by Eve Langlais
Whirling, he was in time to see the church doors slam shut. The ominous click let him know he’d not find an easy exit. “Fuck.”
“You shouldn’t curse like that. We are in a temple.”
“I don’t believe in God,” was his mutter.
“Yet here you are, in the house of the Lord.” A woman appeared, wearing a loosely belted dark cassock and a headscarf over her hair. All he could see was the oval of her face. A young face.
“Shit, sorry sister.” He slapped his hands over his dangly bits and glanced around for something to wear.
“You should only apologize if you’re lacking. It is clear you aren’t.” A faint smile tugged at the nun’s lips.
“I, uh, kind of lost my clothes.” In a house demolished by a worm. He kept that part to himself.
“While I am not bothered by nudity, I can see the young lady is. Kerrick,” she called out. “Please fetch a garment for our guest. He seems to have misplaced his fur.”
The nun knew what he was, which meant… “There’s a spell on the church to force me to change.”
“Not just you. Anyone who thinks to come into this place under glamor.”
“It’s not a glamor. I’m a werewolf.”
“No, you are a man with an ability. That ability won’t be needed here.”
Funny, he would have said he needed it more than ever. The woman freaked him the fuck out. It was more than her youthful appearance with her old voice. Something about her wasn’t right. The smell of her tickled his senses and was more than just vanilla and honey. Like the Valkyrie, there was a difference. A newness to her scent.
How was it he’d gone almost forty years of his life never meeting anything out of the ordinary and now he kept running into new beings all the time.
Fun times. And his pack wondered why he had a hard time going home. Ruling a pack was mostly about breaking up petty squabbles and bailing them out of jail. He didn’t get to do exciting shit like meet freaky nuns in churches after becoming a hairier heroic version of Kevin Bacon.
Adara asked, “Who are you? Do you know the shaman, Morrigan?”
Titus told them to ask for that name, but not much else, as he did his best to remove them from the property before anyone noticed.
“I know the Morrigan.”
A man appeared suddenly from a side door, dark fabric folded over his arm. In his forties, his skin was the swarthy complexion of the Mediterranean. He wore the shirt and white collar of a priest.
Obviously, the fellow they were sent to find. “You must be Morrigan, I’m Logan.” He held out his hand to shake, then realized not everyone might want to touch it given he’d just been cupping his junk and settled for a wave.
“That’s Kerrick. I’m the Morrigan,” announced the nun.
“And that wasn’t sexist at all,” coughed Adara.
Logan shot her a glare. “It was an honest mistake.”
“People often make that assumption. I blame the church with its need to cling to the male priests that erected them to power.”
“And yet those same corrupt priests are the ones who dragged religion down,” Kerrick added as he neared and handed over the robe.
Logan never believed in things he couldn’t see. Of late, he believed in a whole bunch of new shit that he would have said was impossible a year ago.
As Logan dressed. Morrigan replied to her servant. “They became corrupt because their god turned his back on them. Had Yahweh continued to guide his people, there would be fewer religions and less confusion over the message.”
Finished tugging the robe over his head—and ignoring the fact that he would probably bust a seam and his calves stuck out almost two feet—Logan said, “Hold on, you mean there really is a God?”
“Was,” said Morrigan as she turned and headed for the altar at the front of the church. “He departed eons ago when he tired of playing with mankind. He and his choir of angels.”
“Angels don’t exist,” Adara stated. “It’s more likely they mistook a Valkyrie for one.”
“And you know this for sure?”
“I had an extensive education on the many planes of existence. The study of their inhabitants was part of it. There are no angels. Or gods, for that matter.”
“Gods are merely beings with powers others don’t have. To the ancients of Earth, anyone with a bit of magic would have seemed godly. But I assure you angels are real. Over the centuries, their presence and appearance have been documented via text and drawing.” Morrigan circled to the far side of the altar with its pristine white cloth.
“Plenty of things have been drawn, it doesn’t make them real,” Logan interjected.
That earned him a glance, the green eyes clear and bright as spring grass. The kind he liked to roll in. “I would think a werewolf of all people wouldn’t be so skeptical. Mankind has known of your existence for a long time despite your best efforts. Yet, if I were to ask someone on the street, they would claim you are but a legend.”
“So you’re saying legends are based on the truth? Then that would mean there is a Heaven and a Hell.”
“There is, just not the version people have constructed with their Bibles,” Morrigan replied, giving them her back and rinsing her hands in a stone basin full of water.
“So, when we die, we move on to another plane.”
Morrigan snorted. “No. Death is death. And Hell belongs to the Dark Lords and their demon minions while Heaven is lost on purpose. But enough talk about religion, you are here because you need my help.”
Chin held high, Adara announced, “I should warn you before you agree to anything that I am Forsaken.”
“I know. And that is not something I can change. But I can do other things.
“Such as?” Logan asked. “Titus called you a shaman.”
“Shaman. Witch. Goddess. I wear many titles.
“Titus thinks you can help me.” Adara approached the altar but stopped short of touching it. “Someone keeps sending monsters after me. I need to find out who they are and stop them.”
