by Raven Dark
“What the hell is happening?” Steel snapped.
“Princess, wake up!” Pretty Boy barked.
“Revolution. Revolution. Is.”
“Setora!” Doc reached for her. She didn’t respond, seeming oblivious to him.
“Revolution. Is. Coming.”
“Doc, do something,” I bit out.
“Revolution. Is. Coming.”
He grabbed her shoulders while she continued to chant. She didn’t react. “Steel, get Sheriff!”
“Revolution. Is. Coming.”
Steel dashed out, shouting for Sheriff.
“Revolution. Is. Coming.” That same horribly deep, monotone voice, every word carefully modulated.
Sheriff barreled in. “What the hell is going—” He stopped when he saw Setora. She continued to chant, her eyes unseeing.
“Revolution. Is. Coming.”
“Doc, what the fuck?” Sheriff demanded.
“I don’t know. I—”
“Revolution. Is. Coming.”
“Setora, for fuck’s sake.” Sheriff grabbed for her shoulder. Her hand shot up and stopped his wrist before his fingers got close. She stared straight ahead, her hand holding his off like it was nothing until he jerked it away.
“Fuck.” He rubbed his wrist, staring at her as if she’d grown another head. He looked livid. “Setora—”
“Not. Here.”
Doc blinked. “You’re not Setora?”
“Not. Here.”
Doc’s face lost color.
“If we aren’t talking to Setora, who the fuck are you?” Sheriff demanded.
“Revolution. Is. Coming. Not. Here.”
“Fine,” he growled. “Then who are you?”
Her eyes fixated on him, and when she spoke, the words came out in that same utterly toneless voice.
“I am Julian.”
Chapter 14
Revelations
Julian.
As soon as Setora said the name—or rather as soon as that evil-sounding voice said it—it felt like a Hellhound firecracker going off in my head.
That was the same name both Damien and Matais had mentioned. And now, Julian’s voice was coming out of her?
What did it mean? At her last words—I am Julian--my thoughts raced, demanding answers. But before I could consider what to do, Setora’s body went limp and she dropped to the clubhouse floor.
Or she would have, if I hadn’t grabbed her first. I lowered her to the floor, my arm under her head, keeping it from slamming into the polished wood.
“Setora.” I was about to pull her to me, but her body started convulsing. Her back bowed, her eyes fluttering, arms flailing.
Just as they had weeks ago, before we’d reached Delta.
“Doc!”
He was already beside me, kneeling over her. “Sheriff, get away from her.”
As soon as I released her, he bent over her, looking at her ears and nose. “She’s bleeding again.”
I saw. Blood was trickling from her nose and ears. Like last time, it was a bright, glowing blue.
“Doc, make it stop,” I snapped. I hated watching her thrash about, knowing she could hurt herself without meaning to. Knowing this Julian might somehow be doing this to her.
“I can’t, General. Without knowing why this is happening, for all I know, drugging her might make it worse, and if I restrain her, she could hurt herself. Hawk, get a pillow for her head.”
Hawk snatched a cushion from the couch and knelt on her other side, putting the pillow carefully under her thrashing head to keep it from hitting the floor.
“Princess.” Pretty Boy knelt behind her head, reaching for her until Doc shook his head at him.
“Don’t touch her, Pretty Boy. You saw what she did to Sheriff.”
What she’d done to me. She’d easily stopped my hand cold, holding me off with a crushing strength that had matched Steel’s. My wrist throbbed, but I barely felt the pain beyond the protectiveness that raged through me like fire.
“She could hurt herself like this too, Doc,” I reminded him.
“There’s nothing to do but wait until it stops, or we could endanger her more.”
Helplessness seized me by the fucking shorthairs, the same helplessness I saw on everyone else’s face, including Doc’s.
Then, just as quickly as it had started, Setora’s body stopped convulsing. She went limp, her eyes closing.
She didn’t move, except for her chest, which rose and fell on ragged breaths, the way someone’s does when they’ve been running for hours.
