part human?”

  “Part mage,” he confirmed. “If these are her grandparents, that is. And given the circumstances, it all seems like way too much of a coincidence.”

  I had to agree. I paced the room. “So, Sophia joins this group,” I said, “and then meets Haval, and has a kid, and maybe these people think they can break the seal if they’ve got the right bloodlines. But why not just—I mean, I know it’s awful to think about—why not just have a kid in some black compound somewhere, and do it that way? Why not just use Sophia? Why go to all this trouble?”

  Mikhail spread his hands, as bewildered as I was. “I haven’t the faintest clue. Someone at the weyr might know. Maybe Haval and Tam’s family were involved, too?”

  “Maybe,” I breathed. “At least it’s something. What else does Monroe say about what happened?”

  He shook his head. “Just the stuff we all learn about, except in more detail. It’s not exactly a dangerous book. I’m not even sure why it would be restricted. I can read the rest, find out.”

  “Do that,” I said, and went to the chair I’d been using to collect my coat, then gave the stacks a guilty look. “Uh...”

  Mikhail rolled his eyes. “It’s fine,” he said, exasperated, “I’ll get one of the library aides to help me put them back. You go, find out what you can from Tam or whoever handles history at the weyr.”

  I gave him a quick hug once I had my coat on. “Thanks.”

  He caught me by the elbow as I pulled back. “Hey—maybe you should tell Master Nkendi about this? Get someone involved who hasn’t recently had to put themself back together like a broken vase and the glue is still drying?”

  If the masters knew about Baz, about his connection to the Midnight Incident, I didn’t know how they’d react. Especially if they knew that someone had already grabbed him once and tried to use him to cause something like that again. If that’s even what they’d been trying to do. I trusted my master, but she had a duty, like all the cabals, to guard the public against magical threats. That was the whole reason every cabal was named Custodes-something. Guardians of the Moon, Guardians of the Heights, Guardians of the Sea. In fact, all of us, including Mikhail and me, were legally obligated to report this sort of thing.

  I just couldn’t risk Baz being taken away from Tam. “If it can’t be resolved quietly,” I said, “then I’ll report it to Master Nkendi. Until then, though—just keep this between us? Please. He’s just a kid, and Tam has already lost so much.”

  Mikhail let my elbow go, and gave a reluctant, uncomfortable nod. “For now,” he agreed. “But seriously, Vance. If it gets out of hand, it could be bad. Midnight Incident level bad.” He gestured at the book. “There’s a point at which you have to weigh the safety of everyone.”

  “I will,” I told him. “I promise. Just give me some time, so no one overreacts.”

  All he gave me was another weary nod before I left. I trusted Mikhail to keep a secret, at least for a little while.

  The question was, did I trust myself to be able to handle any of this on my own?

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure.

  19

  Tam

  Liana watched me over her coffee cup, sipping slowly as she considered what I’d told her. When she finally set it down, she took a deep breath. “So, let me just make sure that I am hearing you right,” she said slowly. “You’re worried that Baz might be... what, infected?... with the same thing that was in Vance’s head, and that for that matter you might have put Vance together wrong, or something?”

  “Paraphrased,” I pointed out, “but basically accurate.”

  She pursed her lips. “Okay. Is there anything I can do?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Probably not? I just needed someone to talk to that I trust. And right now, that’s not a very long list.”

  “You don’t trust the weyr?” she wondered. “Everyone here supports your right to lead the community, Tam. You know that. And we all trust you.”

  “I know,” I said softly, “but after Sophia, well... I don’t intend to start some kind of a hunt for traitors or anything like that but no one suspected her, Liana. How many others could have infiltrated? How many here have mates from other weyrs, or mates who aren’t dragons?”

  “Six,” she said. “Not that I keep count. Except I do and it’s kind of my job. But I don’t watch them any more closely than the others.”

  “Of course not,” I agreed. “And that’s my point.”

  “But,” she said as she fingered the handle of the mug, “I could just follow up a little, reach out to security at the other weyrs and packs, and just make sure there’s nothing strange.”

  I hated the idea of prying into anyone’s life, or that I wasn’t absolutely certain I could trust every person in the weyr. But after Sophia, I’d found myself watching people more carefully, wondering if there was some other security risk that had snuck in.

  And I couldn’t help thinking of what Mara had told me.

  “While you’re at it,” I said, “would you mind doing another favor for me?”

  “It’s not a favor for me to do security-related work for the leader of my weyr,” she pointed out, “but sure. Hit me.”

  I told her what Mara had related about the issues in power structures among shifter groups and even Cabals along the East Coast. “It could be nothing,” I said, “just a series of unfortunate coincidences—”

  “But enough coincidences add up to a pattern,” she agreed before I had to voice what I worried was just paranoia. “You’re absolutely right, we should at least be informed. I’ll see what I can drum up. And Vance?”

