“No escape now,” I said. “You gain nothing by fighting us.”
The Hanged Man gave the wall a quick look. “I gain nothing by surrendering,” he said.
He pushed out with his hands and an unseen wave of energy blasted Brand off his feet.
What happened next was just what you’d expect in close quarter combat, let alone with spell-casters of our caliber. There were glorious arcs of lightning, and plumes of flame, and sheets of liquid ice. But the effect was completely lost in what happened when all that power collided in a cramped space. Scalding steam; dust and debris from damaged ceilings and walls; chips of ice like tiny pub darts.
I tried to move around the room to flank the Hanged Man, sensing that Brand was doing the same. I couldn’t see Lady Death, but the frost attacks marked her as the frontal assault.
“Fine, then!” I heard Lady Death shout. “You want a fight? See now why I’m the youngest Arcana to seize the Death Throne!”
A barely visible wave of energy rolled from her, meeting one from the Hanged Man himself, in the middle of the room. All the smoke and steam was swept clear. Brand and I, along with the human John, were slammed back against the wall.
I experienced a moment of déjà vu, until remembering I’d seen something like this between Lord Tower and the lich Rurik. A simple contest of willpower, only now I knew why it didn’t seem to be powered by sigil magic.
I was entirely outclassed. Brand was on the other side of the room. I fought against the pressure keeping me pinned, forcing my arm straight so I could fire at the Hanged Man. My firebolts vanished like sparks as they encountered the torrent of energy linking Lady Death and Lord Hanged Man. One bolt found its way into the wall above the Hanged Man’s head.
Opportunity. Gaps. I began circling the room, continuing my flanking. So did Brand. He had lost his axe. He was using a throwing knife as a hand blade, trying to inch toward the Hanged Man.
The Hanged Man saw our approach and started to laugh, but it turned into a cough. He swung his gaze to Lady Death, hands still pouring out the torrent of energy. “You’ll beat me. You’re good. But you’re not experienced enough to multitask, you little bitch.”
The Hanged Man cocked his head and whispered something.
The manacles around the room spun into the air like startled birds. One thick, rusted metal bracelet cracked against my cheekbone; another fastened around my arm. I looked over and saw that Lady Death had been knocked down, her magical attack ended.
I pressed a hand against my white gold ring to unleash Exodus. Nothing happened. These bracelets were like the ones at the Convocation—they dampened my abilities. Worse. I reached for my Aspect, but it slipped from my grip. My sabre was dead too.
Brand was the only one standing. He pulled a throwing knife into his second hand.
“No,” I shouted. “No, Brand. No. Stand down.”
Brand was staring at the Hanged Man. He braced his front leg for a throw.
“Let him kill, if he wants to kill,” the Hanged Man said. He closed his hand into a fist. One of the rings he wore released a sigil spell. Brand’s entire body stiffened as he jerked upright.
“I have spent lifetimes entertaining myself with human puppets,” the Hanged Man said. “Why would you possibly bring one before me? Bad tactics, Sun.” He flicked a finger at Brand. “Brand, is it? Let’s start small, to see how weak you are. We’ll save your scion’s throat for later.” He turned in a searching circle, breathing a little hard, looking for something.
There are personal horrors that I keep to myself. Things I speak of to no one. Brand being mentally controlled by another individual? That was one of my deepest fears.
The Hanged Man’s eyes settled on John. “Do you still want to die, my pretty boy?”
The old man, who was half hidden behind a chaise lounge, rose to his feet. He nodded.
“Kill this man, Companion.”
Brand lowered his face a little, eyes up, and smiled. He looked about him, seemed to consider the axe he’d dropped, but shook his head and settled on a short sword still in its sheaf around his waist. Brand did not use swords. He did not kill neatly with them.
He said, “Come here, John.”
John stepped forward with eager, shaky steps. Brand watched his approach. As John crossed in front of the Hanged Man, Brand said, “You really want to die, John?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
Brand leapt and rammed the sword point forward. He pierced John’s gut. The blade went through John and out his back. Brand threw all his weight on the hilt, forcing John backwards in a movement so quick that the Hanged Man didn’t realize he’d been speared until he looked down at the sword point in his own gut.
