by Elle Cross
There was an opening and it was dark and then there was a kind of clear patch of earth. That was where a bunch of glyphs and runes were already started.
"I'm glad I trust you, Henrick, because this looks an awful like a trap getting ready to be set."
“I think you know me well enough that I wouldn't go through such elaborate lengths to trap you only to kill you. You would have been dead a moment before you set foot on Arapax grounds."
Of that she didn't have a doubt.
As she traipsed the path behind Henrick, and the supple texture of night grew heavier on her skin, she knew that she was leaving the Mortal Coil, and venturing into Fae.
The veils that had partitioned the realms had somehow disappeared. Immortelle had just found a way into Underhill.
"So what's all the fuss? It didn't take anyone highly intuitive to pick up on the fact that you were troubled by something. And that the eclipse or the moon had something to do with it."
Henrick bowed to her slightly. “I still felt the need to play the part, and I am glad you picked up on it rather than fight it. It saved precious time.”
The Fae knight gestured for her to follow. He swished the cloak he wore into the space in front of them and in a grand gesture worthy of the theatre, he pulled the cloak back over top of them. It stretched over and around them like billowing night. As if a piece of black hole and the universe itself pressed against her.
Henrick opened the gateway, and there in the midst of a darkness that was that was darker than black was a flame that didn't burn.
He knelt in front of it, and there was a whispered hush.
Henrick was setting the stage for the arrival of his queen.
The Cabal had always just let their delegates police their own people, which was difficult when the Fae were such a diverse population.
Vampires were different, the same as the Gargoyles and Dragons. They tended to have more of a hierarchy, rank and file that kind of made them fall in line behind a leader.
She should know. She followed all the directions that were offered to her like a good little weapon.
Fae...they were as different as mist was from flame, and the idea of corralling them together under a common banner was almost comical.
Even the fact that one opposed one ideal over another would immediately make their courts divided. Order and Chaos. Light and Dark. Summer and Winter. Two sides of the same coin.
To negotiate the interests of a whole like that was ridiculous. They all should have seen it before now.
It would have been simpler if there were a delegation from each Fae court, but then the Cabal would have been overrun with just Fae interests.
And the Vampires were too cunning to let something like that overrule their control.
The Queen That Was, the Queen That Is, and the Queen that Is To Come appeared in the curl of mist and ash. "You are early, Knight, are you not? Or is it that the veils feel muddled?”
In this space, in their presence, Henrick was no longer the amiable manager of a sanctuary hotel. He became the Knight of the Dark Queens. And his gravitas shot a nervous knot in Immortelle’s belly.
"I am early, Your Majesties. Please give it time, and the veils should thin some more.”
As if in answer, the oppressive blackness lightened a degree.
“Very well, as it is soon. Why are you early?”
“I have Immortelle here, and she has already mentioned the triumvirate to me.”
There was a hissing sound, a chorus of vipers in a nest. "Where?"
Henrick turned to Immortelle, who realized belatedly that she was supposed to answer. "It was in the Goblin Market."
"A triumvirate? Here? Now?"
They all spoke at once, faster than other triune sisters, and it took a moment for Immortelle to get used to it. “Yes. Not exactly right now, but the night before, but my timeline.” Assuming that time flowed the same in the Goblin Market and here. "Did you not see it?"
"We did. The timing...it was supposed to be after the opening of the veil. When the moon is at its eclipse. Something is amiss."
Immortelle held up her hand. "Wait, something is amiss because it was supposed to come after the veil. Meaning that it was supposed to be here at all?" She opened then closed her mouth trying to think of the right words. She didn’t want to upset beings that could use magick and throw it around like it was a mere blanket.
"Yes. To kill the triumvirate that snuck into this world uninvited before the eclipse passes is to invite something else to replace it. Something stronger."
Immortelle swallowed hard. “Okay, so let’s say I did kill it. What happens next?”
A sound like a plucked bow string resonated in the air. "Did you kill it, Weapon, or did your men?"
Immortelle bristled at being called a weapon. She didn't like the way they said your men either. “Well, if you must know, they did all gang up on him, but they all seemed eager to do so.”
“Tell us more about the encounter. How are you sure that it was a triumvirate as you said."
Immortelle gave them a rundown of what happened, and she was careful not to say much about Ara Larusha, keeping that part of her memories neutral. She also didn't mention fairy paths, instead saying that she met a human practitioner who called forth an oracle into a skull, and that oracle seemed to be a repository of information.
And the oracle was the one who suggested the term triumvirate, and was the one to use it.
At the end of Immortelle’s recitation, they shifted restlessly, seemingly unconvinced of something. Whether it was her tale or their premonition, Immortelle couldn’t decide. "Look, I'll show you." She took out a bit of scrap paper, and using Henrick’s proffered pen, scribbled the coin from memory, including the sigils. The halo of its inherent power glowed around it in her mind’s eye, as intense as the moment she had seen it, thanks to her Sight.
Immortelle showed it to the Dark Queens. "See, it was powered by a coin that carried this symbol."
