by Jenn Stark
Kreios’s voice filled the space between us again. “Any member may leave the Council at any time, but the position is one of sacrifice. There is always a price to pay. Either you change to suit its needs or…” He gestured to his own incorporeal form, writhing in the gloom beside me. “It changes you. Hera could well find that she is doomed to live out her life as an immortal, walking the earth, her abilities severely curtailed. Or she could return to an existence beyond the veil, blind to this world and all in it. To my knowledge, we have not had a true god or a goddess on the Council before. It should make for a delightful Christmas party.”
A subtle shift in Armaeus’s body captured my attention again. He moved forward, still not kissing Hera, but he exhaled as she inhaled, his life essence pouring into her with a flare of power that made my third eye contract. I strained to continue seeing, but the power grew in brightness and intensity, and it was finally Kreios who drew me away, his touch on my shoulder impossible to ignore.
“Sara Wilde,” he murmured, and his face was still a mask of shadows. But there were those eyes, those beautiful eyes, and all they had witnessed in the fullness of time. I stared at him and felt his hands lift to my shoulders, brushing back my hair, drawing cool skin along mine. In that moment, I saw beyond the surface of his languorous glamour and to the heart that beat inside him, full and hot and true, grasping for every experience of those around him, cloaking himself in the emotions and needs and desires of mortals to give him form and substance. I saw, and saw still further, until my own heart shifted heavily, beating in time to his, until—
All at once, Kreios stepped away. I blinked, my third eye shuttering, and before me, he stood once more in all his glamour.
“It is finished now,” he said, his voice rich with indolence. And with a flourishing gesture to the next room, he disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-One
The room beyond the conference room was empty, but as I stepped across the threshold, it shifted again. No longer was it a simple antechamber, but Armaeus’s sumptuously appointed office. Armaeus himself stood at the far end of the room, staring out over the Vegas skyline, and I moved toward him almost without meaning to, my feet sinking into the plush carpet. I felt raw after the exchange with Kreios, too raw. As if I’d seen things within the Devil I should never have seen.
Armaeus’s soft voice reached me, providing a tether that pulled me closer to him. “The Devil was not named by accident, Miss Wilde. Of all the roles of the Council, his is perhaps the most intrinsically challenging. The second being that of the Hermit, but only in that he has taken on the additional role of guardian of the veil.”
I looked over to Excalibur, took in the frail-looking platform perched atop the twisting stairs, but I didn’t want to talk about the Hermit yet. “Is he…in pain?” I asked, unable to let go of the shifting surface of Kreios’s face, the shadowy stumps of his body.
“His existence is mainly one built up by the fears and worries and vices and desires of those around him. That becomes the cladding for his soul, with his body interchangeable with a thousand other glamours. But consider the trap laid for him by SANCTUS, the container from which you so helpfully sprung him. To accommodate that, he must be able to become fully mist—and stay that way eternally. It is not his preference, but he has fully given himself over to his role, over time. The less he resists, the stronger he becomes.”
Stronger, but not happier, I thought. Then again, given how long the Council members lived, perhaps happiness was meted out to all of them in ever shorter supply. Even Michael the Archangel, so entranced with the human condition when he’d first encountered it after millennia locked away by his own hand, now seemed…almost overwhelmed. Certainly more somber.
I focused on the Hierophant, working my way up by degrees to the Council member who I really needed to discuss with Armaeus. “You drew the Hierophant out deliberately with your choice of Hera as potential Empress,” I said. It wasn’t an accusation, more a statement of fact, and Armaeus didn’t deny it.
“We have a growing need for cohesion in the Council. I’m afraid I can allow no one the luxury of deep meditation at the present moment, not when they can contribute to the safety of this earth.” His touch on my mind was gentle, the merest whisper. “You have seen the storms.”
“I haven’t seen them, yet. Ma-Singh is worried, though.”
“He should be. Disrupted weather has always been a sign to mankind that the gods are stirring. Whether it was Thor throwing his hammer, or Zeus and Poseidon hurling bolts of lightning and plumes of spouting sea at each other, mortals quailed and spoke of rampaging gods. They came by those fears honestly, crouching low as the heavens tore themselves asunder. In this case, however, it is an actual ripping of the veil I worry about.”
“You can’t hold it together?”
“Of course. In one spot, perhaps two. But these storms that are building defy weather patterns. There are far too many, in every corner of the globe, and all in places with dense mortal populations. Who are we to choose who lives and who dies? If Llyr tears through in Paris, and the Denounced in Bombay—”
“Will everyone stop calling her that? Let’s at least go with Vigilance if we can’t figure out what her real name is.”
He paused. “Her name has been lost to history. Willem would know it, presumably.”
“Yeah, I don’t have the Trans-Veil Roaming Plan on my cell phone. So I’m going to have to wait on that.” I glanced at the Hermit’s earthly domain again. He’d built it within the last several days, but apparently had no intention of using it. What was that about? Was he simply trying to tweak Armaeus, or did he truly want to establish a base here?
