Silence.
“I mean,” she went on nervously, “if one of you decided on our current location – I’m assuming you, Mr. D’Angelo – then if you have a double and he has your knowledge, might he not be able to determine where the meeting is being held?”
More silence. Just for a moment.
And then the table exploded with movement. Jason’s heart hammered, his body in full alarm mode. He threw back his chair, yanked Chloe out of hers, and wrapped his arms around her. Across from them, Thanatos did the same with his queen. Roman D’Angelo was already vanishing, Evelynne D’Angelo secure in his enfolding embrace.
But it was too late.
“Oh god damn it, I knew it,” muttered Lalura Chantelle as all three couples shimmered, warped in and out of sight for a moment, and then reappeared as solid as before. A grounding spell had been cast on the meeting room, locking everyone firmly in place and preventing them from transporting away.
Chloe had been right. They were fools. The lot of them were in charge of entire nations, and yet it took a brand new, untrained queen to state what should have been obvious to any of them.
Chaos erupted around them. Jason felt Chloe quake in his tight embrace as he re-focused his magic, yanking it away from the attempted transportation spell and thrusting it upon Chloe instead as a shield.
But again, it was too late.
Jason’s vision went bright, bright white and pain crackled through his skull. It screamed in his eardrums like a Tesla machine. He lost sense of Chloe – he lost sense of touch entirely. There was nothing but brightness and crackling pain as he floated, knowing he was falling, knowing the ground was rising to meet him.
It did, and the dull thud that reverberated through his body was nothing compared to the agony of the electric envelope he was trapped inside of.
Somewhere, far, far away, someone screamed.
Chloe!
The floor shook with footsteps. It was like the distant rumbling of a stampede. Jason strained to listen, to hear anything further from the Akyri who would be his queen. But there was a roar in his head, and the crackling was joined by popping – and darkness was creeping in around the edges.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lalura Chantelle used her magic quickly to “step back,” taking herself out of the room and into the slip of another dimension thick enough to shield her from the fighting that had been unleashed, but thin enough to see through. She peered through this veil at the unfolding battle, and hastily tried to decipher what had gone wrong.
She had put up so many wards. She had taken so many precautions. After Ramses had left her cottage, she’d understood the gravity of the situation. The dangers threatening the supernatural world now were unlike any ever faced.
She had acted accordingly.
Or, she thought she had.
But despite her calm exterior, she had been bothered by something during the entire meeting with the 13 Kings. She’d felt that something was off.
It felt like baking and serving a birthday cake only to find that someone had pulled one of the candles out too soon. There was a hole in the cake. A piece was missing.
Now she knew why.
As she watched through the thin sheet of time and space, a second Lalura Chantelle hobbled into the meeting room, her bent figure leaning heavily on the cane in her right hand. Her fine white hair wisped around her head in an unseen wind like a halo.
The second Lalura looked up, piercing blue eyes glowing unnaturally. Upon her forehead was a tattoo like a brand: a black winged scarab.
The real Lalura’s heart stilled in her ancient ribcage as the realization washed over her, cold and terrifying. She had been cloned.
Her head spun. When had this happened? How?
Time passed before her mind’s eye like rewound scenes from a movie reel as she tried to remember. She went back... back….
And then she had it. The truth hit her like a derailed Amtrak train.
The god who had come to see her in her home several days ago had not been who he’d appeared to be. He had not been Ramses Amon.
He was his brother, she realized. A light came on in the dark. A puzzle piece fell into place. He was Kamon – Ramses Amon’s twin.
It all made sense. Twins ran in the family and Dannai’s children were twins.
Oh, you did a very good job, Kamon. He’d hidden his true nature so well, played his part with the expertise of a Broadway Shakespearean thespian. He’d pretended to be angered at the mention of Kamon and Amunet. He’d even gone so far as to give her a piece of valuable information that she hadn’t previously possessed. Everything he’d told her had been true – why would he lie? And she could feel the truth of his words in her bones. But she should have known that something was wrong when he didn’t share quite everything with her. Ramses would have.
