Stranger

by Zoë Archer

  “Just picture what we saw in Glastonbury,” said Astrid, “and then multiply that by a million.”

  Gemma felt cold dread numb her body as she looked at Catullus, hoping for reassurance that this nightmare wouldn’t come to pass. But his furious scowl as he paced back and forth across the floor of the saloon only proved that she had good reason to worry. She half expected smoke to trail him, his mind worked so feverishly.

  Then Astrid gasped and went pale, tottering a little where she stood. Lesperance immediately wrapped supporting arms around her.

  “What is it, love?” he demanded.

  She looked up at him, and then at the assembled Blades. “I felt it, just now. I didn’t just feel it, I saw it.”

  “What did you see?” asked Bennett.

  “Arthur and the Primal Source, together. In London. Not what has happened, but what might happen. If Arthur should physically touch the Primal Source.” Astrid paled.

  Worried glances were shared across the pub. Whatever Astrid saw, it wasn’t pleasant.

  “Let me help you, love,” Lesperance said as Astrid sagged in his arms. “Tell me what you need.”

  “What we need is to keep Arthur from touching the Primal Source.” Her eyes were silver ice, chilled by what she foresaw. “If he contacts the Primal Source whilst he’s under the sway of the Heirs’ dreams …” She fought a shudder. “I saw it. The loss of the world’s freedom. Britain’s magic belonging entirely to the Heirs, and everything they want coming to pass. Everything.”

  Silence worked through the room as cancerous understanding spread. The Blades stared at one another, immobilized. Thousands of scenarios flew through Gemma’s mind—as they must with everyone else—and none of them were less than disastrous. Nations would fall in radiating circles, like an earthquake might trigger floods and devastation, as the power of Arthur and thousands of years of English magic served the Heirs’ cause of complete British domination. Even Britons—those that were able to survive the onslaught of unleashed magic—might find themselves trampled underfoot by this new tyranny.

  Harsh laughter tore into the silence.

  Everyone whirled to face the bound Heir, who sat, captive but exultant. “You’re fighting something that can’t be fought,” he laughed. “There’s not a damn thing you can do to stop us. King Arthur will lead England on to its greatest triumph, and every last Blade will be carrion.” Jubilant, the Heir roared with laughter until tears ran down his reddened face.

  His laughter suddenly turned to choked wheezing. He struggled for breath, fighting to draw in air. The Heir’s face began to turn even more red. His eyes bulged.

  The Blades clustered around him, voices blending together.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Is he having a fit?”

  “Give him something to drink.”

  Catullus tipped a mug of water to the Heir’s mouth, but the liquid just splashed down his chin. Horrible gurgling sounds tore from the captive’s throat. He struggled against an invisible force, his tongue protruding, his face going purple.

  The Heir pitched in his chair. Only Catullus’s steadying hand kept him from crashing to the ground. Whitely, the Heir’s eyes rolled back as the sounds grew worse, more tortured.

  And then, abruptly, he went slack. His mouth gaped open, tongue hanging out. Wide, staring eyes gazed sightlessly at the timbered ceiling.

  Catullus bent and pressed his ear to the Heir’s chest. Slowly, he stood, then drew the Heir’s eyelids closed.

  “He’s been strangled to death,” Catullus said.

  Chapter 12

  The King and the Heir

  Morning light barely penetrated the gloomy dell. Instead, the bright glow licking along tree trunks came from a hastily constructed fire. Men’s shadows grew and shrank as the flames flickered. They formed a ragged ring around the fire—most of their numbers were dead, and those that lived bore wounds. A far different gathering than the one that had assembled before dawn. Then, victory over the Blades of the Rose had been all but assured.

  Now, angry, hurt, exhausted, the surviving Heirs watched their leader exact a pitiless retaliation against the comrade who’d been unfortunate enough to be captured.

  Jonas Edgeworth’s scarred hands formed a choking hold on what appeared to be only air. But the chant that droned from his mouth proved he was, in truth, working a dark magic. His already-disfigured face twisted into even greater contortion, shaped by rage.

  The chanting reached a crescendo, then stopped. Edgeworth dropped his hands.