A sound like the hissing of cats came from the Queens of What Was, What Is, and What Is to Come. "Burn it! Burn it! Burn it!"
Immortelle froze at the vehemence of their reaction. Henrick snatched the drawing from her hand. A holy flame flumed in front of her, and he set the paper inside of it.
"We do not call attention to it. To do so would be foolish."
"Why? Because it's part of the Elder Gods?" Immortelle went out on a limb there, gathering some inferences based on what she’d heard from Ophelia and Barnard. She couldn’t wait to touch base with Ophelia to see what she found out about the coin.
"Because those who have even just one of the coins would have unspeakable power. More than any should be allowed to have."
"Gaining power and subduing others to get it…that’s been going around since before the Cabal. Before there was time. What makes this different?”
"This is the kind of power that would invite bigger powers like the Elder gods into this universe. We don't want to be under their scrutiny. No one does." A sound like the buzzing of angry bees rose from around the Dark Queens.
Immortelle shifted on her feet. That didn’t seem like a happy sound.
She didn’t like the idea that she killed something that wasn’t supposed to have been killed early. Not that she would have had changed the outcome. There was no way they would have survived the alley without killing the monster. “Your Majesties, maybe you can tell me what your plan was, and then we can see about salvaging it?”
The buzzing died down just a bit. "The plan was that you would be here so that we would be able to warn you about the triumvirate. But there seems to be a ripple around that. We are trying to see why."
Good. They weren’t angry with her, at least not directly.
“Tell me about it. The Oracle seemed to be annoyed that he couldn't see me.”
One of the Dark Queens clapped her hands. “Of course. We should have known. You are the variable. And you are right. With you involved, you can still salvage thi
s plan. This was the reason for which you were created, after all.”
Henrick seemed to stand up straighter. As if that was his way of controlling some wayward thought.
Immortelle’s breath seemed to stick inside of her lungs. "The reason I was created? As opposed to what, an unplanned pregnancy?” The trail of this conversation felt like she had stretched a muscle in her chest.
"You,” they said, “Yes, you. The reason why you are hidden to prophecy. It is by design. And that is also why your daughter is hidden as well."
A persistent tone started ringing in Immortelle’s ear. It was making it more difficult to hear the Dark Queens. “My daughter?”
“Yes. Your daughter. She came from you fully formed just as you came from your mother. Nyx. Mother is not the best term, though it is the only one we have. You are the incarnation of Nyx. She died so that you might be born.”
All her life, Immortelle had been told that she was the daughter of Nyx. And now, she was Nyx? Or an incarnation of her?
Nyx, the primordial night. A goddess that existed before the Cabal. Who had no allegiances?
“Your mortality was your own doing, and something that was easily wrought, but you cannot take away who you really are, Immortelle.”
That was a hard-won lesson that she had learned with Death. She was Immortelle no matter what name was ascribed to her. Nothing changed that.
Right?
“Your mortality and humanity are fabricated. Something that we had to do.”
"What?"
“Your mantle awaits you.”
Behind them, there was a shroud. It was a mantle of power.
“I don't understand.”
“You don't understand, what? That you are a being that is Vampire, Fae, Demon, and Human? Since you are an incarnation of Nyx, the primordial night, you represent all of life? That you are, in essence, your own triumvirate?” The Dark Queens’ voices slithered and slipped over their words. “How many would claim to own you? Wield you? As a weapon if not more? With you on their side, there would be no loss.”
“And what? You are just here to tell me this?”
Their laughter hearkened foggy mists curling down a dark mountainside. “We are known collectively as the Dark Queens. Whom do you think we serve? Who do you think is our goddess?”
“You are the incarnation of Nyx of herself. And that is why you cannot be tracked. You are not part of the Mortal coil or the tapestry of fate.
“You, my dear, have been formed from Nyx herself.
“And your daughter...your daughter is the same.”
Immortelle’s eyes swiveled to the source of this news. My daughter.
“She was lifted from you, the spark of her, purely from you. From the life force of Life itself. Just as you do not have a father, neither does she. In your death, however temporary, your spark was released. You just happened to come back from the dead, which is unusual but not so for mortals.
“So when you were dead, even in that instant, there was a sliver of yourself, a piece of your soul that was released into the world.”
Something like the swinging of doors revolved in Immortelle’s mind's eye. It was suddenly so hard to breathe. Something shifted inside of her.
"But. I was human. I was told I was human, and made into a Vampire. My blood..."
"You are human. You are also Vampire. And you are also Fae. And Demon. You are all of it. Because you are an incarnation of Nyx. Does that make sense now?”
No.
“You should feel lucky, this is the most plain-speaking they have been with anyone,” Henrick said.
"She allows us to be. Speaking in her presence we do not need to worry about maintaining what is and what is to come. What she will do is what will happen, and what should come to pass. She creates her own fate."
Immortelle tried to wrap her head around this news. Hells, this entire conversation.
Her mother hadn’t abandoned her. She hadn’t even known her. She was before her time and her death gave Immortelle life. The reason she was alive was because her mother, the previous incarnation of Nyx, had passed on.
