“I don’t know yet, myself. I’ve been trying to figure it out without drawing attention to myself. But I caught wind of death cults planning to kill thousands in synchronized attacks. I had to step in. I left Cerix; I rode the winds of stardust and forced myself into fae bodies. I tried to persuade them, at first, to stop what they were doing. They kept rejecting me, telling me to leave them alone. I was left with no other choice. I fired myself up inside them and forced them to explode. I overloaded their elemental connection to fire itself.”
“Hence the fire fae blowing up in Taeral’s world,” I murmured.
“And not only there. I went as far as I could. But then, I heard Taeral and his people were coming back to Cerix. There were whispers of Nalyon’s plans, too. Remember, I hear and see everything where a flame burns,” Brann explained.
“This is unbelievable,” I managed. “But why would the Hermessi coordinate attacks against the people of so many worlds?”
“They’re following a ritual, though I’m not sure which one. We’re old, Inalia. We have traditions and methods of amplifying our power, of changing the entire universe, if we must. But they require formulas. A certain number of bodies—conduits that could serve us. Hence the cults,” he said. “I’m not the only one who opposed this endeavor. I know of other Hermessi who stood up and resisted. Most didn’t do very well.”
In my mind, I thought of Aya, the Water Hermessi of Strava. Surely, she must’ve been one of the good ones, since she helped Taeral’s crew as best as she could.
“What do you mean by ‘they didn’t do very well?’” I asked.
“Most were silenced. Some were destroyed.”
“Oh. How do you destroy a Hermessi? And wouldn’t that mean disrupting a natural element that makes a world… function? Wouldn’t that simply destroy a planet?”
“My child, I cannot tell you how to kill a Hermessi. All the natural elements would be in danger if such knowledge ever made it out of our circle.” Brann sighed. “The balance would be lost, and the entire universe would perish. You are better off not knowing.”
“Wait. So, if one or more Hermessi are destroyed, what happens to their world?”
I was relentless. Sooner or later, I was going to find out how to stop, disable, or destroy a Hermessi, as well. I considered this to be my first father-daughter chat, and made it my mission to have more in the future. With that decision in the back of my head, I continued to drill him for whatever information I could get out of him, before our time together ran out.
“They manage. Let’s just leave it at that,” Brann replied. “Now, you must go, my child. I’m trying to protect you. I did so at the temple, as well. I wanted to warn you, then, but… Anyway, just go, Inalia. Be safe.”
“Be safe? Against what? Crazy Hermessi?!” I croaked. “No, you need to tell me more. You have to! How will we protect ourselves? How can we stop them? If what you told me is true, then the Hermessi will find another way to bring their plans to fruition. It’s probably why the death cults keep chasing us around.”
“I don’t know much. As soon as I do, however, I will find you. I promise.”
“What… What about the death cults? Will you intervene again, if they find us?” I asked.
“I may not be able to do that again. I’d risk exposure, given this connection we’ve just made here,” Brann said. “Do not worry, my child. The creatures looking after you right now are more than capable of handling a few fanatics. I’m only sorry I had to kill some of them in order to stop mass murders committed in the name of my brethren. These are dark and dangerous times, Inalia. We’re all awakened now, with more power than ever. Our influence runs deep and… Just be careful.”
“But, Dad—”
He vanished. And I’d accidentally called him “Dad.”
He may have been absent for most of my life, and he might’ve done some truly questionable things, but, now that I knew why he’d done them in the first place, I saw him differently. I felt a sudden, much stronger urge to make sure nothing happened to him.
If the Hermessi could destroy one another and “manage,” as he’d put it, then they could easily do the same to him. I’d only just met my father. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to let go of him.
It wasn’t long before true terror set in. I’d finally internalized everything that Brann had told me. Suddenly, the stakes were so high, I could barely see them. Those death cults weren’t just murderous fanatics. They were tools of the Hermessi themselves, going by some kind of ritual… for what?
That’s what we need to find out.
Amelia
Inalia’s eyes popped open. She wheezed as she took in a lungful of air.