He laughed. “This . . . you think . . . this will kill me?”
“I followed orders,” Brand said.
He spun around, scooped up the axe, and ran at Lady Death. Lord Hanged Man shouted, “Stop!”, just as the blade severed the manacle. Brand dropped to his knees and froze.
Lady Death didn’t showboat. She brought up both arms and launched a fresh wave of force at the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man returned the assault.
Behind her, I saw the wall begin to shimmer.
Addam strode through it.
I had never seen him in a rage before. One arm was pressed against his side, wrapped in a bloody bandage. He had a gold disc in his extended hand. His pants and shirt flickered into ghostly plate mail as his Aspect rose. Braided hair now hung free, blowing behind him as he stormed forward.
He released the spell from the mass sigil he’d borrowed from Lady Diana.
Golden light flooded the room. Healing magic from a normal sigil required touch; but powered by a mass sigil? It rushed over all of us like a storm front. The cut on my stomach vanished. My shoulder stopped hurting. Smaller slashes of heat covered my body as wounds healed.
I watched, with immense satisfaction, as the Hanged Man’s face locked in fear.
His Aspect—the visage of a frozen man—vanished into the plain features of a brown-haired man with wide brown eyes.
Behind Lady Death, Lord Tower stepped into the room. He took position next to Lady Death, raised his arms, and launched his own torrent of magic.
The Hanged Man tried to hold them both off, but within seconds was thrown against the wall behind him with a sharp, audible crack that may have been his spine.
Lady Death and Lord Tower both stopped. The pressure of their attack vanished, and I felt thirty pounds lighter. I looked at my sabre hilt and, with a flicker of willpower, watched it boil upwards into a garnet dagger.
I went over to the Hanged Man, who stared at me with frantic eyes and made no effort to attack.
“It’s kind of ironic,” I said. “I got this idea from Layne. Who you kidnapped, bringing him to my attention. He uses death magic to protect himself, too. It’s too bad none of us have time to study how you use your own necromancy to power your Aspect.”
“We will have time,” he whispered, and made a game attempt at grinning. “I will be questioned. I will be punished. I will, at length, find a way free, and we will enjoy a continuation of this match.”
“Will we,” I said.
“There are rules.”
“You mean if you formally yield?”
“Yes,” he said.
So I cut his throat.
“This is a strange moment,” Lady Death finally said, a good minute later, as we all stood around and watched a man die.
“It really is,” I agreed. “Did I just break any Arcana rules, by the way? I mean, he didn’t formally yield. And my raid was authorized.”
“I’m sure his loss will not be keenly felt,” Lord Tower said. He bent down and picked up Addam’s frozen hand. “I would like to get my godson to a healer.”
“Shit,” I said. “I was really worried about you the first time I saw your hand! I said something then!”
“Of course you did, Hero,” Addam said. He wasn’t in pain—none of us were in pain, after
the healing magic he’d used. But he was still missing a hand. “You are a very good boyfriend. I will step out now. Quinn is most upset by this,” he added, waving his arm. He walked back through the portal Lord Tower had forced open.
Lady Death walked across to the bodies in the room. Calm assessment of the Hanged Man’s twitching corpse; a bit of unsure sympathy for the old man once called Pretty Boy.
“How did you do it?” she asked, and turned to Brand.
“Do what?” he asked as he walked over to me. While I tried to bat his hands away, he began poking at the various tears in my shirt, to make sure the skin behind it was whole.
“Subvert the Hanged Man’s control,” she said.
“I didn’t. I did exactly what he said, and then some. Do you have any fucking idea what it’s like to share a bond with this one? I spend half my time figuring out how he’s using wordplay to lie to me.”
“What does he lie about?” Lady Death asked, amused.
“Don’t,” I said, just as Brand replied, “Snack foods, the amount of training he did, the amount of sleep he had, whether he’s actually scouting haunted houses or whether he found a nice comfy sofa to sit on.”
