Crown of Smoke and Blood
Page 28
Mistress Anouk nodded slightly.
Agnes turned to us once more. “May the road rise up to ye. May the wind be always at yer back. May the sun shine warm upon yer face; the rains fall soft upon yer fields and until we meet again, may God hold ye in the palm of his hand.” She blew us a kiss and then vanished.
“You have your names. I will be ready to reap them once you dispatch them from this plane.”
“Make sure they go to the deepest reaches of Hell,” Cat said.
Mistress Anouk smiled. But it wasn’t pleasant. Nightmares had been given life in her expression. “Have no fear. I’ll retrieve Vari.”
“How did you two hear those names if they were gone before you were taken?” Hector asked the other women as we waited for Vari to return.
The women looked at each other, anguish written on their faces. Cat sighed. “We didn’t hear them. I saw them.”
Hector shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Cat took a deep breath. “Names had been written in blood on the floor. Those were the only two I could make out. I told them to the others, in case I died or couldn’t remember them. I didn’t want the women before me to be forgotten.”
“What if they hadn’t been actual survivors of Michael’s attacks?” Hector asked.
Cat shrugged. “Their names still deserved to be remembered.”
Moments later, Vari—in her regular form—was standing in front of us again. She swayed on her feet.
I lurched forward, caught her before she could topple to the ground. She was burning up…again. Her lids were droopy and her skin felt like fire. “Koehn?” she whispered.
“I’m here, V.” I pulled her up into my arms. Carried her into the dining room.
“What happened? Did you get the names?” She curled into my chest and started shivering. “It’s so cold.” She wrapped her arms around her body as her teeth chattered.
“Little Warrior, you’re burning up.” I looked down into her face. Saw streaks of red rip through the whites of her eyes. Sweat popped up on her forehead. “Tavis!”
“I’m right behind ye, Trick. What’s the problem?” He shoved up into my personal space.
“Look at her. But she’s saying she’s cold.” I didn’t let her out of my arms, but I did turn.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here, Koehn. That’s rude.” She slapped a hand at my chest.
It felt weaker than a kitten’s.
Fear ate through me like blood through the veins. Something was wrong with her. Terribly wrong.
“Um, I don’t mean to tell ye what ye might already know, but her hand is glowing.” Cat pointed to the hand in question.
It was curled into her belly. The fabric of the shirt I’d given her wrapped around most of the skin. But Cat was indeed right. It was glowing.
“That fecker!” I snarled.
“Who?” Tavis asked as he tried to use his Autumn magic on Vari.
“Some arsehole named Charon who is supposedly her real father,” I spit out the words. “We need to get her cooled down, Tavis. Why the feck isn’t your magic working?”
“Charon? Ferryman of the Dead?” Magda exclaimed, cutting off anything Tavis might have said.
“What?” My brain was in too many places to put her words together into a comprehensive statement.
Magda raced forward, ripped Vari from my arms. “Lay her on the dining table.” She did so herself. Apparently bent and crooked didn’t mean weak.
Then again, Vari barely weighed more than a small sack of potatoes.
“Don’t ever do that again, Magda. I don’t care who you are,” I snarled as I went to Vari’s other side.
Magda waved that away. She pulled Vari’s glowing left hand between her own. “Who mentioned Charon being her father?”
“Endrik the Arsehole and Charon himself. We got pulled to the Underworld.” I grabbed Vari’s right hand. Wanted to put it in ice. But it would probably melt too fast to be effective. “What the feck is going on, Magda? And answer with something other than questions.”
Magda smiled, her hands shaking slightly. “If she truly is Charon’s offspring, then there is no doubt about her destiny.”
An animalistic noise came from the depths of my soul.
Magda chuckled nervously as she looked at me out of the corner of her eyes. “I’m answering, I’m answering. But first, a bit of background and knowledge. How many elements do you think there are?”
I bit back the nasty things on the tip of my tongue. She was trying to help. She’s trying to help.
“Five,” Vari said in a thin and wavery voice.
Magda smiled and looked down at her. “Good, child. And they are?”
“Earth, water, fire, air, Aether. Sometimes called spirit.” Vari tried to sit up, but slumped back against the hard surface. “It’s so cold in here. Why is it so cold?” The last words came out in a whimper.
“Get some towels. Run them with cold water and place them on her. Put anything you have in the freezer over the top of her,” Georgie said.
We all looked at her.
She shrugged. “We deal with heat exhaustion and stroke quite a bit in the South.” She looked around the room. “Towels?”
I looked at Ambrose and Hector. They knew where everything was stored. They were back within minutes and had the water running on full cold.
Cat and Georgie worked to put the sopping wet towels over Vari’s perspiring body.
Tavis got to work unstocking the freezer he’d no doubt filled to the brim earlier. I was just thankful he knew how much food Vari could consume. He had the double freezer empty and was strategically placing items on Vari’s wet-towel covered body.
“Keep talking, Magda,” I demanded as I helped with the freezer item placements.
“There is a myth of a sixth element. No one knows for certain what it is. But, if someone can find it, harness it, and wield it, then they would be unstoppable.” Magda caught my eye and looked down at Vari, then flicked her eyes back up at me.
