Call of the Wilde

by Jenn Stark

  Her eyes flashed to me, narrowed. “You of all people should know why. You’re the daughter of the Denounced.”

  There was that word again. I needed to know what it meant, but I didn’t feel like trumpeting my ignorance to Groot here. “And your dad tried to eat you alive plus, unless I’m mistaken, you’re Zeus’s sister-wife. Not a lot of room to judge, I’m thinking.”

  Hera’s eyes went from green to red to black. Black seemed bad. “You dare to challenge me?”

  “Ladies, ladies.” As if summoned by the smoldering pits of charcoal burning in Hera’s face, Armaeus strolled into the room, all smiles. In a flash, Hera reverted to blonde-goddess mode, her platinum hair now coiled elegantly around her head, everything on her body where it should be, with no additional landscaping needed. She eyed Armaeus almost hungrily, and I grimaced. She had it bad for him, but I supposed that was the point.

  The Magician seemed not to notice. He dropped into the seat next to mine, then leaned forward to Hera, reaching for her hand. To my surprise, she reached back, the two of them grasping each other in a momentary handfast that seemed to communicate far more than words could. Whatever passed between them, Hera leaned back looking smug, and I swiveled my attention to Armaeus. He also looked smug. I contemplated the merits of setting the plane on fire, and suddenly, I felt smug too.

  “Forgive me, Miss Wilde. The flattery is necessary for one so old.”

  That was what Armaeus said in my head, anyway, an unnecessary explanation that still made me feel…well, good. It made me feel good. Out loud, he sighed with deep satisfaction. “It is time, then. Tell us what you know.”

  Hera’s gaze flicked to me, and Armaeus continued. “She is a friend to the Council.”

  The goddess didn’t look convinced, but she inclined her head, focusing on the Magician. “With the guardian gone, the veil’s weaknesses are more obvious. It was altogether easy to slip in.”

  “You were allowed in,” Armaeus corrected her. “Summoned, in fact.” The way he said it made it sound like a seduction. Or a command.

  Hera considered that. “Perhaps, but I am not the only one who could be so tempted, despite the costs. You and the guardian play a dangerous game, leaving the veil untended.”

  I kept my own mind carefully barred, but there was one obvious truth here that the goddess seemed to be missing. She knew who my mother was, but not my father, the Hermit of the Arcana Council and aforementioned guardian of the veil. And Armaeus wasn’t correcting her. Why?

  Armaeus shrugged, settling back in his seat. “When you ascend to the Council, should you ascend, you will be privy to all our joint decisions,” he said. “For now…”

  “Very well.” Hera shifted in her chair, and my gaze raked the floor, mindful for any snakes in the carpet. “The Denounced has found Llyr.”

  “What?” I jerked upright in my chair.

  “I suspected as much. How long ago?”

  Hera’s voice lifted in an almost hypnotic symphony of voices. “When Llyr was summoned to the earth most recently, he was rebuffed and damaged. Greatly damaged. By you,” she intoned. “But he still tasted the world and its magic, and pulled it with him, surrounded himself with it. The Denounced saw this. Saw it and reached for it until she too kindled a soul upon this earth to summon her. Then she passed through the veil and was rebuffed, again by your hand.”

  And by mine, I realized, thinking back to our efforts to expel Llyr and Vigilance-slash-Denounced-slash-Mom. Once again, I felt the ping of dismay deep in my mind. I needed to master my abilities, I did. Before I could do that, though, I needed to understand them.

  Armaeus leaned forward. “Those were two separate actions. Llyr and the Denounced are not allies.”

  “Not before,” the goddess said. “But when the Denounced was thrust back through the veil, Llyr was there…still not quite returned to slumber. And the Guardian was gone.”

  I blew out a long breath. I didn’t know why the Hermit had decided to take a vacation from his responsibilities of guarding the veil and, by default, protecting the earth from the host of banished gods that waited beyond said veil, but now didn’t seem like a really good time to get away. He’d even built a little bungalow above Excalibur, all crystal staircases, tiny platform and Hermit hut. Had he been forced back to earth by Llyr? Had he abandoned his post on purpose to catch some R&R on the Strip? In truth, I didn’t really know the Hermit that well. No one on the Council did, which was how my own birth had gotten missed.