So what had happened? Where was Ramses Amon?
Later, Lalura told herself. You can figure that out later. Right now, there is work to be done.
“Hmph.”
She waved the veil of separating time-space continuum away with a flick of her arthritic wrist and stepped once more into the foray.
In the few seconds it had taken her to figure out what had happened and what she should do next, the rest of the clones had appeared. Each bore the mark of their master on their foreheads, tattoos of winged scarabs that shimmered in the overhead lighting as if drawn with glittery black ink. It was the family crest; Lalura recalled that now. It was the same symbol that appeared on the pendants that had been given to Dannai’s children by their grandfather, Amon.
The first time Alberich’s clone had appeared on the train, he hadn’t possessed any such marking. Jason hadn’t mentioned it. Clearly, at that time, the clone had been much more interested in fooling Chloe into coming with him. Now the clones no longer cared about attempting to take their double’s places. Their secret was out, so they were just attacking.
The king copies were dressed identically in black clothing that reminded Lalura of something an Arab sheik would wear. Several of them were in hand-to-hand combat with their doubles.
One of the copies was dead. Lalura was not surprised when she saw both Evelynne D’Angelo and her husband Roman standing over the dead Vampire King copy’s body. Their fangs were bared, their eyes glowing red. Roman had possessed the help of his queen in defeating his double. It was an advantage Lalura had foretold, and which was now coming to fruition.
The dead king double lay there for a moment, tattooed head separated from his once strong body, before the entire form shifted, transforming into a long pile of sand.
Lalura digested this and moved on.
Jesse Graves possessed no double to battle, so he had taken on the enemy who had transported into the room nearest to him. Unfortunately, this happened to be the Unseelie King’s copy, and though Jesse did get in a good swipe or two, the dark fae double promptly slammed him with a vicious ray of offensive magic that knocked him into the wall behind him, and then transported the werewolf out of the room. Seconds. Mere seconds, this took.
Not even half a minute had passed since the battle had begun.
The Goblin King was in hand-to-hand combat with his own double. Both men wielded massive, wicked swords. The sound of each blow rang out through the room like miniaturized lightning and was accompanied with a short blast. Neither king was gaining headway over the other.
Thanatos had managed to kill his double. Or rather, Thanatos and his queen. Once more, the most important piece on the chessboard was making itself known. Thane was immune to most magic, so he was used to fighting in hand-to-hand combat. But so was his double. What the double hadn’t been prepared for was the Phantom Queen conjuring up a handgun and firing multiple, fast rounds into his back while he struggled with the real Thanatos.
Once the copy slumped to the ground, bleeding and weakened, Siobhan magically traded the gun for an axe – and took off the second Phantom King's head. Lalura was impressed. The young warlock had nerve.
Split moments later, the fake Thane’s body, too, turned to sand.
Jason Alberich was down for the count, having been taken out by the second, scarab-tattooed Lalura Chantelle – who now turned her eerie, glowing-eyed attention to the real Lalura.
And Chloe Septeran was in the grip of Alberich’s twin.
Lalura made a split-second decision. In that brief flash of option weighing, her love for her adopted son rose to the surface. Rather than attempt to attack her own double outright, she dove for Jason’s prone form. What magic she did release went toward Chloe in an attempt to shield the young woman from whatever it was that Jason’s copy was doing to her.
However, the tattooed Lalura double had other ideas, and it was with a sinking feeling that Lalura felt one of her own nastiest spells engulf her.
The spells cast by the high witch in a battle were always wicked and fast, and now was no different. The first thing her copy did was cancel out the spell she’d cast toward Chloe, leaving the Warlock Queen defenseless. Then it was all that Lalura could do to cover her own body with one shield after another as she and her malignant copy shot one offensive spell after another at each other.
