Master of Passion

by Angela Knight

  Adam spun away, trying to shield his mother with his body. Something slammed into him like wind on Mt. Everest, and he staggered, biting back a scream at the vicious cold. The thing boiled right through him and into Cheryl.

  She screamed as she began to lift from his arms. WTF was trying to take her just as it had the Queen. Desperate, Adam tightened his hold, only to end up hauled into the air as if he weighed no more than a helium balloon.

  His mother convulsed in his arms, and he clung to her. Her eyes met his in stark terror. “Let me go! It’ll kill you too!”

  “No!” Adam tightened his grip and let himself hang, hoping to break its hold. They were twenty feet in the air now. “I’ll catch you!”

  Something gave under the clamp of his arm, and Cheryl yelped in pain.

  Fuck, I broke one of her ribs…

  As she stared at him in terror, something boiled through her eyes, multicolored sparks of blue, violet, red. He clung tighter, felt another rib crunch. I’m crushing her!

  Adam let go, and fell. He twisted, somehow hitting the ground feet first hard enough to rattle his teeth. The impact probably would’ve broken human bones, but he shook it off, staring skyward as all around him the Magekind battled Fomorians. Apparently Arthur’s people had gated in while he was distracted.

  Screams of rage and hoarse alien bellows filled the air, but he could only stand there, gaze locked helplessly on his hovering mother, who writhed as energy whipped around her. WTF was killing her just the way it had the queen. And there wasn’t a Goddamn thing he could do about it.

  Adam! Through Opal’s eyes, he saw a Fomorian dive at him, face twisted in rage and despair through its transparent faceplate. He felt the cold tingle of magic swirl around him -- Opal conjuring armor. A sword filled his hand, and he surged into a powerful fencing lunge. The alien had his own weapon drawn too far back, out of position to parry, but the Fomo tried to twist aside. Opal’s spell boiled the length of his blade as he rammed it into the Fomorian’s chest. The alien’s face contorted in agony as he died.

  Adam jerked the weapon free and whirled, spotted another Fomorian about to attack Opal from behind. She saw it through his eyes and spun, swinging her sword into a parry. Steel rang on steel as she went after her opponent, rage a howl in her brain.

  Adam ran to join her. These fuckers had gotten his mother killed. They’d terrorized her neighbors -- and that was aside from the eight hundred and thirty-three dead in Times Square.

  Somebody was fucking well going to pay. This time Adam didn’t have to content himself with using a camera. He didn’t have to just stand around and watch the carnage -- he could do something.

  Roaring, Adam charged forward and hacked his blade into the Fomorian’s armored side. The edge bit with a scraping clang and sank right through its cuirass. As the warrior convulsed, Opal struck off the Fomo’s head.

  The bastards killed my mother! he raged at Opal, fury and grief hot in his mind.

  Maybe not. Maybe…

  “All right, you motherfuckers.” The voice was more IED than sound, and its shockwave made every last one of them instinctively duck, Fomorian and Magekind alike.

  Incredulous, Adam stared skyward, recognizing that voice despite its distorting volume. “Mom?”

  Chapter Eight

  Hanging in the air like a helium balloon, Cheryl Parker stared down at them. Her eyes glowed in the dark with blue, violet and red light as her lips peeled off her teeth. “We have had enough of this.”

  As they watched in blank astonishment, she floated to a feather-light landing. “What the hell are you waiting for?” Her voice was no longer so earth shattering, but its tone was chilling. She pointed at pile of ash that was all that was left of the Fomorian queen. “See what We did to that bitch?” She held up thumb and forefinger a fraction apart. “We’re about this far from doing it to every last one of you Smurf fuckers!”

  Adam wondered if he’d taken a blow to the head.

  When nobody moved, Mom got a look on her face he recognized from the time he’d ordered two hundred dollars of pay-per-view porn when he’d been sixteen. “We are not Goddamn joking.” Her voice sank to a low, deadly register as WTF began to emerge from her again, a nakedly menacing halo of violet and blue, crackling with red lightning.

