“What did you do after that?” Jason asked.
“We managed to make our way to Bend, where we stayed with my brother until we knew what was going down. Unfortunately, the organization couldn’t come get us. Also, the main headquarters in Atlantea went down. Radio silence, as the Order of the Black Mist moved into the capital. We’ve been able to receive scattered reports from our people in Bifrost—that’s how we got the report about the Earthshaker—but it’s random. We’re doomed as an organization, and it won’t be much longer before we’ll only be a memory, like so many other things in this world.”
As we absorbed that somber piece of news, Hans returned, followed by Thor.
I tried not to laugh. The massive Norse god looked out of place in the chamber council. Thor had also let his beard grow over the past six months since he first joined us, and now it reached his belly, making him look like a gorgeous but scary bogey.
He pulled out one of the chairs and gingerly sat on it, as if he expected it to give way under his weight. “So, Hans has been telling me that you are requesting that I ferry you to Seattle in my chariot.”
I almost choked on my coffee. “I didn’t exactly ask.”
“No worries, girl. I like helping out.” The rumbling god actually did seem pleased at being included in the plans.
I zipped my lip and graciously accepted. “Thank you, then. How long will it take us to reach the area near the World Tree?”
“Oh, with my chariot, a couple of hours, depending on what turbulence I find in the astral plane. Of course, my chariot can hold up to about fifty people, so if you want to go en masse with a contingent of guards, I say the more the merrier.” He seemed absolutely jolly about the idea.
I glanced at Tam. “What do you think? Go in with a force?”
“I think taking a few extra guards would be a good idea. Not fifty, but maybe five to ten extra?” Tam’s eyebrow was twitching and I had the feeling he was trying to suppress a laugh. Before I could answer, Thor set his hammer on the table. It immediately broke through and landed on the floor next to his feet. Hans jumped back, narrowly escaping his toes being crushed.
“Oops, sorry about that,” Thor said. He hefted the hammer and sat it on his lap. “Didn’t think the table would give way.”
“No problem,” Tam said, staring at the hole. “They don’t make them like they used to.”
“So when do we leave?”
“Next week, as soon as Heimdall finishes the explosive. So we go in your chariot. Jason, Kendall, Tyrell, Hans, and Greta are coming with me along with five extra guards. We need to plan on Lyon meeting us there. I’m hoping he won’t catch word of our plans, but given the fact that we think there’s a spy in our midst, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I’d mark it as a sure bet,” Tigra said. “I don’t buy the premise that the spy’s left Willow Wood. And my guess is that they haven’t used the Earthshaker again not out of any kindness, but because they can’t.”
She cleared her throat. “The ancient weapons from the Weather Wars required a great deal of energy. One use would expend it until the weapon was recharged. Most of them were recharged magically. That means that if whoever has the Earthshaker isn’t a magician, he’s going to have to find a different way to siphon energy to fuel it. But the moment he manages to recharge it, my guess is that he’ll use it again, and probably with a worse effect. Actually, there’s another factor that could wipe out your village and it wouldn’t even require the artifact. I highly recommend you keep a double duty of guards watching out for any signs of it.”
“What’s that?” Tam asked.
“Wildfire. We’re in high summer and it’s dry enough that a forest fire could take out everything here without the proper means to fight it. Well, except for UnderBarrow proper—you can keep that safe, I assume. But a fire could wipe out the village and a lot of people along with it. And all it takes to start a fire is some kindling, a dry patch of undergrowth, and a spark.”
Tam’s eyes grew wide. “I hadn’t even thought of that. Damh Varias—go now, and set an extra watch for fire. Beef up the guards and tell them to watch for anything suspicious. Also, make a rule—no fires outside the village. And a burn ban on fires in private dwellings. People can eat communally for the time being and can bring their foods and cook them at the central grill pits.”
Damh Varias nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Fire is a deadly weapon and too easy to use, especially now that we’re out of the rainy season.” I frowned. “Maybe we should create a firebreak around the village. Take down all the potential fuel for fires before anybody else gets the idea.”
“Another good idea. Damh, set that in motion as well. Make certain the guards keep water on hand at their stations.”
By the time we finished our meeting, we were all feeling the strain. I caught up with Tigra as she headed back toward her chambers.
“Do you have any clue who might have the Earthshaker?”
She shook her head. “No, unfortunately, or I would have told you immediately. And it’s fruitless to go looking for it, unless you plan to search through every shelter. Even then, chances are the spy would hide it somewhere else before anybody reached them.”
“Unless they were surprised. We could ask everyone to gather and then, keeping them ringed with guards, go through the dwellings.” But even as I said it, I knew that wasn’t a viable plan. “What can you tell me about the artifact? Does it look like the Thunderstrike?”
“No, this is more like a little black box. It has a field of hidden buttons, but it looks like a cube about the size of small box of chocolates.” She rested a hand on my arm. “There’s no way to know what it is by simply looking at it. You have to see it in action to know that it’s anything but a shiny black cube of metal.”
“At least that gives me something to go on.” I paused. “I’m sorry I can’t take you with me.”