Lalura knew she was not alone in feeling the weight of the spells. She knew she was making headway against her double as well. But she didn’t know how much longer she would be able to hold out. The spells were damaging her little by little, eating away at her shields until stars swam in her vision and her body was in so much agony, her pain was nearly a living, breathing entity.
Just when Lalura felt consciousness begin to slip, the spells stopped. Lalura braced herself, shaking and barely breathing. She looked up from where she was bent on the floor.
Her equally injured double met her gaze. Then the second high witch disappeared, vanishing in a transportation spell that whisked her instantly away.
Lalura let her go. She looked around the meeting room, shoving her own pain up on a higher mental shelf to be examined later.
One by one, the king doubles vanished just as the second Lalura had.
When Lalura’s gaze settled on the unmoving, supine form of the young Warlock Queen, she understood why. She could sense the Akyri’s emptiness even from across the room. The damage had been done. Jason’s evil double had drained Chloe.
Now the enemy had what they’d come for. All they had been after was the power of at least one of the queens. Vile deed done, they transported away to return to whatever dark and twisted lair from which they had come.
Lalura concentrated. She prioritized.
She could feel Jason’s life force still curling inside of his body. He had only been knocked unconscious, but he was alive.
Lalura left his form and crawled with one hand to Chloe’s side. Thanatos and Siobhan were already kneeling beside her as well.
“She’s alive,” Lalura stated, relief flooding her system a second time. “But she won’t be for long.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Jason.”
Jason felt a cool hand on his cheek. It was starkly different compared to the hot, burned, seared-out sensations everywhere else on his body. He forced his eyes open.
“Jason, Chloe needs you.”
It was Lalura. His vision was blurred, but the High Witch was unmistakable. She was on her knees leaning over him. He blinked to clear his vision; his eyes felt hot in his face. Something was desperately wrong.
Little by little, Jason’s sight cleared of clouds. As it did, he could see that Lalura’s clothing was scorched and the left side of her face was darkened with what looked like ash. Her left arm was limp at her side, and he couldn’t see her left hand at all. Her other hand, she used to grip his shoulder in a vain attempt to help him sit up.
Her jaw was set, whether in pain or anger, Jason didn’t know. He was guessing both because that’s how he felt. It took far too much effort for him to push the floor away. The hardwood fought against the palm of his hand with exponentially enhanced gravity.
He was so weak.
“It will pass,” Lalura said through gritted teeth. “And you have to fight it, Jason. I know you can.”
Jason found himself sitting up and wondered how he’d managed it. Someone had cast something on him that he didn’t even have in his own repertoire.
Ruthlessly, he shoved aside the mantle of metal-heavy exhaustion and pain still settled over him and scanned the room. Chloe was laying supine near the head of the table several yards away. Siobhan was kneeling beside her, as was Thanatos.
The Phantom King looked as though he’d been through a war, his suit utterly ruined, his tattoos showing through, shimmering and shifting and angry. Even his queen looked a little worse for wear.
The rest of the utterly destroyed, debris-scattered room was cleared out of sovereigns, Overseers, and queens but for Roman D’Angelo, who now came to stand beside Jason and Lalura.
Jason tried to stand. Roman automatically lent him a hand. Jason took it and got to his feet. Dizziness swept through him, vicious and nauseating. He clenched his teeth, swallowed down his rising bile, and stumbled to where Chloe lay. He dropped once more to his knees beside her.
“The clones are gone, most of the kings have gone back to their kingdoms, and Evie is safe,” Roman said. His voice had that deep rumble to it that only laced his words when he was being gripped in the fist of anger or hunger and his monster was in control.
Jason glanced up to take in Roman’s appearance. He was covered in blood.
But it was only seconds, Jason thought, bewildered at the amount of wreckage that had been wrought. How could this much damage have been done in seconds?
“What happened?” he demanded, looking back down at Chloe. Siobhan moved over, giving him room.