  I frowned. “What about him?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing specific,” she said. “Just... you seem worried he’s not the person he’s supposed to be. Are you absolutely sure that he is himself?”

  “Whatever was in him came out,” I said. “The mages at Custodes Lunae stuck it in some kind of a jar, or something.”

  “You saw that?” she asked.

  I hadn’t, and it made me hesitate. “Well... I heard about it, and Nkendi seemed earnest. I can’t think why she or anyone there would lie about it.”

  “Sure,” she said, “but you said yourself he isn’t entirely recovered. So, is having him here with all this other stuff going on the best idea?”

  A bit of undeserved anger reared up inside me, and I had to push it down. It was Liana’s job to consider security matters objectively. She was just giving me her opinion. “Admittedly,” I said, “he has some problems still. But he’s stable. And I trust him. And having an esper around, even if he isn’t really using his magic again yet, isn’t a bad thing. He’s still got instincts, he’s still sensitive to things we aren’t. If someone came back for Baz, he might realize something was wrong before any of us.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “I just want you to be thinking with your head. I like Vance—I always liked him. I think you two are good for one another, and I know how much you care about him. To me, however, if I’m just
being as unbiased as possible... I have to point out that you can’t really afford to be vulnerable right now. That’s all. Just keep it in mind, please.”

  As if Vance had heard us talking about him, my phone buzzed, and a message from him popped up. Almost to the weyr. You home?

  I picked up the phone, and saw Liana’s eyebrow raise. “Vance,” I said, waggling the phone before I responded. “He’s on his way here. He was going to have a talk with Mikhail about Sophia.”

  Liana grimaced, and seemed to go a little green. “They’re not calling her up again, are they? It really wasn’t pleasant.”

  She’d been there when Mikhail did his work, unwilling to let a necromancer poke around in the underworld inside our territory without supervision. So far she hadn’t said that much about it other than to confirm that Mikhail had told me everything. But it clearly had stuck with her. “I don’t know,” I admitted as I tapped out a message. Yeah, I’m home. See you soon. “But it’s been hours. He must have found something.”

  Liana finished her coffee and stood from the table. “Well, let me know what I need to know. I’ll start looking quietly into all of that, and tell you first thing if I notice anything concerning. Hey, Tam?”

  I looked up from my phone as I put it down on the table. “Hm?”

  She put a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve all been through a lot. But it’s not the worst the weyr has seen. We’ll be okay, like we always are. And you will be, too. I don’t know if anyone’s said it to you or not.”

  I put my hand on hers, grateful for her friendship as much as her service. “Thanks. I mean it. Come for dinner soon. Baz needs to see familiar faces. And feel like things are at least a little normal.”

  “I will,” she promised, and left me to see to it.

  Baz was back in school as part of the effort to give him some structure and normalcy, and would be for another couple of hours. I worried what Vance might have found, but was glad he’d be home to come with me when we picked Baz up.

  Maybe it was a little premature to think this way, but with Vance around regularly, it was almost like Baz had two parents. We couldn’t replace Haval and Sophia, of course—even if Sophia had been a traitor. But it was something. A step closer to stability.

  And if we were lucky, this business about night monsters was just a product of that transition.

  Vance showed up about ten minutes after Liana left. He gave me a quick kiss before he sat down in the chair she’d occupied before, and clasped his hands on the table, clearly uneasy about whatever he’d discovered. “So... it’s not great.”

  I leaned on the table, resting my elbows as I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Just tell me.”

  “Short version,” he said, “Sophia may have been descended from one of the mages and dragons involved in stopping the Midnight Incident, and it’s possible the mage that took Baz was hoping to use his blood as part of a process of breaking the seal they placed on the rift in Chicago.”

  My stomach twisted. I could only stare for a few seconds while I processed that. How had we not known? How had we let Sophia into our midst? How had any of the Dark Eaters survived all this time, when the entire paranormal world and the US government had hunted and eradicated every whisper of abyssal cult activity? For that matter, it had happened everywhere in the world. And not always justly.

  “I know,” Vance said quietly. “It’s a lot.”

  “It is,” I admitted. “Shit.”

  “The thing I wondered,” he went on, “is why Haval? Why this weyr, your family? Are you descended from any of the eighteen?”

  I must have gone pale, because my blood ran cold. We were. And that meant that Sophia hadn’t just picked someone in power in some weyr. She’d targeted Haval specifically. Targeted my family, specifically. “Divalla Klade,” I said. “One of the six dragons involved. She was our grandmother, married Ivan Blackstone. He founded this weyr, after the Enlightenment.”

  Vance folded his arms, and his eyes grew distant as his lips thinned. “Well, that might confirm the theory then. That brings together, what—three of the bloodlines involved? No one really knows much about how the seal was laid, but Mikhail figures it was blood magic of some kind and I’m inclined to agree. At least now we have a motive.”