Taeral was quick to react, gently holding her in his arms as she breathed in and out. It took her a minute or two to recover. Eira was still shaken by her own experience with Acquis possessing her. It was clear, by the looks on both their faces, that they’d never had such encounters with the Hermessi before. Who could blame them? Up until maybe two years ago, or less, we Shadians hadn’t even known there was such a thing as a Hermessi to begin with—let alone been able to communicate with one. Cerix did have a Hermessi cult going, so they at least knew about these entities, but I doubted they were aware of the extent of their influence and power, once awakened.
And Cerix was nowhere near as experienced with the weird and the supernatural as we were; though technically speaking, they, too, were part of the weird and supernatural from our perspective. Their Hermessi cult had practically died out until recently. We were to blame for its resurrection, in the end. The Blackout that fully reactivated the natural elements was on us. Eira and Inalia were innocent, and the best we could do right now was make sure they were safe. They hadn’t chosen to be who they were.
“How are you feeling?” Taeral asked Inalia, who was no longer shivering and gasping as if she’d just been brought back from the dead.
“Inalia? Are you okay?” Eira asked.
Inalia nodded slowly. “Yeah… That was weird. No, wait, weird doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“Pfft, tell me about it,” Eira murmured.
“What’s up with you?” Inalia replied, finally noticing Eira’s flustered and sweaty sheen.
“Oh, we were quite entertained while you were out,” Raphael said, slightly amused. “Talk to us, Inalia, what happened?”
Inalia blinked several times. “I met Brann. My dad. We’ve got the whole story wrong.” She sighed, then told us every single detail of that conversation. The more she spoke, the clearer the picture became for me. I flipped through various files on my tablet while I listened to her account. Dots were connected, now—dots I hadn’t even noticed until now.
“It makes so much sense,” I concluded. “It explains why Myris Fenn and the other fire fae were arguing with… well, we thought they were talking to themselves. They weren’t. They were talking to Brann. Brann was trying to get them to quit what they were doing, and, with no other choice left, he just flooded them with fire until they exploded prematurely.”
“He did feel terrible about the loss of life,” Inalia added. “I could sense his grief.”
“They were already radicalized, then,” Taeral breathed, his eyes wide. “Members of the Fire Star’s Royal Guard were deep in the rabbit hole by the time Brann blew them up. They were planning some truly atrocious acts, it seems.”
“So, let me get this straight,” Eira said. “These death cults are looking to reach a certain number, then get themselves powered by the Hermessi in order to explode and kill a whole lot more people? Am I getting that right?”
Inalia nodded again. “It’s a ritual. Brann says the Hermessi are very consistent in their formulas and rituals. They can’t do much if they don’t respect these guidelines.”
“Case in point, the Blackout,” Herakles replied. “One thousand and one fae, stroke of midnight on a full moon… Yeah, I get it.”
“And these cults willingly serve the Hermessi,” Eva said, her brow furr
owed. I could almost feel the concern coming off her. With the sun’s position changing in the sky, Eva, Varga, and I only needed our broad hoods to shield us from its light. The masks and goggles were off, at least for the time being.
“Yes. I don’t know why. I don’t get how they convinced these people to commit such crimes willingly, but they did,” Inalia explained. “I guess the Hermessi made certain promises in exchange for their support. Brann couldn’t tell me more, but he did promise he would try to look into it.”
Eira scoffed. “Was there anyone else with you, on that plane?”
“No. Just me and Brann, but he vanished. He couldn’t stay long. He said—”
“You two connecting brought him out into the open, yeah,” Eira replied. “We know.”
Inalia’s befuddlement was obvious. “What happened while I was gone?”
“Acquis, Cerix’s Water Hermessi, took over Eira’s body to give us a message,” Varga said. “It was completely unexpected and weird as hell, but extremely useful.”