  Adam felt more than saw gates opening all around them. But even as some of the Fomorians gated away, one in elaborate armor strutted out of the crowd and planted himself directly in front of Mom. “Do you think you can terrify us with parlor tricks? Everyone knows Queen Ekar had little magic. The only thing she brought to the king was her bloodlines and the crown. I am not so weak.” He flicked one hand, sending a beach-ball-sized globe of flame shooting right at Cheryl. Adam felt Opal throw out a burst of magic, trying to shield her…

  Too late. The fireball slammed into her chest and exploded in a gout of flame.

  “No!” Adam’s shout rose in chorus with his father’s anguished howl.

  The flames winked out.

  Cheryl grinned, not even singed. “Is that the best you’ve got?” Her grin widened, taking on a chilling cast. “It is? Too bad.” Lightning forked out of the clear sky and slammed into the Fomorian general, filling the air with the smell of ozone and burned meat. He and the six Fomo warriors closest to him fell dead amid their slagged armor.

  Everyone still breathing cringed. Adam had covered a couple of lightning strikes in his career, and he knew anyone within twenty feet should have felt the shock -- assuming they weren’t killed. Yet he hadn’t felt so much as a tingle -- as if she’d somehow shielded them all. Of all the bizarre shit he’d seen since Times Square, Mom throwing around lightning bolts had to be the most unbelievable.

  Cheryl bared her teeth and spoke in that IED voice again. “We’re not going to tell you assholes again. This is Our planet. You get the fuck off of it, because if you don’t, the US government is going to have a lot more aliens to autopsy.”

  Adam felt the goose-flesh raising sensation of gates springing open. Moments later, every last Fomorian was gone.

  “Does that go for us too?” Arthur said, moving toward her, black eyes wary, his wife at his shoulder ready to shield.

  Cheryl gave him a sunny smile that didn’t look like it belonged on her face. Adam didn’t find it comforting in the least. “Of course not. We know you, old friend. Ulf loves you far too much for that. You’ve got nothing to fear from Us.” She tilted her head. “You want to send my neighbors home? They probably need to get back to bed.”

  Arthur eyed her warily. “In a minute. What are you?”

  “You obviously have magic,” Guinevere put in, just as coolly alert. “Yet I don’t sense any power from you at all.”

  Cheryl shrugged. “That’s because We don’t use the force you recognize as magic. It’s something else entirely. Speaking of magic…” She looked around, spotted Adam and Ulf. “Let Us take a look at Our son.”

  Oh shit, he realized, Mom’s using the royal we. That can’t be good.

  She moved closer to him, gesturing. A soft golden glow sprang from her fingertips, illuminating his face -- and her own. Adam got his first good look. Holy shit, she looked no older than he did.

  “It looks good on you, Adam.” She glanced from his face to Opal’s. “And so does she.”

  “Uh, thanks.” This close, he realized there was something a little crazed about her eyes he wasn’t sure he liked. Otherwise she looked fine, which was amazing considering she’d been floating in mid-air like something out of a comic book. Which reminded him of the crunch that had forced him to let go as she’d levitated off her feet. “Are your ribs okay? I heard something crack.”

  Her smile flashed. “Yeah, but we got better.”

  Not sure I agree with that one, Mom.

  Then she turned to Ulf and gave him a long, long look. The knight stiffened, looking every bit as alarmed as Adam felt. She reached up, grabbed the back of his head, and jerked him down for a kiss so hot and hungry, Adam’s cheeks heated.
<
br />   When she finally stepped back, Ulf looked a little dazed. She licked her lips and grinned. “We have a lot of catching up to do, Baldulf.”

  The look she turned on Arthur was much cooler. “Now, about this ‘No mortals’ rule of yours…”

  “Wait just a Goddamn minute,” Adam snapped. Out of all the weird shit he’d been through in the past three days, this was the weirdest -- and the worst. “Who the hell is We? Where’s my mother? What did you do with her?”

  She blinked. “I’m right here.” But there was something hesitant in a way she said the words, as if she wasn’t quite sure it was true.

  “Prove it.” He took a jolting step forward. Ulf laid a restraining hand on his forearm, but Adam shook it off and stepped up to whatever the hell it was that had possessed his mother. Ulf and Opal moved in, silently backing him up. “You. What The Fuck. Get out of her.”