“Your copy got to her,” Thanatos explained grimly. “I think he drained her completely.”
Chloe’s skin had taken on the color of Chinese porcelain. Her lips were blue-gray and her long eyelashes rested against her cheeks like black on white. He had the most horrible feeling looking down on her – as if she were hollow –as if touching her would cause her to crack and shatter.
“He took the power you gave her,” said Lalura, who slowly made her way to the small group.
Jason met her blue, blue gaze.
“And she will die if you don’t act fast,” she continued.
Jason felt a buzzing. He wondered if he’d heard her correctly. His thoughts jumbled themselves, his memories running over each other. He’d given her his magic. He’d filled her up, enabling her to fall victim to the enemy’s draining in the first place. This was his fault.
The buzzing turned into a kind of roar that was punctuated by the beating of his heart as a new and unfamiliar terror blossomed inside of Jason. He’d never experienced the sensation before.
If she dies, he thought hectically, I can bring her back. I can bring her back.
“Not this time,” said Lalura as if he’d spoken aloud. She shook her head. “Not her. She’s special. You have to take her to the astral plane. It is composed of the same magic that she is.”
“I can help you,” said Thanatos, who held out his hand.
Jason took it without hesitation. Both men placed their other hands on Chloe. Already, Jason was focusing his magic. “What happens then?” he asked, knowing even as he asked it that he probably wouldn’t want to hear the answer.
“Then you wait,” said Lalura as she began to fade from sight through an opening portal. “And hope.”
Jason again gritted his teeth as the remnants of whatever had been cast upon him slowly, insidiously, slipped away and the world began to meld and move. Time changed, colors blended, and he, Thane, and Chloe shifted through space.
A few seconds later, their surroundings solidified once more, and Jason found he was gazing out at a night sky so filled with wondrous color, it looked like a science fiction painting. It was unreal.
He looked down at Chloe, feeling suddenly as though any place as filled with magic as this must
work on her. She was Stardust. And it was all around them.
Thanatos removed his hand from Chloe’s arm and stood. “I have to return to the others.”
Jason nodded without looking up. He willed Chloe’s eyelashes to move. He willed the color from the slowly spinning planets above them to infuse themselves into her cheeks.
“Good luck,” said Thane before Jason heard and felt his portal swallow him up, leaving Jason and Chloe alone on the fantastical plane.
He watched her and waited. Her chest was moving, but barely. The movement was so small and slow, it was almost not there at all. She made no sound, no soft breaths.
Jason leaned over to place his ear to her chest. A heart fluttered somewhere deep inside, beating like a butterfly’s wings rather than a drum.
Jason’s dark magic writhed like a monster. It wanted blood. It wanted destruction and vengeance. It made a sound inside of him, from where it waited in its dark and lonely cave. It was the most forlorn sound the universe had ever heard. Jason feared it, so he silenced it – and closed his eyes.
Then you wait… and hope.
Lalura’s words echoed through his mind. But they were helpless words, and he hated being helpless. He hated being out of control.
Jason pulled off his dress jacket and draped it over Chloe’s slender form. Then he straightened and looked up at the swirling night sky.
The plain flat horizon was back dropped with one ringed planet after another, their massive gaseous bodies striped in pinks and oranges and purples. A group of comets slowly traveled overhead, their tails shimmering like pixie dust. The stars throbbed with pulsing light, all ten billion of them. The overhead world was so full of life it was nearly claustrophobic.
It was also unfair. It wasn’t right that the heavens could be dancing with life while their own daughter, this precious creature formed of their DNA, paled and faded in hopelessness.
With a rush of adrenaline-laced fury, Jason leapt to his feet and roared at the night sky. Hearing his desperate call, his magic reared up and joined him, temporarily leaving his body like a massive black dragon. It bellowed a terrible bellow that shook the ground beneath Jason’s feet, spewing its hot, deadly power into everything around them.
The Warlock King (The Kings) Page 15