  “So how does all this work, actually?” My question was loud enough it startled even me, and it broke the hold Armaeus had on Hera, so that her gaze turned groggily my way. “You were on earth at one point, right? You’re a goddess people know. Then…what, you just checked out?”

  “In the midst of Atlantis’s fall, my power was too great and knowledge of me too entrenched. I refused to be stripped of my abilities or to be bound to an earthly vessel. I left.” She shrugged.

  That sounded a little too sanitized, but I focused on the important part. “Left and went where? Mars?”

  “Miss Wilde.”

  “It’s a legitimate question,” I insisted. “Because there wasn’t anyone on the other side of the veil that I saw except her, and that can’t be right.”

  “I was close—far closer than any of the others, you’re correct. Because I was recalled to the world. But they…” Hera lifted her hand, and though I edged back, expecting more spontaneous fauna and flora to erupt, she merely moved it in a circle, the image of the earth appearing as a floating ball. Around her hand went again, and a mist of silver lined the globe’s surface.

  “The veil. Outside it, there is—darkness, complete and utter. For the beings who could not remain within the world when the balance of magic was first struck, or those who were placed outside the veil later, there is no pain, no thought. No desire. You live but you are in stasis, never aging, never dying, never dreaming.”

  That sounded horrifying to me, but Hera explained it without any inflection.

  “But…” I frowned. “Then how did Llyr know to break through? How did he know to want to break through?”

  Armaeus fielded that one. “Gods cannot pierce the veil unless they are summoned. Llyr remained safely beyond the veil until he was summoned by those who used a lore all but forgotten on this earth, as well as assistance they should never have secured.”

  SANCTUS. Armaeus was talking about SANCTUS. The quasi-religious, quasi-military anti-magic group had been the ones who’d first awakened Llyr. They’d received help in their summoning process…help from a rogue member of the Council.

  “But that was a bad thing, right? This whole summoning thing.” I pointed at Hera, but my attention was focused on Armaeus. “Yet somehow, she’s okay?”

  To my surprise, Hera responded. “I understood the terms of the summons,” she said, her multivoice flowing out and around us, otherworldly and achingly beautiful. “If I take my seat as the Empress of the Council, there will be a sacrifice made. As all seats require.”

  I stared at her. “You’ll give up your godhood.”

  She inclined her head. “If I choose to stay. And if I do not…” Though she still faced me, her gaze grew distant. “It is as if we close our eyes to blink, no more. When we open them again—if we open them—millennia untold may have passed, but it is all the same to us. And there is nothing to truly open our eyes until the veil splits before us, directly before us. Even then we cannot act, can only see…unless we are called.”

  “Like you were called. Summoned.” I peered at her. “So, how many of you are there?”

  Armaeus stiffened and opened his mouth to speak, but I waved him off. There was something important here I was missing. “No, you tell me, Hera. You’ve been out there, floating around since what…Atlantis sank? Am I right?” At her nod, I pressed. “How many gods and goddesses are we talking about who got walled off all those years ago? What exactly is it that the veil is holding back?”


  “Earth…” Hera smiled at me, and in that smile, I felt the chill of a being as old as time itself. “Earth is a jewel amid the cosmos, a perfect combination for all that might grow and manifest. It drew ascended beings like a beacon with its bright, bright light, beings who walked among mortals and ruled the seas and sky.”

  “We’re very sparkly, I know,” I said, shivering for no good reason. “But how many of you did it draw?”

  In response, Hera turned to the bank of windows. It was dark outside the airplane now, and the universe stretched out into the sky. “Do you see those stars?” she murmured. “How some seem close, and some far off?”

  When I finally looked, she continued. “Half.”

  “Half?”