“I’m not cut out for it. I know that and it’s all right. I don’t expect to go, though I’d love to see the end of this. At least the end of the threat from the Elder Gods of Chaos. The Order of the Black Mist can still try to open other gateways, but things are breaking down so much that I predict within another six months, even their organization will fall into the very anarchy it seeks to instill on the world. They didn’t consider that by destroying the communications infrastructure, they also destroyed their own ability to communicate with their various cells.”
“Small favors, I guess.” I stopped at the intersection of passages leading to Tigra’s guest quarters. “I’ll leave you here, then. I have a few errands to run.”
“I’m tired, anyway. I think I’ll take a nap.”
As I headed back down the corridor, she slipped into her room. The world had shifted a hell of a lot since we had first met some eight months back.
A COUPLE DAYS later, I was looking all over for Jason. I finally found him by the lake. He was flying over the water, soaring as the updraft caught him under the wings. Another hawk came into view, and circled him, playing. A noise from the water startled me. Leonard popped his head up, surfacing as he stood on the shoal that led up to the shore.
“Hey, Fury,” he said. He wiped the water out of his eyes and squinted against the sun. Then, pointing at the two hawks, he said, “That’s Mom and Uncle Jason, in case you didn’t know.”
“I figured one of them was Jason. Somebody told me he was out flying over the lake. I didn’t know your mother was with him.” I sat on one of the driftwood logs that lay across the beach, providing a handy seat from which to watch the water. I patted the seat next to me. “Come, sit down. We haven’t had the chance to talk for a while.”
He shook himself off like a puppy dog, splashing water every which way, then padded over, wincing as he crossed the pebbles.
“Damn, those are rough on the feet,” he said, sitting next to me. “So, here we are. Miles from nowhere.” Leonard was going through another growth spurt. He had
added another four inches over the summer, and now he was almost as tall as Jason and definitely taller than me.
“You’re growing too fast.” I winked at him. “I remember when you were a baby and I babysat you. You loved your crib and never wanted out of there.”
“Oh, no. Not you too. Mom never lets up on how big I’m getting.” He licked his lips, staring at the ground. “I wish I was an adult.”
“Don’t wish away time. It goes too fast as it is.”
“I suppose, but I just want the freedom to go after what I want. But my life isn’t going quite the way I thought it would.”
I patted his arm. “None of us are going to live the lives we thought we were.”
“Yeah…” He paused. “Do you miss it? The city?”
“Yeah, I do. But it’s gone, and all that’s left there is death and decay. And zombies.”
“And zombies.” Another pause. Then, “Fury, can I ask you something?”
I nodded. “I don’t promise to answer, but of course you can ask.”
“You were younger than me when you first came to live with my uncle, right?”
“I was thirteen.” I glanced at him. He looked like he was debating asking something. “What is it, Len? What do you want to know?”
“I just… When my mom starts bugging the hell out of me, I guess, I think about you. You don’t have a mother. You lost her when you were barely a teenager. Do you think I’m a bad person because sometimes I wish I didn’t have a mother?”
The angst of youth. It never failed to raise its head, whether in the inner city or out in the wilds. I tried to hide my smile. Leonard and Shevron had a volatile relationship. It hadn’t always been that way, but as he hit his mid-teens, he had been trying to stretch out toward adulthood, and the ways in which he attempted to grow hadn’t always been the wisest.
“No,” I said softly, thinking over my words. “I think that I even felt that way at times, before I lost Marlene. But there’s a difference between the occasional thought and the wish for harm. I take it you feel guilty because of feeling this way?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, your mother was…”
“She was killed by a serial killer, Len. She was tortured and murdered. Do I think that I caused that because of my anger at her? Not in the least. If I had known what was going to happen, I probably would still have had days where I wanted her out of my life. It’s a normal feeling for a teenager. But don’t nurse the anger, and don’t let it linger. Enjoy what you can because someday, she may not be there for you. And you don’t ever want to regret destroying a relationship that means so much.”
He brought his feet up on the log, stretching out so he was lying on it with his head by my side. “I know you’re right. And I’m not as angry as I was six months ago. That’s one thing Verdanya did for me—they taught me to channel my frustration into work. But I can’t wait to grow up and start my own life.”
“Hey,” I said, brushing my hand over his forehead. “You already have. Even though she still can tell you what to do, the fact is, you started your own life the day you were born. Remember this, and it will make it easier: no matter who you are, or how old, there will always be somebody who can tell you what to do or not to do. For me, it’s Hecate. For Tam, it’s the High Queen and King of the Bonny Fae. For your uncle, it’s the Cast. And for your mother, too.”
He was silent for a moment as we watched the two hawks gliding side by side. They were making synchronous turns, diving and pulling out at the same time. It looked like an exhilarating freedom.
“I wish I could fly. I wish I had inherited my mother’s nature rather than my father.” Len rolled to a sitting position, gazing up at the hawks. “I don’t belong in the Cast, Fury. Uncle Jason wants me to pretend I do. My mom tells me not to worry about it. But I’m not like them. I can’t fly. I don’t know what it means to have the bond they do. How can I be part of something when there’s no connection?”