“You’re embarrassing me in front of our new big sister,” I said.
Lady Death laughed at that, but Brand caught the our, and instead of an eye roll I got a very rare wink.
EPILOG
Addam lost his hand.
Of everything that happened over the next forty-eight hours, that destroyed me the most.
The mass Healing spell he used had effectively cauterized his stump. In a display of cosmic irony, it repaired the nerve endings and torn flesh as if he’d never had a hand to begin with, and made reattachment impossible. Even worse—though he evaded the subject—I suspect he’d known it was a possibility before storming into the pocket dimension. But instead of staying away, or handing the mass sigil spell to Lord Tower, he did exactly what an Addam would always do in an instance like that: he’d ridden to my rescue. There was a reason his Atlantean Aspect looked like a medieval knight.
Dozens of others things also happened, all at once, spinning past me like a hijacked merry-go-round.
Lord Judgment insisted on planning a city-wide ceremony this coming spring to acknowledge my ascension. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. The Arcanum hadn’t had a reason for a party like this since Lady Death assumed her mother’s throne at the end of the Atlantean World War.
I made global headlines. Or at least, I made one global headline, before deactivating all the news feeds on my phone. From what I understood, the articles slanted in my favor. I’m not sure that would last if they knew the entire story, and how an Arcana had stolen a World War II battleship and slaughtered its crew.
Regarding that, Lady Death and Lady Priestess formed an alliance to sanctify the Declaration. The dead soldiers would be laid to rest. I joined them on their first walkthrough, as they drew up plans to bless the haunted metal corridors. I’d brought a Soul Bind spell with me and, with their acquiescence, used the magic on the sealed mailroom safe. I wasn’t sure the memory of it, though, would as easily be forgotten.
The Hanged Man had been buried in an unmarked grave at his Westlands compound. The division of his court would be decided soon. It was widely assumed that the Gallows was finished. The Hanged Man had no heirs, and his death left no appreciable power vacuum. In other words, there was little worth preserving, including his memory. It was a sad statement on what an Arcana should have meant to the city.
For now, the Dawncreeks would be staying in a condo unit Addam owned in his building. Since he hadn’t told me he owned a third unit, I didn’t put it past him to have bought it on the spot. Because, once again, that was the sort of thing an Addam would do.
Corinne, stabilized, would soon be facing a lengthy rejuvenation treatment. Now that she was once again bonded to an Atlantean, such magic would work on her. She had agreed to be brought back to her thirtieth birthday. In human terms, given the slower Atlantean and bonded Companion aging process, it would be the body of a twenty-five-year-old. She would maintain that age through a sequence of near-term rejuvenations until Anna caught up with her.
And Anna? My new heir? None of the Arcana had spilled her secret just yet. The cat was still in the bag—even if the bag was in arm’s reach of too many people who wanted to shake it and peer inside.
Which led me to now—the morning of the third day—when I received a message summoning me to the Iconsgison.
The guard, AnaÏca, met me at the checkpoint to the Arcanum’s floor. She was dressed in a new uniform, and still smelled strongly of soap.
“Lord Sun,” she said, with a little bow. “You can pass right through.”
“With my weapons?” I asked in surprise.
“The Arcanum isn’t in session. It’s just Lord Tower, my lord.”
My stomach bottomed. Lord Tower? Just Lord Tower? “So he has his weapons too?” I asked.
She smiled at that, and held open a gate. Before I moved, though, she seemed to hesitate on saying something, then blurted, “And congratulations. On . . . everything. And thank you.”
“Thank me?” I said in surprise. “I was a bit of prick to you, wasn’t I?”
“You and Lady Death gave me a field promotion to head captain. And you avenged my friends. The ones who died. That means something to me.”
“I had a lot of help,” I said awkwardly. “And Lady Death wouldn’t have given you that field promotion if you didn’t meet her approval. She’s scary competent, too, so I suppose that says a lot about anyone who gets her approval. Captain AnaÏca . . .” I trailed off for a second. “Maybe you could help me with something? I’ve been waiting for the right moment.”