And, if so, what did that mean for the future of the veil? The thing was already in tatters, to hear Armaeus and even Hera tell the tale. Without its guardian, were we all going to become the playthings of the gods again? What would the world look like, if so? Right now earth ran on money and power, as defined by human terms. A handful of people controlling large numbers of others, Connected and non-Connected both. But if gods—what we remembered as gods, anyway—were suddenly in the mix…
Disaster.
“So, what’s our plan? Just wait until the veil tears, then act? We can’t stop the people who might be putting out the summons to the gods?”
Armaeus shook his head. “That could be anyone with a strong enough will. No. We must choose our points of battle, deploy the Council to the most likely weak spots, and prepare ourselves.”
“Deploy the Council…” I frowned. “Except some of the Council aren’t exactly stand-up defenders of universe. Neither the Emperor nor the Hanged Man are anywhere close to being dependable in my book.”
“Agreed. But they also enjoy a power unmitigated by those with the force of the ancient gods. The ascension of Hera to Empress is a reminder to them of what a goddess truly is. They’ve felt her power, even in its dormant form. They can make the leap to a world in which we once again face power being wielded by multiple entities at her level. They will have only this one chance to keep that from happening. If they choose not to defend the veil, their own existences are at risk, not merely those of mortals.”
“Skin in the game.” I nodded. It made sense, and I could even believe that it would sway the likes of the Emperor and Hanged Man. Having just returned to corporeal self, the Hanged Man in particular could lament all he wanted that he was no longer a being of scattered electrical energy, but he was getting quite comfortable in his digs in the Stratosphere. I was pretty sure he wasn’t interested in handing over the remote to a new race of superior beings.
Finally, I screwed my guts up and broached the bigger question. “And Hera?” I asked. “You guys seemed pretty chummy doing whatever you were doing just now.”
“I thought you were with Kreios.” He nodded. “You could have come closer.”
“Yeah, well, it seemed like that was very much a party for two. Kreios said…” I broke off, remembering Kr
eios’s haunted green eyes. What was his existence truly like?
Armaeus’s words refocused me. “What did Kreios say?” he murmured. He’d moved closer to me, bridging the distance between us, and my heart picked up its pace as I sensed the currents of his power reaching out, forming connections with the ragged tendrils of my own flailing energy.
“He said that you acted in accordance with your abilities, as he does, as all Council members do. And given that those abilities are sexual in nature, it shouldn’t surprise me that you employed touch and proximity to your work with the goddess.” I folded my arms tight against me, suddenly uncomfortable in my new, sophisticated clothing when I still had all these old, unsophisticated reactions to realities I thought I’d long ago accepted.
Armaeus watched me closely. “But you doubt this is the case?”
“No, I know it’s the case.” I grimaced. This was why I never talked about my feelings. I sucked at it. “I’ve been on the receiving end of your sexually based abilities, and believe me when I tell you, I am aware that you are sexually…able. I just don’t like—”
I broke off. It really didn’t matter what I liked or didn’t like. Armaeus was the Magician of the Arcana Council. This was his job.
I tried again. “I mean, I’m not comfortable…”
Still not right. I sighed with irritation.
“I mean I can’t get used to seeing you like that with…” I winced, hearing my own words play back in my mind. “You know, let’s just move on to something else.”
I turned away, but not before Armaeus reached out and laid a hand on my arm, the deceptively simple move fraught with a force I didn’t need my third eye to see. I froze, savoring the pleasure his touch sparked deep within me despite my bid for cool, calm, and collected. I’d never managed the three Cs before, I guess. Why start now?
“Miss Wilde,” he said, and though the words were spoken aloud, they reverberated through my mind as well. “What is it you fear?”
“I don’t know what I fear,” I retorted with impressive anger…or at least, I meant to. What actually came out of my mouth was little more than a small, shuddering gasp, however, exactly the opposite of a shout. Like I was whispering into my own closed hands. “She’s a goddess.”
He chuckled softly. “She is exactly that. A goddess.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, catching the trailing edge of my mad and holding on for dear life. “You know, laughter really isn’t helpful right now.”
Armaeus merely continued. “She is a goddess, and as such, she can only ever be what she is. A creature born from time out of time, with only the physical appearance of a human, even the petty jealousies and rages and loves and desires of a human. Yet the full range of humanity is not hers to sample, not with any true understanding. Even if she becomes an ascended Council member and tastes immortality but not deathlessness, that does not and can never make her human. She remains an alien in this world, now and evermore. Though I can respect her and do, though I wish more than anything to learn all that I can from her experiences, her powers, and her hold on humans, both now and when she last walked this earth, I could not love her. Not the way that I love you.”
Everything in my body seized up tight at Armaeus’s words. Except my mouth. Which reacted immediately.
“Oh, right. You’re saying you couldn’t love her because she’s an alien? Because that’s some racist crap right there, I’m not gonna lie.”
I was babbling at this point, but I could be excused. Had Armaeus just told me straight up that he loved me? In the middle of an ordinary conversation, when he didn’t want anything from me?
“Who says I don’t want something from you?”
I blinked, but Armaeus remained in front of me, holding me, touching me, his gaze meeting mine. I had that strange, loose feeling I always did when he was in the process of healing me, my body unbending, opening to him, overflowing with the sensation of his power as it shifted through me in wave upon wave. Only, I wasn’t broken, right now. There was no need for this.