  “Treyford’s gibbering has been silenced.” He speared each of his men with a glare. “Unless any of you lot want to go blathering to the Blades.”

  A muted chorus of “No, sirs” rose from the assembled Heirs.

  None of them would look at Edgeworth directly. Once, this bothered him. He’d been the handsome son of Joseph Edge-worth, and his father’s status as a pillar of the Heirs of Albion ensured that Jonas Edgeworth would be met with smiles and welcome wherever he went. Daughters of other high-ranking Heirs were paraded before him, each eager to cement alliances through marriage. Jonas even had a bride already selected, a perfect candidate for both families’ ambitions. Eventually, he would succeed his father and take over the venerable Edgeworth tradition of leadership within the Heirs of Albion.

  Then, everything collapsed.

  Jonas, on a mission to acquire a Source in Mongolia, tangled with the damned Blades of the Rose. Thanks to those Blades, the mission failed, and Jonas had been forced to retreat using the Transportive Fire. No one ever used the Fire for anything but sending paper communications. Men did not travel well through its flame—and Jonas was living proof.

  When he emerged in Heirs’ headquarters, the fire left him a twisted hulk of flesh, burned so badly, no one, not even his mother, recognized him. It took months to recover from his wounds, but the scarring remained after the skin healed. His fiancée ended their engagement. People could not look at him without wincing in horror. Jonas refused to leave his family’s Mayfair home, skulking about its corridors and prone to violent rages. He would never have left his house, if it hadn’t been for those son of a bitch Blades.

  His father undertook a rare field mission to Greece, bringing his widowed daughter, Jonas’s sister, London, with him. She had been the only person with enough linguistic knowledge to decipher some ruins that would lead to a Source. Everyone had believed Joseph Edgeworth was making a terrible mistake, involving a woman with a mission. Women were fickle bitches—Jonas knew this more than anyone.

  Turned out that everyone was right. London fell under the seductive allure of Bennett Day, who beguiled her into joining the Blades. Her betrayal cost the Heirs not only a powerful Source, but the life of Joseph Edgeworth.

  Scarred, fatherless, his sister a betraying whore, Jonas’s anger knew no bounds. He all but leveled the Mayfair home. And then, in the smoking ruin of his life, cold understanding grew. A void in the Heirs had been left by Joseph Edgeworth’s death. The Primal Source belonged to the Heirs, its power theirs to use. The time was ripe for Jonas to ascend to his rightful place as leader of the Heirs of Albion.

  He would accomplish his father’s dream for a global English empire. He’d crush anyone who crossed his path. And he vowed by his dead father’s soul that the Blades of the Rose would be obliterated. Each and every one of them would face an excruciating death, especially his slut sister.

  He wielded his disfigurement like a weapon. Intimidation came so much easier when one wore the face of a monster. No one disobeyed him, fearful of what he might unleash. And it wasn’t only his appearance that had been changed by the Transportive Fire.

  The element of fire was his to command. He could travel through it at will. One fire to another—distance didn’t matter. He’d even traveled all the way to the Canadian wilderness to rescue that miserable failure of a mage, Bracebridge. And now, this morning, his men had been so abysmally routed by the Blades. In retreat, needing guidance, they bui
lt a fire and summoned him.

  First order of business was silencing Treyford.

  “Doesn’t matter that the Blades know the location of the Primal Source,” he said to his assembled men, once that had been accomplished. “They’ll never be able to reach it.”

  “What if they do, sir?” asked Lilley. A makeshift bandage was wrapped around his head. Graves had built some kind of shrapnel-filled bomb, the clever bastard, and now the surviving Heirs looked like the walls of a besieged town. God, if only the Heirs had the mechanical genius for their own. But the color of Graves’s skin blighted what could have been a fruitful partnership.

  “Even if they make it to London,” said Edgeworth, “headquarters is protected by firepower and spells. They couldn’t breach the outer walls. And,” he added with a glower, “if they get through those, they’ll be dead long before they reach the chamber holding the Primal Source.”

  “But the Blades—”

  “Enough,” snapped Edgeworth. “Follow me.”