  “The question is,” I said, “did they get what they wanted?”

  Vance shook his head. “I don’t know. Where’s Baz?”

  “School,” I said. “If you want, you can come with me to pick him up. I’d like it if you would, and I think he—”

  “How secure is the school?” Vance asked, a note of worry in his voice.

  I blinked. “It’s our kids. No one’s getting in. Especially not after what happened at Haval’s house; Liana has the whole place on high alert still.”

  He stood. “We should go get him.”

  I checked the time. “It’s not over for at least another hour and a half.”

  “I don’t think he should be out of our sight right now,” he said, growing more urgent. “Not until we can be sure he’s not... infected or something, like I was. Just until we know for sure this is over.”

  Something nagged at my thoughts. Some bit of trivia that seemed to be on the edge of my perception. “Wait,” I murmured as Vance started toward the living room.

  He paused, eyebrows knit. “What?”

  “Kieren,” I said, dragging it up from the depths of memory, and looked up at Vance. “The man whose pups were taken. From the River Valley pack?”

  Vance’s eyes narrowed. “From the last time, right? What about him?”

  “He’s descended from one of the eighteen as well,” I said. “Uh... Tembridge? One of the fae that was there.”

  “Tembridge,” Vance repeated, testing the word. He looked down, frowning. “Cecily? Mikhail showed me a photo, there was a Tembridge in it.”

  “That’s the name,” I confirmed. “Cecily Tembridge. I remember because Kieren is... well, you’d remember if you could, but he’s stupid pretty, and Haval used to make fun of him, and he admitted he had fae blood, and—anyway, it doesn’t matter, it’s a pattern.”

  “Shit,” Vance breathed. “This hasn’t just started, then. It’s been going on for years. We should get Baz.”

  “Agreed,” I said. Two cults of abyssal mages, separated by three years, both cells destroyed, but working to the same end.

  The only safe assumption was that there would be others.

  We left the house, and took the car to the school although it was easily within a short walk. Once we were there, we rushed inside together to the admin office.

  Nathal Tevan was behind the attendance desk, all of twenty years old. I’d known him since he was born. He looked up with a smile that quickly faded when we came into the office. “Mr. Blackstone. Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine, Nate,” I said, though I was sure my tone wasn’t reassuring. “I just need to pick up Baz. Where is he?”

  “I’ll call him to the office,” he said, eyeing me momentarily before he picked up the phone and pressed a button I couldn’t see. “Baz Blackstone, please report to the attendance desk. Your uncle is here.”

  He hung up. “Just be a second,” he said.

  Even that much time seemed like too much. I found myself searching every sound that came to my ears, looking for anything out of place, anything worrying.

  The phone rang. Nathal picked it up. “Attendance.”

  He listened. Frowned. Looked up at me, his face draining of color. “Thank you,” he said, his voice thin.

  A terrible feeling sank into me. “No. Nate—”

  He hung up the phone. “I... I’m so sorry, Mr. Blackstone,” he said, his fingers shaking as they came back. “He was in Dana’s classroom, and asked to use the bathroom. He... hasn’t come back.”

  I slammed my fists on the counter. Nathal practically jumped out of his skin as scales rippled over my face, my dragon practically thrashing inside me. “Get every staff member in the school looking for him. Now.�
��

  Nathal nodded frantically as he picked up the phone and hit another button to make the announcement.

  I stalked out of the attendance office, Vance close behind me. “This can’t be happening.”

  “We can’t wait,” Vance muttered.

  “I know we can’t—” I turned to see him closing his eyes tight. Magic sang. “No, Vance, you aren’t—”

  He put a hand up, and grimaced, his lips parting as he exhaled a tense breath. Flashes of stray thoughts hit my mind. He was in no shape to use his magic, it was uncontrolled, clearly. I saw a glimpse of that dark creature from his mind. Of an angry white wolf that looked like Kieren. Felt a wave of dread mixed with guilt.

  Vance opened his eyes. The magic quieted, and the foreign thoughts faded. His face had drained of color. “He’s here,” he said. “In the weyr. North side, in the woods. We can get to him, he’s on foot.”

  I didn’t have time to scold him for being irresponsible with his mind, and was too relieved. “Then let’s go.”

  We raced out to the car, and I peeled out of the school parking lot. We took the main road through the weyr north until it ended, and Vance pointed off across the park there. “That way,” he said. “He went through the park.”

  “You stay here,” I told him as I got out.

  He followed me anyway. “Obviously, I’m not doing that.”

  There was no point arguing, and it would only waste time. We crossed the park at nearly a sprint. I picked up Baz’s scent at the edge of the woods, where some of the underbrush had been recently disturbed. He’d gotten pretty far, and I planned to have Liana address the issue this all presented. Her security tactics were to keep anyone who didn’t belong here out, not keep people in. And even that was a touchy matter—we couldn’t lock down the weyr indefinitely.