I thought about his question. It was a valid one, and eventually he’d have to make a decision. The Cast was introverted. They didn’t open to strangers easily, and while they would accept Leonard if he played by the rules, the fact was he would never be at home among them.
“What do you want to do? I know things have changed so drastically since we lived in Seattle, but given where we’re at now, what do you want to do with your life?”
He worried his lower lip for a moment. “Honestly? I want to become a guard. I want to join Lord Tam’s guard. There are people who aren’t Bonny Fae living in UnderBarrow. Heck, you’re going to become queen there—so it’s not quite like the Cast, where you have to be one of them to really be accepted, is it?”
“No, actually it’s not,” I said. “Let me talk to Tam, and then to your mother and uncle. Maybe I can figure out something. You’re not too young to start training.”
“You’d talk to them for me?” His eyes lit up.
“Yes, but you have to promise to let me do it in my own way. If you push Jason and Shevron before I’ve had a chance to talk them into thinking about it, they’ll resist and you won’t have anything to show for it. I know them—and trust me, what you are asking them won’t go over well. If I make the suggestion, they may actually give it consideration.” I gave him a stern look. “Promise you’ll keep your nose clean till then?”
He laughed. “I promise. And Fury, thanks.” He glanced back at the lake. “They’re coming in to land now.”
Jason and Shevron arced gracefully in the air, spiraling lower with each circle. Then, as if they were mirror images, they landed on a nearby log and, in a blurry shimmer, transformed back into their human forms. All Jason would ever tell me about their clothes disappearing and reappearing with them was that it was hawk-magic.
Shevron stretched, yawning loudly as Jason let out a resounding laugh. Flying always seemed to calm them down.
“Fury! Hey, what’s up?” Jason jogged over and, after high-fiving Leonard, sat down beside me. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing more than usual. We haven’t had a chance to really talk for a while, and before we head into Seattle, I thought it would be nice to catch up.”
Shevron joined us, but she declined to sit. “I need to get back to the village. I’m on KP duty tonight. Len, you too, son.”
He started to grumble but, with one look from me, shrugged. “Sure thing. Bye, Uncle J. Bye, Fury.”
“Make me something good to eat,” Jason called after them as they headed toward the trail. He closed his eyes. “Listen to the waves on the lake. I love it out here, you know. The rest of the Cast is thinking of moving up here. They may start their own village nearby. We never thought about that in the past, but now, it makes sense.”
“Seattle’s a ghost town, but when you think about it, it’s seeded so many enclaves and villages.” I paused. “Hecate and I are talking about opening a training center. I’d train those who have the talent how to hunt down and kill Abominations. Right now, I’m one of the few who really know how to attack them. They’re coming through a lot of the World Trees now, Hecate found out. So I’ll be Queen of UnderBarrow, and the sensei of a movement.”
Jason blinked. “Really? So you’ll be like the founder. What does Tam think about this?”
“He’s down with it. Hecate will be meeting with him soon to discuss what sort of structure we’ll need. It will need to house students, and we have to figure out how to get the word out. Hecate’s taking care of that part. I’m supposed to start figuring out a lesson plan, once I’m done with the little matter of destroying the portal to Chaos, and then my coronation and wedding.”
“You really love Tam, don’t you?” Jason picked up a rock and chucked it at the water, skipping it across the surface.
I watched the ripples spread out in concentric rings. “More than I thought possible. You know, when I had a crush on you all those years, I thought love was…something it’s not. There’s a big difference between infatuati
on and love.”
Jason lowered his gaze, staring at his feet. “I still feel horrible about not telling you about your mother and me. But Fury, even if that had never taken place, you know that we never would have worked. We’re too different. I could never look at you in that way. I admit, I never expected Tam to slip in and win your heart. He’s good at keeping his feelings masked. But I guess we’ve ended up with the people we need to be with.”
“Oh, I know. I adore you, but sometimes I want to beat some sense into that thick head of yours. You and me? We make good friends. I’m glad you and Elan found each other, by the way. You’re happier with her than I ever thought you were with Eileen.”
“Eileen—I would have been a good husband to her. But being a good spouse doesn’t necessarily mean being a happy spouse, you know?”
“I know.” I leaned back, resting my head against a curve in the massive log. “So, good flight today?”
“The best. Good wind, good weather. It’s nice to be able to get out and fly more. Shevron and I are making a habit of doing so regularly. Len likes to come along. I wish the kid could join us,” he said wistfully.
“Hmm, about that.” Now was as good a time as any.
“What? You have something you need to tell me about him?” Jason instantly assumed his stern-uncle look. I knew that look from when I was a kid, and the lectures that followed had never been pleasant.
“Nothing bad, so chill out. In fact, Len and I had quite the talk while you two were up in the sky.” I waited for a beat, then said, “He wants so badly to find his own way in life.”
“I know, but his place is with the Cast.”
“The Cast isn’t anywhere near here, and you know as well as I do that he’ll never fit in there. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Jason frowned, staring at the rocks beneath our feet. “I owe my loyalty to the Cast.”
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