  “Half the stars you see are not stars at all, but the sleeping souls of what you would call gods. They clung to the veil when they could have gone anywhere, their hands knotted in its coils, drifting, motionless. Eyes shut. The only thing that can wake them is the tearing of the veil. The only thing that can bring them to earth is a summons. But if enough awaken, and if there are enough of those who know how to summon them…”

  I widened my own eyes in horror. “You’re kidding me, right?” I turned to Armaeus. He watched me with his usual detachment, but there was something in his expression, a hardness that made me uneasy. “She’s got to be kidding.”

  “It is the way of the gods,” Hera said, her multivoice thickening, deepening, until it seemed to fill the whole cabin. “Ask, and it is given. Call, and we shall come.”

  “Uh-huh. Right up until you rule the world all over again?”

  In response the goddess settled back in her seat, her brilliant green eyes drifting closed. “It is the way of the gods,” she said simply.

  Chapter Four

  “Earth to dollface.”

  I batted Nikki’s flapping hand away and continued staring out the window at the view. It was a good one. After leaving Armaeus and Hera at McCarran International’s private airstrip, I’d gratefully piled into the back of the dove-gray town car that’d been idling at the end of the tarmac, then had waved Nikki off when she’d tried to give me her report on all things related to the House of Swords. I hadn’t been ready for the House of Swords quite yet. I hadn’t been ready for anything except not being in the company of a goddess.

  Instead, I’d given one succinct order. “Drive.”

  And so, Nikki Dawes had driven. We were now out of the city, winding our way toward Lake Mead, I suspected, if only for the fact that there weren’t a lot of other options around Vegas for sightseeing unless you had a thing for Death Valley.

  By now, however, Nikki’s occasional surreptitious glances had turned into more full-on concern, and she was splitting her attention between the surprisingly busy highway traffic and waving her hand at me. “You want to talk about it?” she finally ventured.

  “Not particularly.” I stared out the window.

  “I could…” Nikki left the suggestion dangling, but she didn’t need to complete the offer. Beyond being a stunner of an ex-cop in high heels, chauffeur outfit, Veronica Lake hair and jauntily perched cap, Nikki was also a Connected, and her particular set of skills had served her well back in her days on the force. If she touched you, she could read your emotions—your memories, and how you perceived those memories. She could see what you believed, what you thought you knew. It wasn’t always a perfect talent—we humans are good at lying to ourselves—but in the vast majority of cases, it helped. It also shortcutted long, torturous vacation updates.

  “You could. But I’m pretty sure I’m not remembering it with the right frame of mind.” I passed my hand over my face, and sighed. “The Magician has recruited a new Empress. I helped him go fetch her.”

  Nikki frowned from the front seat. “I thought you were going on vacation.”

  “Yeah, well…” I returned my gaze to the window. “Armaeus likes to multitask.”

  “And you’re not a fan of this woman? I assume she was a woman?”

  “I…” I hesitated. “I wasn’t. Now I know her a little better and I dislike her less, I guess. But she scares me more.”

  Nikki made a small humming noise, neither supportive nor censorious, and I felt her gaze shift back to me. Even reflected through the rearview mirror, it packed a punch. Though she’d been with me long enough that skin-to-skin contact wasn’t entirely necessary for her to read my mind, I knew it would help speed things along. I reached forward and squeezed her shoulder. Immediately, Nikki touched my mind, and this time, I did let her see what I’d seen and flip through my memories, though I tried to shove all the messy emotions to the side to clear her way.

  “Hera. The actual Hera,” Nikki said after a moment. “And she’s gonna become the Empress?”

  “Apparently, that’s the cost of her remaining awake. Since the Council isn’t big on gods walking the earth.”

  “And Armaeus pulled her down here for, what, recon?”

  “That helped. Her powers are presumably pretty good too, though I didn’t see her do much more than plant a community garden in her face. But she knows all the gods who are outside the veil, which appears to be most of the ones from earth before Atlantis got tanked.”

  “Most.”

  I shrugged. “She said some had been stripped of their powers and some bound in earthly vessels. I’m not sure what that’s about, but it totally explains the Bermuda Triangle. And Spanx.” Something else to add to my course curriculum. Which reminded me. “Think you can track down a mythology expert for me? Maybe someone skilled in all things magic while we’re at it?”