For a long beat, no one moved or spoke. All of us sat frozen, waiting for the convulsions to start again, unsure if we should risk touching her.
“Is it over?” I rumbled at Doc, my hand poised above her, fingers twitching to pull her to me.
“There’s no way to tell.” Doc leaned over her, examining the blood on her ears and nose. “Someone grab my kit from my infirmary. I don’t want to move her in case she seizes again.”
Pretty Boy reluctantly got up. “I’ll get it.” He raced from the room, calling for whoever was closest to the clubhouse to get Doc’s medical kit.
Doc thumbed open each of her eyes, peering into them.
“Is she all right?” Steel asked. He took Pretty Boy’s place behind her head.
Doc shook his head, checking her pulse. He didn’t know.
“What the hell happened?” I glanced at all of them. “And how the fuck did this start?”
“Beast.” Hawk didn’t take his eyes off of Setora. “He had a crystal. He was swinging it around, and she went into some kind of fugue state. Then she started talking the way you heard a minute ago. I sent the Brothers of Brimstone out and had Steel call for you.”
A fugue state?
“I have no idea what’s going on with her,” Doc muttered. He opened his mouth as if he meant to say more, but Pretty Boy appeared with his kit and set it down beside him.
Doc laid her flat and took out his stethoscope, listening to her heart, then checking her blood pressure. He grabbed a cloth and wiped the blood from her nose and ears. The blood stained the cloth a glowing, bright blue.
“The bleeding has stopped. Her heart rate and blood pressure are a little high, but that’s normal after a seizure. Other than the bleeding, she looks fine. I won’t know more until she wakes up.”
“Wake her,” I ordered.
But he didn’t have to.
Setora’s eyes blinked open slowly and she looked dazedly at the five of us gathered around her before her eyes settled on me. “Master? What…” She cut off, noticing Doc watching her from beside me. She looked down at herself, then back at Doc. “Doc, what happened?”
“You were seizing again. Like before,” Doc said slowly.
“What?” When she tried to sit up, I gently lifted her shoulders.
“How do you feel, Setora?” he asked.
“Dizzy.” She swallowed hard.
“Any headache or nausea?”
She shook her head. “No, but I’m really tired. Like I could sleep for a week. How long have I been lying here?”
“Only a few minutes. Setora, do you remember what happened before you passed out?”
“No. Why?” Her voice sounded a little too high, elevated with the first hint of fear. She looked around at us, taking in the intense way everyone watched her. “Doc?”
Doc sighed. “Pretty Boy, help her onto the couch.”
He waited until Pretty Boy gently lifted her onto the couch and settled her back against the cushions before kneeling in front of her and continuing.
“Setora, what’s the last thing you remember?”
“I, um.” She rubbed her temples, obviously trying to clear a fog. “I was eating, and you guys were all talking. You and T-Man were playing darts.”
“Good. What else?”
“The Brothers of Brimstone were here.” She looked around the room. “Where did they go? Doc, what’s going on?”
“You don’t remembe
r anything else?”
“No! Will someone please tell me what’s going on!”
He looked at the floor for a moment. I got the impression he was trying to figure out how to tell her another person had been talking through her. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to either.
* * *
Half an hour later, we left Setora resting in my bed with Doc watching over her and asking her a lot of questions. We gathered back in the clubhouse while he explained to her what had happened, all of us waiting for him to come and tell us whatever he’d found. No one spoke. Pretty Boy paced like a caged animal until Doc finally came in and found us seated on the sectional at the back.
I stood up, and so did everyone else.
“How is she, Doc?” I asked. “Did you tell her what happened?”
“She’s fine. Tired, but otherwise fine, and yeah, I did.” He sat with us, leaning with his elbows on his knees. “She doesn’t remember anything at all, Sheriff.”
“You didn’t leave her alone, did you?”
“No. Cherry’s watching over her with Hatchet. She’s asleep now, but in and out. They’ll tell us if anything goes wrong.”