He loved me.
“Miss Wilde,” Armaeus whispered. He needed to whisper, because he was so close to me that if he spoke at a normal level, he would have blasted my eardrums. That must be why he murmured my name with such a soft, tortured timbre. That must be why he barely parted his lips, the gentle caress of his breath across my cheek twisting me up inside.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I swayed forward, brushing his mouth with mine, the faintest connection of our lips jolting me to my core. I would have moved away, but Armaeus reached for me then, gripping me hard with his hands on both my shoulders, fixing me in place. He didn’t lean forward and pull me into a full kiss, though I wanted him to with an almost desperate hunger. Instead, he stared at me, the deep, hunted expression in his eyes fairly sparking with intensity.
“My need for you grows stronger with every day, Miss Wilde. It’s becoming the only thing I fear in this world.”
“Fear.” He’d said as much to me before, and I still couldn’t believe it. “You don’t have anything to fear from me, Armaeus. It’s not like I could ever hurt you.”
His smile was heartachingly sad. He gave his head the slightest shake. “You have not reached the limits of your abilities, and I have no knowledge of how far those abilities stretch. You are the daughter of a goddess in your own right, one with powers that potentially exceed Hera’s. A daughter as well of a member of the Council whose own abilities we have never fully explored. You have no idea how powerful you are, nor how you will change when those powers fully manifest. You must understand this.”
“I really don’t give a crap about any of that,” I said. I didn’t either. Armaeus was here, now, holding me, touching me. I never realized how much I missed that touch until it was stripped from me, but it wasn’t stripped from me now. And he’d said he loved me.
Loved me. What did that even mean, coming from the Magician?
Now my gaze was on Armaeus’s mouth, and I could sense the change in him, feel the shuddering sigh rip through him as my power surged in response to his nearness, his impossible strength.
All at once, that wasn’t enough. I didn’t want to be healed by Armaeus, I didn’t want him to simply meet me as power to power, but as life to life. I lifted my gaze to meet his, searching his eyes desperately.
“Don’t do that,” I said, my words plaintive to my own ears. “Don’t push your power at me, I don’t need it right now. Not like I need—want you. Only you. Give me that, if you can. Just…you.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “How do you know I’m not doing that already?”
“Because I feel—” I freed one of my hands from his control, flapped it. “Full, my energy lifting, my skin too tight. I know that’s you doing that and—”
“It’s not me.” Armaeus chuckled, and the sound was soft, and once again, indefinably sad. “When will you understand this, Miss Wilde? It’s you. It’s you.”
And he disappeared into a wisp of starlit smoke.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brody was waiting for Nikki and me at the front doors to the Luxor. It was close to two a.m. at this point, but the detective was wired for sound, his eyes bloodshot and his face ravaged. Had it only been a few hours ago that he’d texted me across the crowded floor at Chateau?
“Sugar lips, you’re gonna need to catch some zees,” Nikki admonished as we climbed in the car behind him. “You keep this up and you ain’t going to be good for anything.”
“Can’t,” he gritted out. “The trail on the motherfucker who killed those girls is already growing cold. We tracked the car to a rental agency, but it was reported stolen three hours earlier, taken straight off the lot. Security cameras are all bullshit. I’m taking you there in case you see something I can’t.” He rubbed an exhausted hand through his already tousled hair. “We were so goddamned close. They were alive—alive, not three hours ago. I can’t even believe it.”
His phone jit
tered on the seat beside him, and he scooped it up, scowling at traffic as he barked harsh commands into the receiver. Nikki eyed me meaningfully, then nodded toward Brody.
“He cracks in front of us and I get cop splatter on me, I will not forgive you,” she said.
I squinted at her. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to put your hands together and wish real hard. You seriously can’t tap a Xanax into his bloodstream?”
Brody clicked off his phone. “That was Detective Ligs, got a bead on a runner, one of his CIs, who might have seen something. He’s not hopeful, but the kill is fresh enough that only someone in the know would have heard of it. Something.”
“It’s something.” I traded another glance with Nikki. I wasn’t the Magician, despite my recent attempts at putting people back together again. But I had healed Brody once before. He didn’t remember it, wouldn’t remember it—unless I started making a habit of doing so. But Nikki was right, he looked like death warmed over, and from the sound of things, he wasn’t going to see the inside of his eyelids for a while yet. But still, I needed to touch the man for this to work, unless I planned on astral travel to the front of the car. Touching Brody right now seemed…dangerous. All my senses were still way too fried from my chat with the Magician, and I didn’t want to blow Brody’s circuits by mistake.
“Earth to Sara, come on, I’m the one on fumes here.”
Brody’s terse voice brought me back into focus. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Nikki filled me in on the girls, but you haven’t given me your take on whatever Dixie is on. You recognize it?”
“I…no.” I shook my head. “I honestly can’t tell that she’s on anything at all. I thought she was, definitely picked up something in her aura, but once I got close, it…dissipated. And then she had that story about running the drug con, and…now I don’t know what to think.”