  Whatever looked back at him wasn’t his mother. Its gaze was too remote, too emotionless. “I can’t. I can’t live here without her, can’t act here without her.”

  Yeah, not liking the sound of that. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because it does,” WTF said. “I haven’t hurt her, and I’m not going to.”

  “Then let her speak. How I know she’s even in there anymore? You could’ve wiped her right out of her own brain.”

  WTF stared at him through his mother’s eyes for a long moment. Then, between one breath and the next, Cheryl Parker gazed up at him. Joy, fear and confusion chased each other across her face. “Adam!” Both arms wrapped around him, hugged him hard. “Oh, God! I thought you were going to die!”

  “Yeah, I was pretty worried about that too. Is that you?” His first impulse was to demand that she tell him something only his mother would know. But with the thing inhabiting her head, it might know what she knew. Which brought up another problem. Even if he somehow made it withdraw from her, how would he know it didn’t still control her?

  His mother drew back to study him, and her gaze softened. “It’s me, Adam. Gaia hasn’t hurt me. She’s not going to hurt me.”

  “Gaia? That’s what the cloud calls its… herself?”

  “Greek earth goddess.” She shrugged. “Humans aren’t capable of saying her name, and that one seems to fit.”

  Ulf spoke up, looking as thoroughly freaked out as Adam felt. “What makes you so sure she’s not going to hurt you?”

  Cheryl paused so long, Adam thought for a moment she wasn’t going to answer. At last she said, “I feel what she feels. And she loves you.” She shook her head. “There’s a lot I don’t understand about her and what this means for me. I’m going to need time to put it all together. But I do know Merlin’s signet was designed to form a magical conduit between you and Gaia. She’s spent fifteen centuries feeling what you feel, watching you in action. She came to love us because you do.”

  “And that’s not creepy at all,” Adam muttered.

  His mother’s lips twitched in something like a smile, but there was a shadow of fear in her eyes. “I’m not sure I like this either. This is really weird. I feel kind of…” She broke off. They all stared at her, thoroughly disquieted. Finally she spoke again. “I think… I think Merlin asked Gaia to be his ally because he Saw you’re going to be facing creatures who uses the same kind of magic she does. Yours won’t work on them -- you can’t shield from it any more than Earth mortals can shield from yours. You need Gaia whether you like it or not.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Arthur growled in disgust. “Again with this shit?”

  She lifted her brows. “This shit is what the past centuries have been building up to.”

  “So this Gaia just drafted you as her host?” Ulf sounded outraged.

  “It had to be a mortal without the Gift. Your magic would just interfere with Gaia’s.”

  Morgana looked thoughtful. “So even if Gaia had wanted to inhabit Queen Ekar, she couldn’t have?”

  His mother frowned, then shrugged. “I… don’t know.” She spread her hands. “There’s a lot I don’t get. I’m still having trouble making sense of it all.”

  Yeah, that’s what Adam was afraid of.

  Arthur grunted. “Our spies said the Fomorian queen was having a problem with some of her nobles. And didn’t that general you killed say Ekar didn’t have much power?”

  “It could be that she saw just enough to make her think the ring would provide her with the power she needed,” Morgana said thoughtfully. “That’s the problem with visions -- they never show you everything. It’s easy to let your own desperation lead you into a fatal misinterpretation.” She fell silent a moment, then eyed Cheryl. “So all this time we thought the ring had no magic…”

  “It boiled with magical energies you aren’t capable of perceiving. There are a lot of things like that on this planet.” Cheryl shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that. It’s true, though.”

  Adam didn’t like this at all. He scowled. “So you’re okay with all of this -- being basically kidnapped by Gaia?”

  “No,” Mom said, meeting his gaze. “Quite frankly, it scares the hell out of me. But Gaia needs me, and the only way I’ve got any hope of being with…” She broke off, her gaze sliding to Ulf, then away again. “… you, is to act as her host. Because otherwise, we’re all going to die.”

  “Seers,” Arthur growled. “I hate Seers.”

  “I’m not real thrilled about the situation either,” Cheryl snapped back.

  “But I can see some bright spots,” Ulf said, in a low, deep, voice, his gaze focused on Mom’s face.

  Adam’s brows flew up. That tone had been almost a purr. And the way he was looking at her… What the hell are you doing? Adam demanded in the mission link.