  The men trooped after Edgeworth, trailing him as he led them out of the dell, and up to the summit of a hill. The hilltop provided an excellent view of the village the Heirs had fled. Empty streets at this hour of the morning attested to the fact that the town had been abandoned by its citizens. Seeing it, such a humble little town, renewed Edgeworth’s disgust that his men couldn’t take it, couldn’t rout a handful of Blades. Such an easy task.

  “Do we have to go back?” whined Watton.

  “Watch, idiot.”

  The men fell silent, but then gulped when a towering figure appeared on the horizon. It looked to be as tall as a farmhouse. A giant man. In the light of day, he gave off a dazzling radiance, glowing like a beacon of true English-ness. With each step he took, the ground trembled. Golden light shone from the crown encircling his head, and silver fire flared from the enormous sword he brandished.

  He dwarfed the landscape. In a matter of moments, he reached the village, and his regal face gathered into a dreadful scowl. He raised his sword.

  “Arthur will do what you fools could not,” Edgeworth said.

  As the Heirs watched, Arthur swung Excalibur at one of the stone houses lining the high street. The sword smashed into the wall. Bolts of bright energy shot from the blade. The heavy stone walls crumbled to dust, and shock waves from the blow radiated outward, leveling other homes and shops along the street. With each step he took, Arthur swung Excalibur, and each swing demolished more and more buildings.

  The village fast evolved into a smoking ruin.

  “Oh, my God,” rasped Watton.

  “Spyglass,” Edgeworth demanded. Someone pressed one into his hand, and he trained its lens on the village.

  What he saw made him cackle with glee.

  The Blades were running from the devastation. Someone—it looked like Graves and that American bitch—actually sped to free the horses from where they were stabled. As the animals ran off, Arthur approached, and Graves and the Yankee leapt aside to dodge a blow. The sword slammed into a stone wall, and the structure turned to powder as rocks and debris rained down on Graves and the woman.

  Graves shielded her from the wreckage. Sadly, neither of them seemed to be hurt. Then Graves grabbed her hand—the sight of a black man touching a white woman made Edgeworth ill—and the two of them ran in the direction of the other Blades.

  “They’re fleeing like ants! Look at ‘em!” Edgeworth snickered.

  The Blades sprinted toward a nearby wood, until Edgeworth lost sight of them. Even for a force such as Arthur, it would take days to root them out of the dense wood. Arthur moved to give chase.

  “Hold, King,” Edgeworth said.

  Though he spoke in a normal voice, and though what remained of the village was a half-mile distant, Arthur seemed to hear Edgeworth. He stopped his pursuit and lowered his sword. Slowly, the king pivoted until he faced the hill. With burning eyes, he stared at Edgeworth and the gathered Heirs. Then began to stride toward them.

  “Wh … what’s he doing?” squeaked Lilley.

  “Heeding me.” Triumphant, Edgeworth handed the spyglass to a trembling Watton. “England’s greatest king is ours to command.”

  Breath a hard burn in his lungs, Catullus tore across a field. He held Gemma’s wrist in an iron grip as she ran beside him. Just ahead sped Bennett and London, followed by Astrid and Lesperance in wolf form.

  None dared chance a look over their shoulders to see if Arthur gained on them. The devastation of the village glared too brightly in their minds. Only animal instinct for preservation got them out in time—any hesitation would have them buried in rubble or cleaved to pieces. Catullus refused to imagine Gemma or any of his friends cut down by a misguided king. Move forward, think only of the next step, and the next.

  The dark fringe of a late-autumn wood rose up on the right as they ran. Shelter, of a kind. As though thinking with the same mind, the Blades turned and ran toward it.

  They plunged into the forest, ignoring the bare branches that slapped at their bodies and faces. No one spoke. There was only survival.

  Until Bennett slowed slightly to glance behind him. He stopped abruptly, and London wheeled around.

  “He isn’t chasing us anymore.”

  Everyone halted and followed Bennett’s gaze. Sure enough, Arthur had left off his pursuit. The forest obscured where Arthur might have gone—though where a giant mythological monarch might disappear to remained a mystery.

  Panting, London asked, “Why?”