“Of course, my lord.”
I pulled a folded bundle papers from the inside of my black leather jacket. One of them was a list of names I’d torn from a lined notebook. I stared at the names for a second longer than I needed to, and then handed the list to her.
AnaÏca’s yellow eyes ran down the names, widening a bit. “These are them. The guarda who died fighting the banshee and the Hanged Man’s people.” She tapped one name. “Him?”
“He was guarda, too. Assigned to a public park near my house. He died helping me protect my ward, Matthias. Do you have a way of reaching the family of these people?”
“I do, Lord Sun.”
“Could you . . . Well, there are things I can’t say, of course, but these men and women were heroes. They died stopping a monster. If their families and loved ones want to hear that, they can reach out to me. I’ll tell them. They deserve to hear it from someone on the Arcanum.”
AnaÏca stared at me for a long beat. “Of course, Lord Sun. It will be my honor. And not to hurry you, but I think Lord Tower is waiting.”
I sighed, but followed the marble throat-like corridor to the Arcanum’s chamber. As I rounded the last corner, I spotted Mayan. He was standing at parade rest in front of the closed Iconsgison doors.
“Should I be nervous about this?” I asked him when we were in easy earshot.
“Should you ever not be nervous about something like this?” Mayan countered.
“Point. And thank you, by the way. I never got to say that. I heard that you and the other Companions locked down the Hanged Man’s houses while we fought him.”
“He didn’t have many houses left. Wasn’t much of a challenge.”
I stopped and gave Mayan a thoughtful look, as much because of what I wanted to say as because I wanted to stall. “I need to tell you something, but I’m not sure I’ll phrase it well.”
Mayan smiled. He smiled a lot more than Brand or Corinne did. That didn’t necessarily mean it was a real smile—just a practiced flick of muscle.
“I’m starting to think there’s a lot I don’t know about Companions,” I said. “Now I’ve got two of them in my court.”
“And you’d like me to explain what you don’t know,” Mayan said neutrally.
“Oh
, no. You’d never tell me. I’d never ask. I just want you to know that Companions . . . I trust them. They’re Brand, aren’t they? And I trust him more than anyone.”
“I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying, Lord Sun.”
I took a few seconds to put words together in my head. As I usually did in situations like this, when what I needed to say was too important to screw up, I retreated to formality. “I’m saying that I consider the Companions of Atlantis an ally. Now and forward, I will stand with them against trouble. My shield is their shield. They are welcome in my court.”
The only thing more rewarding than catching Mayan off guard was catching his boss by surprise. It’s the small things that make life fun.
“Better not keep him waiting,” I said, and nodded my chin at the massive doors behind him.
Mayan, still surprised, moved quickly to grab the door handle for me. He paused in the act, and said, “Eve.”
“Excuse me?”
“Eve. Christian Saint Nicholas’s Companion. Rejuvenation treatments leave a Companion in a strange body, so they need new training regimens. I think Eve would be an excellent partner for Corinne.”
“I’ll ask her. Thanks for the advice.”
He nodded and opened the door.
I walked into the Iconsgison as the giant door swung shut on its pneumatic hinges. The room was exactly as I’d remembered it, sans people. Only Lord Tower waited. His back was toward me, and he was staring at the Hanged Man’s empty seat.
“Ciaran says we’ll need to rename the room,” I said. “Iconsgison is a word for a twenty-two-sided polygon, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Lord Tower said. “We haven’t been that for a while now. The Lovers. The Hanged Man. They will not rise again. It’s very unlikely the Emperor’s throne will be claimed, and the Empress has given no indication that she’ll return to the island for anything short her own funeral.”
“Eighteen, then,” I said. “What’s that?”
“An octadecagon.”
He still hadn’t turned to look at me. I swallowed—wholly unnecessary, since my throat was dry—and said, “Did I break something between us that can’t be fixed?”
The Hanged Man Page 36