  Shut up, boy. We need to know what this thing has in mind for your mother. His smile turned downright flirtatious.

  Mom blinked at him, suddenly looking a lot less like a mysterious alien and a lot more like a dazzled woman. Adam wasn’t sure he liked that any better.

  Cheryl jerked her gaze away from his and turned to Arthur. “How about bringing back the neighbors before they get PTSD?”

  Arthur snorted. “After tonight, that ship has sailed.”

  “If so, I’ll help them.” Her gaze went chilly. “Arthur, I want them back.”

  They stared at each other.

  Sweat began to trickle down Opal’s back -- Adam could feel it in the Truebond. This is not good. If Arthur gets his Pendragon up…

  But after a tense moment, Arthur nodded and lifted his voice. Gwen’s magic made it echo through the mission rings. “Gate the mortals to their homes, Magekind.”

  Cheryl nodded in satisfaction.

  * * *

  An hour later, Adam sat in on his first after-mission debriefing in the Great Hall. He, Opal, Ulf and Alys sat facing Morgana and Arthur.

  “No,” Alys said, “I didn’t know what was going to happen once Gaia made her appearance. The minute that ring became active, it blew my ability to See anything right out of the water. I had Seen us afterward in one version so I thought chances were we’d make it. I just wasn’t sure what was going happen in the meantime.”

  “Is Cheryl -- Gaia, whoever -- right? Have we got yet another disaster on the horizon?”

  “Well, something’s definitely coming.” She spread her hands. “And judging from my complete inability to see a damn thing, it involves Gaia, or something like her.”

  “Why did you say I had to come?” Adam said. That question had been bothering him. He didn’t see how his role had been all that crucial.

  A muscle flexed in Alys’s jaw. “Because when you didn’t, my view of Cheryl’s yard showed nothing but corpses. No one was left alive afterward. Not the Fomorians, not us, not even the mortals. I think Gaia killed us all.”

  They stared at her, chilled.

  “So she got Mageverse fever?” Morgana asked.

  “No, because she’s not a Maja. I suspect she’s got a lot more of whatever power that is. Perhaps eve
n more than Smoke.”

  “Smoke’s a demigod!” Arthur protested.

  “And so is she.”

  Adam stared at Alys in disbelief. Every time I turn around, this gets weirder and weirder.

  We’ll get through it, Opal told him in the Truebond, and reached out to lace her fingers with his.

  He smiled at her. Yeah. We will.

  They both knew that despite the Truebond, they had a lot of work to do. Adam still had to learn to control his vampire abilities, and they both needed to learn how to cope with their powerful psychic bond.

  But that would come.

  The real question was, what was going to happen with his mother?

  Arthur turned to Ulf. “I hate to ask this, but I think you’re going to need to keep an eye on Cheryl. We’ve got to find out what the hell is going on with her and Gaia.”

  Pain flashed through Ulf’s gaze, but he nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Adam and Opal exchanged a look. Oh, hell, he’s going to spy on Mom.

  * * *

  Finally the briefing wrapped up, and Adam and Opal headed outside. As soon as they reached the cobblestone street, she opened a gate.

  “I thought you believed in walking everywhere,” Adam said as Opal pulled him toward the gate.

  “Not a walk this far.” Opal’s lips curved into a wicked smile.

  He tried to look into the Truebond to see what she intended, only to see nothing at all. “How are you doing that?”

  “Mental shield. I’ll show you the trick -- later.” Opal gave his hand another tug and led him into the gate.

  They stepped through into a fairytale. Adam blinked and stopped dead, his jaw dropping as he stared around in astonishment.

  A waterfall tumbled down a rocky cliff face into a wide pool surrounded by plants that glowed in every shade of the spectrum from vibrant red to cool, soft violet. Insects hummed lazily over the flowers, their bodies shimmering with magical color. All the bioluminescent flowers and insect life reminded him of Avatar.

  A white horse stood fetlocks deep in the water, drinking. Its head shot up in alarm at their appearance. Which was when Adam saw the horn. A unicorn, he thought, awed. It’s a fucking unicorn. He froze, wishing for his cell phone. Branwyn would love this.