Hatchet, Doc’s assistant. What he would be able to do if Setora went into that fugue state again, I didn’t know, but still, it made me feel better that someone with medical knowledge was watching over her. “Good. What happened when you told her?”
“She’s scared,” he said quietly. “Terrified. She has no idea what’s happening to her.”
“Do you?”
“Honestly, General, I have no idea. I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before.”
“I have,” Pretty Boy said.
When everyone looked at him, he lowered himself slowly onto the couch between a worried looking Steel and Hawk. “When we were at Lord Falnar’s. Setora told me she’d had lunch with Serena, and afterward, Serena and two of those other Violets went into a—what did you call it, Hawk?—a fugue state. They froze, exactly like Setora did earlier. She said the women just stood there, like marionettes.”
“Did they say anything? Like she did?” Hawk asked.
“Not that she mentioned. She said they just stood there, staring. Like she was doing, only afterward, they just continued on with what they’d been doing as if nothing had happened.” He gave a shudder.
“That’s right.” Doc put up his finger. “She told me that, too.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you two tell any of us?” I bit out.
Pretty Boy put his head in his hands. “Because I thought it was some kind of prank. I thought they were playing with her or something. I didn’t take it seriously. I should have.” He dropped his hands and shook his head.
When I turned my eyes on Doc, he sighed. “I thought it was just some Violet thing. Serena always acts a little odd, not unlike we just saw…so…” He gave a helpless shrug. “According to Setora, they never said anything, they just froze.”
I scrubbed my hands through my hair. “Okay. Doc, are you sure you’ve never heard of anything like this? Ever?”
“A person talking with someone else’s voice? No. Never.”
“It was like someone was controlling her,” Steel growled. “How can anyone do that? And who the fuck is this Julian?”
“Not to mention the whole super strength thing she had going on,” Pretty Boy added, nodding to my wrist.
I looked at the bruise on my wrist where she’d grabbed me. It hardly throbbed now. When Doc looked closely at it, I waved him off.
“It’s fine, Doc. But I felt her grip on me. She could have broken it.”
Hawk stood up, pacing once across the room.
“Hawk?” I looked up at him.
He pushed out a breath. “General, I think I might know how he did it.”
I waited expectantly.
“There are rumors no one in my order have ever confirmed, that the highest level Yantu Masters gain such an advanced degree of mental discipline that they can link their minds with others. The way Setora can, but to a greater degree. From a greater distance and gaining far more control over the person to whom they’re linked.”
I widened my eyes. “Is that what this Julian is? He’s a Yantu?”
“Evil Yantu,” Pretty Boy scoffed, shaking his head. “Lovely.”
Hawk shot him a raised brow, the closest he got to an irritated look.
“What?” Pretty Boy shrugged. “I figured all the higher masters in your order were all about peace and love. That you all went around spreading rainbows and unicorn farts wherever you went.”
“No Yantu would do this,” Hawk said. “Not without disobeying his order and dishonoring everyone who bears the name. But I think this is the man in her dreams. Julian is the one terrorizing her.”
“Mister No-Face?” Pretty Boy again. “So this is a person we’re dealing with here?”
Hawk nodded. “Which suggests he has similar abilities. He’s not Yantu. But he’s something. Something dangerous.”
“We need to figure out who he is,” I said. “Where he is, and how he’s controlling her. Before she hurts herself or someone else without meaning to.”
“General.” When I looked at him, Hawk nodded toward the entrance to the clubhouse cave. “Give me a few minutes, will you? I think I know who might have some answers.”
I nodded, and he left.
When he returned, he wheeled Dice to the back of the room, Gretle following at his side.
“General.” Dice nodded to me.
“Dice.”
Hawk stopped the wheelchair and put the brakes on once the ex-general was facing me. I waited for Hawk to tell me what the fuck was going on.
