by Darian Smith
“Only someone I have a piece of.” Draeson held up a long dark hair. “Now go away. I need to concentrate.”
Brannon hovered for a moment, curious, but then Taran appeared at the tavern door. The priest gave several little half waves, trying to catch his attention, until Brannon walked over to him. “What is it?”
“Ula is asking for you,” he said. “She has an idea.”
Chapter Forty-two
The abandoned stable that was Karia’s secret hiding place had changed since Brannon had seen it last. The walls were painted with Djinian symbols, and a number of bowls and pots, each with flames burning in them, formed a wide circle around the room. Ula sat in the center of the circle, her hands buried in a large bowl of dirt and ash. A stack of empty leather pouches sat beside her.
Ylani stood to one side. She had changed into a silk gown of charcoal gray, threaded with silver. She showed no sign of the effects of koroleen poisoning.
“What’s going on?” he asked her.
Ylani shrugged. “I don’t know. She wanted us both here but she hasn’t said a word since I arrived.”
He took a few steps into the room. “Ula?” As he crossed into the circle, the flames in the bowls leaped higher.
The Djin woman’s skin seemed to flicker with shifting shadows. Her tattoos took on a wild, organic quality in the firelight. She turned to look at him.
“Ah,” she said, her voice strained. “You’re here.”
Brannon knelt beside her and took her hand. It was covered in mud. “What’s going on? What is all this?”
“It is necessary,” she said. “We need more power to defeat the kaluki in Morgin. I am not enough.” She withdrew her hand from his and patted him on the wrist. “Perhaps with another we have enough. Wizard Draeson be host to a being from another place. Morgin be host to kaluki. Both get power from it. Perhaps this be what we must do also.”
A shudder ran through her body. Her bare feet kicked out, heels digging into the dirt.
“Ula? What have you done?”
Ylani said something in Nilarian. “Is she okay?”
“I link myself to the Kaluk, the earth spirits. I be their voice—their host for a time. You must talk to them.” Ula swallowed. “The two of you convinced them to help at the manor. Convince them to help us now.”
Ylani came to sit beside them, her gown pooling elegantly around her. “These are your spirits, Ula. We don’t know how to talk to them.”
The Djin woman’s breath came fast and shallow. Her eyes rolled back in her head and closed. Her limbs twitched and jerked like a seizure, but she remained upright. Her hands clenched in the bowl of mud, kneading it like dough.
The flames in the circle rose high, the burning bars of a cage. Wind blew through them, hot and dry.
At first it was gentle, a warming breeze. Then it grew stronger, hotter, fanning the flames. Ula’s breathing changed to long, strained wheezing.
Brannon reached out to steady her but jerked back as the touch of her skin burned his hand.
The scalding wind swirled around them, whipping at their clothes and hair, tugging at the ribbons Ylani had threaded in her tresses. Dust from the dirt floor buffed against them like sandpaper.
“Is this supposed to happen?” Brannon shouted over the shriek of the wind.
Ylani cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned close. “Spit.”
“What?” Brannon squinted, trying to keep the grit from his eyes.
She pointed around them. “Fire, wind, earth. We need water. Spit!” She leaned over Ula’s bowl of dirt.
A moment later, the wind died and the flames cooled. The fires stayed burning high, though, keeping them effectively trapped within the circle.
Ula sat up straight. Her skin seemed clearer, brighter, than before. There was a glow about her. She looked around slowly, her lips relaxed and her expression serene. The beads in her dreadlocks shone, each with a different colored light, like a rainbow of fireflies in her hair.
“Ula?”
She looked at him. The whites had gone from her eyes, leaving only dark brown globes, shining like agate. “No,” she said. The word spilled out to fill the room like the many voices of a choir. “Not Ula.”
Brannon sat back on his heels. Despite the fires, his skin felt cold. That was definitely not Ula.
“Are you an earth spirit? One of the Kaluk?”
Ula’s head tilted. “Yes.”
Ylani leaned forward. “Are you aware of the situation here? One of your enemies has taken over a living body.”
“We are aware. The Morgin-kaluki has sacrifices ready for his brethren. If you do not stop him, he will open a portal between realms and others will come to this place and destroy it.”
Brannon’s fingers clenched into fists. “Sacrifices? You mean Jessamine and Tomidan? They’re still alive?”