“Ah, a vendetta.” Said with a sigh of nostalgia. “The fifteenth century were the best years for revenge, but havoc on the wardrobe. All that black.”
“So, you can help?”
“Easily. Magic users leave residue behind when they act.”
“You can tell me who is doing this?” Adara said, leaning forward. Her hands touched the altar, and for a moment, the whole thing glowed.
Logan blinked, and it was gone.
“Maybe. Given the nature of the attacks, a golem and then a Death Worm, it’s someone with ability.”
“So, we’re looking for a wizard or witch,” Logan hastened to add.
“Only in the most general terms.”
“Will you help?” Adara asked.
“Of course. But you’ll need to give me a few things first.”
“We have no money.” Logan didn’t even have pocket lint at this point.
“I didn’t ask for money. That aspect of the transaction has already been handled by Titus.” Morrigan leaned forward and smiled, her lips a cupid’s bow that sounded sweet when she said, “I need blood.”
“I don’t think so,” Logan growled. He took a step forward, ready to move in front of Adara
Adara held him back. “Blood for what?”
“To give the spell a starting point to seek.”
“Can’t you use hair or a fingernail instead?”
“I could, but I was under the impression you wanted this to work.”
“I’ll do it.”
A smirk on her face, Morrigan said, “There was never any doubt you would despite what the beast thinks.”
Beast? It made a man want to growl. Which would only reinforce the insult. He settled on glaring.
The nun-witch didn’t pay him any mind. Morrigan spread her hands over the tablecloth and where her hands passed, stone appeared, a massive altar, faded gray etched with glyphs, their pattern covering the entirety of the rock.
&n
bsp; He somehow doubted those who worshipped here knew of the pagan artifact in their midst.
“Place your hand over this spot.” Morrigan indicated a shallow depression in the center.
Logan tensed as Adara complied. He half expected magic manacles to reach from the stone. Nothing happened. Kind of anticlimactic.
But things were getting a little tricky as he tried to keep an eye on Morrigan, another on Kerrick, who stood to the side, as well as Adara, who didn’t look the least bit perturbed.
Adara blithely followed along with every instruction, even the part where she took a blade from Morrigan and sliced her palm wide. The blood ran thickly from her fist, dripping into the basin.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
Morrigan did nothing at first. Or so it seemed. Yet tell that to the hair on his body. It lifted and stood at attention, a strange static in the air much like the one he experienced outside by the boundary wards.
Magic.
The blood stopped dripping, and Adara opened her hand. The palm was unmarked.
Holy shit. And not the freakiest thing happening.
In front of his wide eyes, the blood in the bowl rose, a red, sinuous snake of fluid, moving in time to the sibilant whispers coming from Morrigan.
Who, as it turned out, wasn’t anything close to a nun. With her head tilted back, and her eyes closed, her wimple slipped, showing brilliant red roots. Her hands extended from her sides, the palms facing the sky. Her lips barely moved as she chanted.
The blood hovered midair as if gravity no longer applied. It went from sinuous snake to jiggly ball of liquid that thinned and stretched out to form an undulating sheet in the air.
“What the fuck is that?” Logan murmured.
Kerrick replied, soft enough to not disturb, “A mirror of answers.”
A deep voice emerged from Morrigan. “Ask your question.”
“Who am I?” Adara immediately queried.
The mirror showed a face. Adara’s face. Kind of useless.
Her expression twisted. “What kind of mockery is this?”
Kerrick replied, “You must be more specific.”
“Who forsook me?”
This time, the blood mirror showed a larger image, a room without features, inside which were seated a dozen forms. Twelve thrones with cloaked figures, one empty. And kneeling before them…
Mammon.
“The trial I wasn’t allowed to attend,” Adara whispered. “And the tribunal that sentenced me.”
The hair on Logan’s body rose, and he held in a growl as he beheld the guilty ones.
“Who are they?” she asked.
The mirror went blank.
“What happened? Adara asked.
The mirror flashed an image of Adara, her mouth opening and shutting, a repeat of what had just occurred.
Kerrick explained. “You asked it something it couldn’t answer.”
“How can it not know the answer? It just showed them to me. I want to know the faces of those who condemned me. Show me their faces,” Adara hissed at the mirror.
Again, she got the vision of the hooded tribunal.
“That isn’t an answer,” Adara snapped.
Meanwhile, Morrigan took to shaking, her entire body spasming. Logan found himself worried about the slight nun. The magic appeared to be taking a toll.
“Quickly now,” Kerrick admonished. “She can’t hold it much longer.”
“Who am I?” Adara’s face flashed, a perfect mirror image that included the angry frown.
“Damn you, show me where I come from!” A city with towers and gardens filled the blood screen. It resembled what she’d told Logan of Babylonia.
“Who is my father?
A man wearing a crown appeared.
“Not my adoptive father. My real one.”
The image didn’t change. Adara said more slowly, “Show me my mother.”
A face appeared, the features startling in their resemblance to Adara’s, the hair a shade paler, the eyes the same vivid lavender and seeming to stare right at them.