“General. When we were talking about this Julian being a Yantu, It occurred to me that Dice might have heard the name before. He was well-traveled before we came to the Grotto, when we were still at Mount Dire. Much more so than any of us, even me. Dice? Why don’t you tell the others what you told me?”
Dice cleared his throat. “Before Mount Dire blew, some of the old crew and I were way out to the west of the Dire on a run, helping out another club. You four were only little at the time. While out there, we heard rumors.”
“Rumors? About what?”
“A strange man. Named Julian.”
“Strange how, Dice?” Pretty Boy asked.
“Like he had some kind of special powers. Magic, some people said. Some people said he could move things with his thoughts. Take control of your mind, like a puppeteer.”
We all looked at each other knowingly before turning back to him.
“No one ever really believed it,” Gretle put in.
“Why not?” Hawk asked.
“Because.” Her wrinkled face broke into an uneasy smile. “In the village where I grew up, there was a man kids talked about around campfires. He was like something out of a ghost story. Some said he could make fire from the air and fly.”
“What the fuck is he?” Steel grunted. “Immortal? He’d have to be hundreds of years old.”
“Thanks, sir.” Gretle grinned at him, and he shrugged. “But you’re right, this would have been over fifty years ago, and the kids made him sound like he was already the age I am now.”
“Fuck me,” I said. “How is that possible?”
“It isn’t,” Dice said. “Not unless he’s…”
“Gin Gahti.” Hawk whispered the strange words.
“What?” I looked at him.
“It means The Shadow. It’s the Yantu word for a kind of boogeyman.”
“Yes,” Gretle nodded to him. “That’s exactly what the kids seemed to think he was. Every story changed, grew more fanciful with the telling.”
“But one thing always stayed the same.” Dice fixed us with a level look. “His name was always Julian.”
“But what is he?” I leaned forward in my chair. “I mean, he’s obviously not some mystical being.”
Dice sighed. “General. If he’s real—and from what Hawk told us about Setora, he is—then we ha
ve a problem. And not only because his abilities are ten times stronger than Setora’s will ever be.”
“Why?”
“Because, if he can control her from wherever he is, and he’s gotten into her dreams, then there’s another rumor about him that is one hundred percent true.”
‘Which is?” Pretty Boy asked.
Gretle swallowed hard. Dice looked at her, then at us before he answered.
“Gentlemen, Julian is… He’s a Violet.”
The gavel in my hand slipped out of my grip and hit the floor with a clatter. “Pardon?”
“A what?” Steel stared at him, echoing my own thoughts. “There’s no such thing. I mean, right?” He looked around at all of us. “Aren’t they only supposed to be women?”
“Yes,” Gretle said. “But that’s the story. Julian is a male Violet.”
Doc’s eyes were wide. He pushed out a breath. “Well, that would explain a lot. The way he connects with her and gets into her head.”
I picked up my gavel slowly. “But if he—”
“Doc! Sheriff!” Cherry came rushing into the clubhouse, stopping when all of us looked at her. Her face was pale.
“What is it?” Doc and I both asked at once. I didn’t realize I was standing until she stepped back a little.
“It’s Setora,” she puffed. “You have to come now. She’s talking funny again.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before I pushed past her, running for the entrance. The footsteps of everyone else followed behind me.
“We have to hurry,” Doc called, rushing ahead of me, his kit in hand.
“Whoa,” I heard Dice holler. “What are you doing, Hawk?”
“You’re coming with us,” Hawk said quickly, and I heard Dice’s wheelchair clattering along the wooden walk behind us. “We want you to hear the voice this time.”
Doc barreled through the double doors of my quarters, with me right behind him, and everyone else behind me. He threw open the doors to my bedroom, then stopped so suddenly, I almost ran into him.
I froze in my own doorway.
“What the fuck?” I heard Pretty Boy say right behind me.
Setora stood in the middle of my room, stark naked. She didn’t seem to notice or see us. Frozen in place, her mouth was the only thing that moved. That same horrible voice spilled out of her.