  “The Heirs,” Catullus answered. His heart continued to hammer inside his chest. At least Gemma was safe, though winded. She braced her hands on her knees, gulping in air, yet her face was ashen with shock. “They must be able to command him, since it’s their dreams that brought him to life.”

  “Why didn’t they command him to pursue us?” asked London.

  “We don’t matter anymore,” said Catullus. “They have Arthur. The sooner he is joined with the Primal Source, the sooner they fulfill their wishes. Including our extermination.”

  “Hell, Cat,” Bennett said with a shake of his head. “He razed that village to the ground. And us, too, nearly.”

  “Once he reaches London,” said Astrid darkly, “he’ll inadvertently kill tens of thousands.”

  Gemma recovered her breath. “He’s supposed to be the greatest king England has ever known. If he knew that what he was doing was wrong, he’d stop.”

  Lesperance shifted back into human form, and it was a measure of how distracted everyone was that not even London and Gemma blushed at his nakedness. “We need to communicate with him,” he said. “Convince him.”

  “Whilst he’s under the Heirs’ influence,” Catullus pointed out, “there is no way to communicate with him. I tried to talk to Arthur, and he attempted to dig a trench in my skull.”

  “Perhaps it’s a matter of language,” London offered. “He mightn’t speak modern English. Using the language of his time, I could try and talk with him.”

  “You’re not getting anywhere near that royal lunatic,” Bennett growled.

  London narrowed her eyes at her husband. “I had enough of being told what to do by my first husband.”

  “He was an overbearing jackass,” Bennett said. “I’m being protective of my beloved wife.”

  She softened, but only slightly. “Yet, if there’s a chance—”

  “It isn’t a matter of language,” said Catullus, hoping to forestall an argument. “This King Arthur isn’t the real Arthur, if such a man existed. He’s the idea of him, embodied in the minds of contemporary England.”

  “So he’d speak modern English,” concluded Gemma. She frowned in concentration. “There has to be some way of getting through to him. If we don’t, Arthur is just the Heirs’ pawn, and anybody or anything the Heirs don’t like …” She slapped her hands flat together.

  “He won’t listen to any of us,” Astrid grumbled. “Nor any Blade.”

  “Is he deaf to anyone but the Heirs?” asked Londo
n. “Very likely,” Bennett said.

  As this was being debated, Catullus found himself pacing, hardly hearing the crunch of dead leaves beneath his feet or the sounds of his friends’ voices. An answer lay buried within all this, somewhere. If only he had the means of unearthing it. He set his brain to unraveling the tangled mystery.

  Arthur could not be stopped by force. And, even if the Blades did have access to magic, it wouldn’t stand up against the strength of Arthur, shored by the Primal Source. There had to be a means of communicating with the king. If he would not hear the Blades, surely there had to be someone, besides the Heirs, to whom he would attend.

  “Someone he trusts,” Catullus muttered to himself.

  Gemma turned to him, breaking away from the ongoing discussion “What’s that?”

  Glancing up at her, Catullus said, “It has to be someone Arthur trusts, someone whose words and advice he heeds unconditionally. That is who he would hear.” He resumed his pacing, unable to stop the movement of his body as his mind worked.

  “All kings have advisers, don’t they?” Gemma asked. “A person in whom they can confide. Who can give them guidance.”

  “Guinevere?” London suggested.

  Bennett looked dubious. “She and Arthur didn’t turn out very well. Rogering your husband’s most trusted knight has a tendency to dim that husband’s opinion.”

  “Unless said husband wasn’t satisfying his wife’s needs,” London noted.

  Raising an eyebrow, Bennett asked, “Registering a complaint, kardia mou?”

  “Absolutely not, agapi mou.” She blushed prettily.

  “Not Lancelot, but one of his other knights, then,” Lesperance offered.

  Catullus halted, mid-stride. He felt the bolts of his mind slide open. Sudden, precise insight came to him, as if waiting to be liberated from dark confinement. With this understanding, a crystalline rapture shot through him. Until he’d felt Gemma’s touch, this had been his only true sense of pleasure.

  He would have the ecstasy of her touch again. But, sadly, it would have to wait. Now, he’d uncovered the only means of reaching Arthur, staying the legendary king’s destructive hand.