Could that have been the reason that Immortelle was targeted to die as a mortal? Because would have allowed another incarnation to be born into the world?
Her daughter.
After Immortelle was done reeling, she said. "There is a child, then? You can confirm that there is a child? A daughter?” Her voice broke, but still she would speak.
"Yes, she was taken on the wings of a Falcon and delivered to the Circle of Falcons in Underhill. She is safe as she is for now. Safer than if you would charge into Underhill to claim her. Especially given the current circumstance."
Immortelle, who was about to burst into action and rip through the whole of Underhill herself paused in reflection. "How so?"
“The creature that attacked you. It was after more than just you.”
Immortelle shifted. “So, it wanted to kill the guys too?”
"No, not your men. Your soul. Your life. You, the essence of you, mixed with the power of that coin would create an adversary indeed."
“I thought that the coins were neutral?”
“I think it is safe to say that since the coins came from outer darkness, that no one since the Cabal’s formation truly knows the nature of those coins. We can assume they are neutral like other coins. But is that a safe assumption? Would you bet the fabric of the universe on it?”
Immortelle could only shake her head.
“You received Bianco’s inheritance, yes? Where is it now?”
Immortelle’s stomach twisted. She had given it to Ophelia. She could have made her a target. “It’s with someone I trust.”
“It isn’t safe enough.”
“I am meeting her soon.”
They tittered amongst themselves in a strange and guttural language. “You are meeting her too late.”
Immortelle felt their words like a punch to her gut. “What do you mean--” She swallowed the rest of her words. She didn’t need them to explain.
She turned from them and ran away from the pocket of night. As she did, the Dark Queens’ words still reached her ears.
“You are the only one able to access the vault in Lord Commodore Bianco’s blood bank. Maybe there is still time to take the coin and place it in the vault for safekeeping. The longer it is in circulation, the more dangerous its influence can be. The coins are more important.”
More important than a life? Immortelle doubted that, but saved her words, her energy toward finding Ophelia.
The woman was left on her side just two steps away from the hallowed ground of Sanctuary.
Her sweater set and corduroy skirt were neat and tidy, not a rumple to them. A grocery bag that had been overflowing with vegetables lay beside her, baguette broken. The blood, inching away from its source like lengthening fingers, pooled and claimed the bottom of the bag, staining it as it stained the concrete.
The hair that was in a tight knot just a day before had come undone, coiling on the ground like silver snakes. The bifocal glasses were askew on her nose but still on her face. Impressive, since her head had been twisted clear off of her body and rested close to her hands, as if she had caught it and could have placed it back where it belonged.
Her neck was a mess of ragged flesh. It was clear that the decapitation had happened while the woman was still alive. Her muscles stretched much farther than they were supposed to be. Pools of blood leached into the concrete.
Her hands…Immortelle couldn’t stop looking at them. They were frozen into claws, fingernails bloodied and several torn.
Ophelia had put up a fight. So close to safety.
The sight of her made Immortelle's blood boil.
Immortelle knelt down next to the body. She wasn't a crime scene investigator. She knew there were things like lab equipment and a medical examiner.
But those things took time. Time she didn't have because what she wanted to know she needed to know last night.
&
nbsp; She willed herself away from the crowd gathered there and toward the Ashenguard who stood silently. Rolph, Captain of the Ashenguard, walked with ease from the cathedral’s entrance. The cover of night helped on that score. The aura of his power unfurled like wings, and they were black and rigid—he was not in a pleasant mood.
As if he felt Immortelle’s presence, he paused in his tracks and met her gaze.
"Ms. Lucy." Rolph reached her in three long strides. She met him halfway, and extended her hand in greeting. "Are you here on business?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
The stone inherent in his kind leapt forward, hardening on his face. It was there and gone in a flash. If she had blinked, she would have missed it.
"Who?" he said, scanning the streets.
"Her," she said, voice heavy.
If he was surprised, he didn't show it. Perhaps he was good at hiding behind masks. He took a quick intake of breath. "Good Lord. A friend?"
She tore her gaze from the crumpled form. Ophelia was gone. There was no finding her there. She met Rolph's gaze, steely and weathered.
"An ally."
His eyes flickered red before black drowned out every last bit of white. His voice was think and gravelly. "Let's talk inside."
Immortelle hadn’t appreciated the cathedral the first time she was here. Then again, she was too busy trying to get information out of a corrupt priest.
They went to a receiving room. People would have been coming and going to receive evening mass. But instead there was this dead body.
The emergency services were able to clean things up fairly quickly.
The body was at least covered, and soon it was zipped up and placed onto a stretcher.
"Did they find anything unusual around the body?" she asked as soon as they were private.
"How unusual? As far as I know, there was nothing, but I could have overlooked something since I didn't know to look for it."
"And the bag full of food? That wasn't unusual to you?"
He shrugged. "I didn't know her personally, but she was around frequently enough that the rest of the guard knew her by name. She was here at least every other day to help with volunteering, and for donating to the food pantry."