“Is that really my mother?” Adara reached out, and the woman in the mirror’s eyes widened. Her mouth rounded into a single word.
No. The woman flung out a hand.
The mirror shattered, shards of dried blood, the light flakes drifting like feathers, leaving Adara’s hand outstretched with only one real certainty. “My mother’s alive.”
Chapter Ten
While Logan visited with Morrigan—an old friend who demanded an expensive favor to agree to see Adara—Titus played the part of concerned cabal leader when Kyra returned with a clean-up crew.
And no one else.
“I thought someone would need to take my statement,” Titus remarked as they stood far enough away so the trolls could work. Excellent scavengers who agreed to do the job for free if they got to keep the meat from the worm.
“Apparently, no one gives a damn that someone sent a Death Worm to Earth.”
“I thought that wasn’t allowed.” A law he’d recently learned when he started researching everything he could on the tribunal and its rules. Intricate rules, he might add, that were very strict about cross contamination, not just with species but anything living. The transfer of vegetation or animals was banned between the planes. Seeds? Considered contraband punishable by death. Very little could be traded between the planes. Mostly fabricated items that could not be replicated. Sentient beings who could blend in were allowed passage between the planes with the understanding they abided by the rules of the land they visited.
The trolls didn’t exactly blend with their leathery, alligator-like skin, yet they wouldn’t be here long enough for anyone to notice.
“There are many rules being bent right now.” Kyla rolled her shoulders, and despite them being hidden, Titus could still see the powerful beauty of her wings.
He wondered if they were sensitive to the touch. “Who’s doing the bending? Who do you report to?”
“I report to everyone. There is a way to send a message to the other members and for them to reply.”
“So, they’re all in on it? This bending of the rules?” Titus clarified.
“I don’t know.” Her brow wrinkled. “The replies aren’t individual.”
“So, you don’t actually know if it’s one person making these decisions or many.”
“Doesn’t really matter. Someone is playing with the laws. Enforcing some to the full extent, like Adara’s transgression, and ignoring others such as these blatant incursions on Earth.”
“Any idea why?”
“Why does anyone do anything? There must be a plane, or even a few, making a grab for more power,” Kyla said flatly.
Could she truly be so blasé? “You don’t sound concerned.”
“I’m not, because I don’t really care. If the tribunal corrupts, then that gives the Valkyries the excuse needed to withdraw and close our borders.”
His brows rose in surprise. “And leave everyone else to fight it out? That doesn’t sound like the Valkyries I’ve heard of.”
“You mean the rumors that say we are blood-thirsty fiends?” Her lips quirked. “We can be. Engage us in battle, and we will soak the ground with your blood. However, we do not fight needlessly. We care nothing for the tribunal or its rules. We have our own laws. Our own needs. Should someone wish to foolishly waste the lives of their people in an attempt to control others, then let them have at it. We will not get involved.”
“What if whoever takes over the tribunal is evil?”
She cast him a glance with those sharp eyes still hiding behind those ridiculous glasses that he suspected were a prop to aid in her human disguise. “Evil is in the eye of perception.”
“What kind of non-answer is that?”
“Surely, a man your age knows how history works? Those on the losing side always claim evil prevailed, while those who win, claim they are the cause for good.”
“Evil is pretty cut and dried.”
“Is it
?” Kyla asked. “Were we to ask the humans if vampires—who must drink of their blood—were evil, what would they say?”
His lips flattened. “Only because they don’t understand.”
“Then tell them.” She arched a brow. “You won’t. Because for every human you convince you are good, there are more who will think you bad. Perception is everything.”
“In this case, the tribunal is on a sloping path to no good.”
“According to you, and that is because of your emotional attachment to the woman.” Kyla cocked her head, the movement almost birdlike. Her gaze one of rapier intent. “Odd how that happened.” She reached out a finger and trailed it in midair, nowhere near him, and yet he shivered.
“What did you do?” Did she use magic on him?
“It wasn’t I that did something.” A cryptic reply.
“You’re part of the tribunal. Couldn’t you start your own movement, convince some of them to follow you?”
A moue of distaste. “I am not a resistance leader.”
“Aren’t you already with the aid you gave Adara?”
Kyla glared. “Watch your tongue or I will take it from you.” The glint in her eyes spoke of her seriousness.
“At last, something that bothers you.”
“I won’t lie and say I like the direction the tribunal is heading. However, that doesn’t mean I will actively work against them.”
“You already have.” He wouldn’t let her squirm out of it.
“And I am not enough. The tribunal rules via majority. In a case like Adara’s where the vote goes against, then there is nothing I can do.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Her gaze shifted away. Her shoulders lifted defensively. “I was outvoted.”
“It was wrong.”
“Not according to our laws.”
“If you believe in those laws, then why did you help Adara escape?” he argued.
“I warned you.” She advanced on him, eyes flashing with anger, lips parted in a growl. Sexy in her violent outrage.
When she got close enough, he grabbed her wrists and held her.
She tugged. “Let me go.”
His turn to arch a brow. “And allow you to follow through on your threat? No, thank you.”
She gave a firm yank and pulled free, scowling. “You are an example of why there are rules.”