“He told us you and Brann were in danger,” Eira continued, while Inalia stared at her, as if unable to believe what she was hearing. Granted, until not that long ago, she’d been convinced that the Hermessi were closer to fairytales and legends than they were to reality—despite her own abilities proving the contrary. Denial could be such a blinding shade, to some. “And that not all the Hermessi like what’s happening.”
“He’s your father, isn’t he? Acquis…” Inalia replied.
“It seems so,” Eira replied. “I could hear everything he said. He just shoved me in the back of my consciousness so he could speak, but I was here. I didn’t go anywhere. It was strange.”
“And scary, I suppose,” Inalia mumbled.
“Okay, so, believe it or not, we’ve made a lot of progress in the minutes that you were gone,” Taeral said. “While I may not be perfectly fine with what Brann did, and how he did it, I do understand why he did it. From here on out, we have to figure out which Hermessi are involved in this supposed ritual, and what they hope to achieve with it.”
“I asked Brann about ways to stop or destroy a Hermessi,” Inalia replied. That got our full attention. “He wouldn’t tell me, though. He thinks it’s the kind of knowledge that no creature should have. He did say, however, that some of the Hermessi who actively opposed this ritual were obliterated.”
“Oh, wow,” I managed, my synapses firing up. “What does that mean? That fires died out in some worlds? The rivers stopped flowing and a whole planet went dry somewhere?”
Inalia shrugged. “I’m hoping to catch him again, sometime soon, and get him to tell me more. Right now, he’s on the run. Talking to me got him exposed, and the others are searching for him. I think they’ll destroy Brann if they find him.”
This was no longer just creepy and downright astonishing. It was quickly galloping into horrifying territories, where we had little to no control over the situation. How were we going to handle this? Sure, the whole of the In-Between, the Supernatural, and the earthly dimensions would be warned. But then what? How did we stop the ritual? How did we stop the Hermessi?
“Do we want the Hermessi to know what we’re up to?” Riza asked. “If we’re to do this, if we’re to start looking for ways to stop their ritual, won’t they go out of their way to stop us? They’re natural elements. All the magic and supernatural abilities in the world won’t shield us from the Hermessi’s wrath.”
Silence settled over us for what seemed like forever. We didn’t have a good answer to her questions. Even I couldn’t fathom a theory according to which we’d come out winning and surviving. All the data of our circumstances pointed to a catastrophic ass-whooping, on a universal scale.
“You’re right, Riza,” Taeral said. “We’ll have to be discreet.”
“Which begs the question… How do we do that? If Brann can listen to us through the flames, what stops Water from doing the same? Or Earth? Or Air?” Raphael replied. “What if they already know? What if they’re already looking for ways to stop us?”
Taeral smirked. “If they try to stop us, it would mean they know that we can halt their ritual. It means there’s hope.”
Inalia was the first to get up and dust herself off. Eira was quick to join her.
“One thing is obvious. We can’t stay in one place for too long,” Inalia said. “I’m just using my logic here, but I think that if we keep moving, if we don’t stay somewhere for longer than a few minutes or an hour, at most, it’ll throw the Hermessi off our tracks. Think about it. We’ve been talking about this until now, and the earth has yet to split open and swallow us whole and be done with it.”
“Good point,” Eira agreed, her eyes glimmering with devilish enthusiasm. “Taeral and Riza can take turns zapping us here and there. As long as we’re on the move, we should be able to evade them.”
“Fire and water are safe for us, if you think about it,” I said. “At least here, on Cerix. Acquis helped, though the other Hermessi are not supposed to know. Fire… well, obviously safe—”
“Hold on. The cultists found us everywhere we went, eventually,” Herakles cut in. “We assumed it was because of fire. We thought Brann was listening in through every flame around us, and that he gave the cultists our position.”
Inalia shook her head. “It wasn’t him. It was probably the Air Hermessi. Or the Earth. But they didn’t come at us straightaway. Maybe they’re not so quick to find us. Maybe they’re not listening at all times, if that makes sense. Otherwise, they’d be all over us already.”
“So, they’d be listening through the air or stones or whatever, if they found us first?” Raphael replied. “That does explain the breathing room we sometimes get.”