Vari snorted. “I’ve got a lot of things inside me, Magda. But none of them are the sixth element. Grim reaper, shape-shifting Nephilim, shapeshifting demon, snake woman bitch, and apparently a scorpion queen. None of that even comes close to a sixth element. Just some women and men who were captured, tortured, and inserted into me by Atavian.” Vari’s eyes looked like they were glowing red. But it was just the blood vessels bursting and staining the sclera.
“No, but you’re more than any single creature walking on this or any other dimension. If someone was going to have the sixth element, then it would be you.” Magda patted Vari’s hand. “I’ve seen deep inside you, my dear. You have a pure heart and more magic than this world could ever contain. You are the sixth element.”
Vari shook her head. “No. I can’t be. I’m nothing. No one. Just another failed project of my father’s.”
“But you’re the only successful specimen, Mistress Vari,” Ambrose beseeched her. “You said so yourself.”
“It’s b-b-by matters of degrees, Amb-b-brose! I failed. In more ways than one, I’ve f-f-failed. Why do you think I had to run away? Wh-wh-why do you think my only op-p-ption now is t-t-to kill him? He’s my f-f-father. A horrible, evil monste-r-r. But I still love him. The parts of him that aren’t awful, anyw-w-ways.” Tears leaked from her eyes.
Or it could have been sweat.
“But what if Charon is actually your father, Vari?” I asked.
She shook her head again. “You saw what happened when he said he would show me. Nothing. Nothing happened. Because as much as it sucks, Atavian is my father. He experimented on his own children. Tortured us. Beat us when we didn’t obey. Broke us just to rebuild us in his own image. He’s a monster, and he has to be stopped.”
Ambrose came over. “And who could stop such an evil being?”
Vari locked her eyes with his. It was a clash of golden amber and bright blue. I could almost feel the meeting of their wills in that single look.
Ambrose pushed closer to her. They were breathing the same air by the time he stopped his forward progress. “What keeps you from being the perfect machine? What test did you fail? What experiment did you nullify?”
Her mouth tipped up in a terrifying smile. Fangs lengthened and filled her mouth. “Darkness could find no foothold inside me.”
Magda sucked in a noisy breath. “But you mate bonded to the darkness itself.”
Vari dropped back down to the table, her face showing her confusion. “What?”
Magda looked at me, her eyes wide. “Koehn is the King of the Nightwalkers. Darkness. You called it to you and didn’t even know it.”
“And for those of you who don’t know your history, Charon is supposedly the child of Night and Darkness,” Georgie offered. “In Greek mythos, he is the son of Nyx and Erebus. The literal personification of the darkest night.”
Magda looked like she was about to faint dead away. She righted herself so she no longer hovered over Vari. Instead, she dropped to the floor beside her. Hands still holding Vari’s. “My Queen. I will fight by your side. Giving my life for yours. From now until eternity blinks out.”
“My father is not CHARON!” Vari screamed so loud I feared the windows would crack.
The world widened like an overinflated balloon and then narrowed down to the tiniest of points. When it popped back out, Charon stood in the room. “I knew you would call me, raza.”
Chapter 39 – Vari
The cold that had been freezing me alive finally ended like the last snowflake had been exposed to open flame. Now I was just pissed off and wet. And not in the good, fun, sexy ways either.
Soaking wet.
“Get this shite off me.” My voice trembled with rage. I could feel it backing up in my throat. Inflating my lungs with hatred and anger. “Now.” I kept my tone soft. Cool. Detached.
Deadly.
It wasn’t even a full minute before Koehn was helping me sit up straight. A new towel wrapped around my shoulders. He didn’t hover next to me. Didn’t try to coddle me. Or pet me.
He would have lost fingers or limbs had he tried it.
The bald man with the golden mask stood before me. Taller than he seemed in the Underworld, I was both surprised—and not—that he was here. There had been something inside me that knew he would return. That my simply saying his name would bring him back.
At least he was here, and I wasn’t in the Underworld. This time. I wouldn’t be losing any more days or minutes on this plane.
“Well. Start speaking,” I demanded.
It seemed that Charon was a bit put off that I wasn’t dancing or crying. Pulling off his mask, he stared at me for a long moment. Confusion written on his face. “You’re not excited to see me.”
“No shite, Sherlock,” Tavis said in a low tone. “She’s bloody pissed and about to smite ye. I’d go back to wherever ye came from. And as fast as my arse could take me.” He came up beside me, crossed his thick arms over his chest.
“What he said.” I wiped the towel over my face. Felt the beginnings of dried sweat trying to form. Gross. Honestly, how had I been sweating and freezing at the same time?
Charon shook his head. “No. I’ll not be going back, my tail between my legs. Not when I’ve finally just found you again.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t lose me, so there was nothing to find. You’re not my father.”
Before I could feel my next heartbeat, Charon was in my face. “Yes. I am. I can feel my blood in your veins. Mine and your mother’s.” He turned slightly and put his cheek to mine. “I can practically taste her within you.”