  “Like a professor? Why don’t you just ask Armaeus?”

  At my grimace, her brows lifted. “You think he’s holding out on you.”

  “A little, but I don’t know why. Something’s not adding up. I can’t help feeling like the Council has all the cards, but we have four human Houses of Magic that aren’t even getting dealt into the game. And we should be, except we’ve lost what made us special in the first place. The Houses are strong, sure, but there are barely any Connecteds attached to them.” I sighed. “That needs to change if we’re ever going to really be able to protect ourselves.”

  “I’ll find you your expert.” Nikki leveled another glance at me. “Nigel knows some people, if I recall correctly, but we’ve got him in deep undercover in Central America right now, trying to track down more of Gamon’s generals after the recent fireworks her operation sustained.”

  I winced. Gamon. The new head of the House of Cups—a dangerous former Mossad operative who represented the worst combination of supercharged Connected skills and epic brutality—had tried to forcibly recruit me into her newest drug production detail…and she’d recently become an eager recruit of my mother’s, to boot. Something else I’d have to deal with, and soon.

  Nikki kept going, oblivious to my dark thoughts. “Bottom line, though, if what you’re saying is true, the Magician’s now got some seriously old, powerful magic to add to the Council, as long as Hera’s willing to give up her toga.”

  I blew out a short breath. “And maybe that’s why the Magician wanted her, beyond the intel, but I do think a lot of it is because of her age. None of the other Council members go back that far other than the Hierophant, and he’s been MIA.”

  “He’s holed up in the White Tower.” Nikki nodded, referencing one of the larger-than-life shadow residences the Arcana Council had established on the Las Vegas Strip. Because it wasn’t enough that the Council had chosen Sin City for their home base, they’d had to update its real estate. “Far as I can tell, he hasn’t come out in weeks.”

  Nikki turned the car in another lazy arc, following the highway, and glanced out her side window toward the Strip. “So many Council members in town, the entire city is electric. Can’t argue with the view, though.”

  I nodded, following her gaze. When I’d first begun working with the Council, there’d been only a handful of seated members
occupying the soaring glitter palaces that loomed over the city, visible only in glimpses to the most Connected of psychics. Now the Council was practically filled to bursting.

  There was the Fool, Simon, who occupied a sparkling glass tower in the shape of a foolscap over the Bellagio, then the Magician of course, whose domain Prime Luxe topped the Luxor in an explosion of steel and glass. Eshe, the High Priestess, didn’t appear to have her own digs, but she’d been living in the lap of luxury since her days as the Oracle of Delphi, and she wasn’t about to stop couch surfing now. Instead, she lived in Prime Luxe, though I had no idea exactly where. Then again, Prime Luxe probably had five thousand rooms. There was enough space even for Eshe’s ego.

  There had been an Empress on the Council, but she’d been unseated, leaving that position conspicuously vacant, apparently for Hera to fill. I’d thought, for a few hot seconds, that Armaeus had wanted me for the job. He hadn’t. I’d already found my own job with the House of Swords by then, so I had no interest in becoming Empress…

  But still.

  The rest of the Council fell into place after that. The Emperor, Viktor Dal aka Asshat of the Century, lived in the Black Tower above Paris. The Hierophant, Michael the Archangel, had recently sought refuge in the White Tower above Treasure Island. Then there was Death, who usually didn’t grace the Strip with her presence; the Hanged Man, the once and present Nikola Tesla, who’d claimed the airspace above the Stratosphere as his own; and the Devil, Alexander Kreios, who occupied digs above the Flamingo. Finally, the Hermit had recently blown back into town, but given how mercurial he was, I half expected him to blow back out again versus set up house in the strange little hut he’d erected atop Excalibur.

  That added up to… “Nine seated members,” I said. “Ten if you count Hera, assuming she passes her ACT test or whatever is required to get on the Council officially. That’s a lot.”

  “That’s a lot in a particularly short period,” Nikki agreed. “And she’s the first true recruit we’ve seen Armaeus seek out, right? The rest of the Council members were outliers he’s returned to the fold.”