“I’m inclined to agree. If they don’t know where we are, they can’t listen in on us. I’m sure they would’ve caught us all by now if they could,” Inalia said.
“Which further strengthens your theory about moving around,” I chimed in. “It’s a good plan. This world is vast and filled with people. The Hermessi may be more or less omnipresent, but they clearly can’t always keep track of us.”
I didn’t even feel the wind rise until Eira’s face turned pale. “Uh-oh,” she murmured.
“Speaking of which,” Taeral said, “I think it’s time we go somewhere else.”
We linked hands just as the wind grew more intense, throwing dust in my face and making it harder to breathe, even after I put my mask on. By the time Taeral zapped us out of that little desert spot, it became impossible to see three feet ahead of me. I only had Raphael’s and Eva’s hands firmly gripping mine.
I coughed, my boots settled on a wooden floor. The howl was gone. It was quiet and warm, and I recognized the musky scent. As my eyes opened, and I took in my surroundings, I smiled. We were back in our hidden little attic in Silvergate.
“I figure we have about ten or twenty minutes before we’re spotted again,” Taeral said. “If we’re to go by Inalia’s theory.”
“We’ve been here before, for hours,” Varga interjected. “Why wouldn’t the cultists have come after us then?”
None of us had an answer for that. Assumptions, yes, but nothing concrete.
“Maybe fire and water kept them distracted,” I suggested. “Fire, for sure. Brann has been trying to help us, in his own twisted way. Water… I doubt he’d sell us out. We’d be toast already if he did.”
“I don’t think it matters why we were able to use this attic before,” Taeral said. “What does matter is that we move forward. We’ve got quite a workload.”
Ah, yes. And then some.
Stop the Hermessi from killing people. Sure. It sounded easy, once it was summarized in one sentence. But the intricacies of this mission were beyond mindboggling. There were lots of “how’s” thrown in the middle, to which we’d yet to find an answer.
But at least we knew a bit more about what we were dealing with. I didn’t feel like I was hugging a bleak dead-end, anymore.
Taeral
>
Actions had to be taken, given all the things we’d learned through Inalia and Eira, and promptly. The first thing I did was patch into my earpiece and call the general channel, while Amelia prepared a written report on her tablet and the others checked their backpacks, supplies, and weapons. We had to be ready to teleport at a moment’s notice, if needed.
I warned the whole of GASP about the death cults, clarifying that they were being led by a startling majority of Hermessi, and not Brann. While he was responsible for the attacks, he’d actually succeeded in preventing larger-scale and much more devastating explosions from taking place and potentially killing thousands.
We now knew a lot more than we did the day before. Still, we were nowhere near finding a solution. All we had were ways of slowing the Hermessi’s process down, while we figured out a way to stop them.
“It’s clear, then, what we must do,” Derek said, speaking to every single superior GASP officer on the line. “All the Hermessi cults must be stopped. Each member must be captured and disabled.”
“Wait, disabled?” I heard Harper ask, her voice stuck on a higher pitch.
“We don’t have a choice, do we?” my mother replied, though I could sense the tremor in her tone. She didn’t like this one bit.
“You mean kill them?” Harper asked, even more alarmed. “Can’t we just put them in some kind of stasis?”
“I don’t know,” Derek said. “I’ll consult with Corrine and Kailani and the rest of the witches. Deep sleep might not be enough to stop the Hermessi from still using their bodies, but we can try. Our worst-case scenario is that… yes, we must kill them.”
“In all fairness, it’s not like the Hermessi just took over these people,” Jax replied, firm and cold but understandably so. His world was under siege, much like mine. I couldn’t help but relate. I even nodded slowly, though only my team could see me—they listened in on the channel, but said nothing as the conversation continued. “They joined the cult willingly. They were ready to blow thousands of us up to serve them. As far as I’m concerned, they’re traitors to their people. This is not a time for mercy.”
A Shade of Vampire 70: A Breed of Elements Page 13