“Gross. Perv much?” I pushed him away. Felt Koehn’s arms come up and around me. Which reminded me. “Anouk told me you got the na—”
I was up in the air, Charon’s hand around my throat before I could finish. “Say that name again, child. Slowly.”
Glaring down at the man who claimed paternity trying to choke me to death should have been a surprise. Growing up with evil incarnate made this more of a general Tuesday afternoon. But I wasn’t going to allow a second paternal figure to treat me like trash. I didn’t care how powerful he was.
Lifting my knee, I used every bit of supernatural power inside me to take his head off in one fell swoop. I smashed my knee up as hard as I could. Heard and felt his teeth smash together in his jaw.
I smiled as his head jerked back, and he dropped me. “Shite, girl.” He rubbed his jaw as his eyes watered. “And you doubt you’re mine?” He spit something from his mouth.
A couple bloody teeth fell to the floor with little thumps. I was ridiculously pleased with myself. I was also glad I had supernatural healing. The burning ache in my knee was already a distant memory.
“You don’t know shite about me. What I am. What I’m capable of. If you ever want a chance to find that out, shut your fecking mouth until I’m done talking. And if you ever put your hands on me like that again, I’ll rip your heart from your chest and slurp down your blood like I have a straw.” I turned back to Koehn, unwilling to rub at the tender skin on my neck. That stupid idiot on the floor wouldn’t see weakness from me. “We need to get to Gideon.”
Koehn nodded. “Hector told him the names. They’ve got the accomplices under lock and key. They’re just waiting for us now.”
I smiled. Finally. One thing going right out of this ridiculous farce I called my current life. “Then let’s go to the mansion.”
Tavis put a hand on my shoulder. “Ye’ve the girls here for a reason, Vari.”
Shite. I did. I turned to the women who’d pledged their lives to mine. “Let’s go to my room. It won’t necessarily be completely private, but it will be the best I can do.”
Georgie and Cat nodded. They looked a little overwhelmed. White faced and clutching each other’s hands, they looked terrified, to be honest. And very interested in what was going to happen next.
I motioned them to follow me. As we got to the stairs, I called out, “Koehn, did my clothes show up?”
“Aye, lass. I put the boxes on yer bed,” Tavis answered for him.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh followed me up the first few steps. “I don’t care if you tripped over them, you arse. Stay out of her room,” Koehn yelled.
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, girls. We’re not similar in size, but maybe you can find something that will work for you, too.” I waved them to follow me. Left the overly dominant men to work out their differences on their own.
Once we were all ensconced in my room, I started ripping open boxes. Koehn had ordered an entire room full of clothes. And most of it was in black. The man had actually listened to me.
“Oh my lawd,” Georgie breathed. “These are top of the line clothes, V. Like, empty your wallets and bank accounts top.”
Cat nodded, her mouth open as she gawped. “I’d have to walk the streets for a month just to afford a single pair of these leggings.”
“What are leggings?” I asked as I walked over to the box they opened.
“What ar—” Cat looked at me like I had asked her to kill a babe. “Luvy, slide off those man pants and slide these up yer pretty legs.” She held up a pair of what could be pants, if they were designed for skeletons.
“Those will never fit.” I pushed the borrowed pants down my legs. Reached for the leggings. I blinked as the texture registered on my brain. They were soft. And warm.
Biting back a moan as I slid them on, I was about to run downstairs and thank Koehn in a very personal way. “These are amazing.” Running my hands up and down my covered thighs, I wished they made shirts in the same material. It was like a full body hug that I could
give myself.
“He got you a shirt to match,” Georgie tossed it to me.
Could one have an orgasm from clothing?
I had the baggy shirt off and the new one on in one-point-two seconds. It was just as beautiful as the pants.
“Move around in them, V. See how they work.” Georgie waved me on.
I did some sword fighting training movements. Marveled at how well everything stayed where it was supposed to. It was like molded leather…that actually breathed. “Can I sleep in these?”
“Honey, you can do whatever you damn well like in those. He bought you enough sets to last you a whole year without wearing a single set more than once.”
I jumped up and down, clapping like an idiot. A smile plastered to my face. “I have clothes!”
Georgie and Cat laughed as they watched me lunge and plié my way around the room. I was kicking some major arse in my head. And I never once had to worry about my clothing.
“Will it hold my weapons, do you think?” I asked as I thrust my make-believe sword up into the chest cavity of an imaginary enemy.
“Perhaps not. But I’m sure Koehn would buy you some holsters or whatnot,” Georgie said.
I beamed at her. “Let’s hope so. Once I start making money on my own, I’ll be able to pay for all the clothes I want. I vow to never wear anything else but these again.”
“Too bad they won’t fit us,” Cat sighed. “Oh well. Getting to watch ye enjoy them is almost as good as wearing them.” She sat on the bed.
Pushing the pretend fight from my mind, I turned to the women. Took stock of what I saw. They were taller than me, but who wasn’t? Trim and fit, but in different ways. Georgie appeared curvier than Cat. But they both had a warrior’s spirit. And that’s what counted.
Walking over to them, I stopped a couple feet from their perches on my bed. “Do you know what a djinn is?”
Cat shook her head, shrugged her shoulders.
Georgie did the same. “It doesn’t sound familiar.”