“Yes. To murder a sibling is a powerful sacrifice. The other kaluki will come to be part of it.”
“And after killing all the other potential heirs, Tommy is all he has left. So that’s why he didn’t kill him outright. The kaluki wanted him for the sacrifice.” Brannon tapped his fist on the ground, thinking. They were still alive. There was still a chance. “Okay, so Ula said we have about a day before Morgin loses control completely. That’s when he’ll try to open the portal and kill his hostages. So we have that long to rescue them and come up with a plan to stop him.”
Ylani nodded, chewing her lip. “If we can find where he’s taken them and distract him long enough.”
“Ssh,” said the multilayered voice of the earth spirits. Ula’s hand reached out and drew a line of mud down the center of Ylani’s forehead, to the tip of her nose. She turned and drew the same line on Brannon. Her touch was cool and the mud tingled against his skin. “There is no time for that. The human has almost gone from his body. The kaluki will be in full control within an hour.”
The unflappable serenity in Ula’s face was at odds with the words formed by her lips.
Brannon stared. It was as if he couldn’t feel his body. “An hour? We have an hour before he kills his hostages and essentially starts the end of the world?”
“Yes.”
He surged to his feet. “Help us! We need to stop this.”
Ula’s arms raised, hands palm up, elbows straight, encompassing them both. “You are two who will do this. It is the sacred duty we gave to you. The reason you have power over the kaluki.”
“But we don’t!” Ylani gripped one of Ula’s hands. Brannon could see her knuckles whitening. “That’s the Djin. We’re a long way from Djinan.”
The dark eyes looked at her and the brows closed in. “Not Djin, no. What are you?”
Ylani let go of Ula’s hand.
“She’s Nilarian,” said Brannon. “And I’m Kalan. There are no Djin here but Ula and we don’t know anything about your ways. If the kaluki are your enemies, you need to help us fight.”
The agate eyes closed. “You have your friends to help. We cannot interfere directly at this time.”
Brannon took a deep breath. “If you don’t, we will fail. Ylani and I encountered Morgin earlier today. If you hadn’t helped us then we would have died. He’s stronger now.”
The beads in Ula’s dreadlocks pulsed brighter. Her dark eyes opened again and bore into his. “We can give you strength for the fight, but there will be a price.”
Brannon held her gaze. “How much strength?”
“Brannon, be careful.” Ylani’s voice sounded far away.
“We will bind our strength to yours. You will not be his equal, but you will be like a Risen—strong and fast. You will be our weapon.”
“Will I be possessed?”
Ula’s face twisted. “No. That is something only a kaluki could do. We will lend you our strength for a time only. But just as the Morgin-kaluki makes a sacrifice to bring his brethren through to this realm, so a sacrifice must be made to pay for our strength.”
“Brannon, don’t do it!”
He could fe
el Ylani tugging on his sleeve, but he ignored her. “What sacrifice?”
The agate eyes reflected the flames in the circle. They burned into his own retinas. “The weapon must be sacrificed.”
“Ah.” He looked away from those eyes. They seemed so out of place in the face of a woman he’d come to think of as a friend. Just as the words seemed out of place in her mouth. Sunlight sketched the edge of the door beyond the fire circle.
Ylani clutched at his elbow. “Brannon, she means you! You’re the weapon. If you do this, you’ll die!”
He looked down at the bowl of mud at Ula’s feet.
It was a trade. The strength to stop a monster in exchange for . . . well, another monster. He’d known for a long time what being the Bloodhawk had made him. He’d caused so much death and mutilation. Even as a physician there was more death, more mutilation in the name of saving lives. He would never balance the scales that way. Here was the chance to make things right. If he did this, he would save everyone. Jessamine, Tommy, Ylani, Aldan—all of them. If the cost of that was his life, it was a bargain worth making.
He raised his head. “Do it.”
Chapter Forty-three
The building that housed the morgue was large, sprawling, and run-down. A painted wooden sign by the door proclaimed “Undertaker” and directed visitors to turn right once inside. Ivy had taken over most of the walls outside, green leaves swallowing up the stone.
Draeson paused. The dragon tattoo was hidden somewhere under his clothes. “They’re inside but somewhere below. The cellar or tunnels. I’ll know more when we’re closer.”
“You’re sure?” Brannon said.
“Shillia’s been there for a while. I’d say this is the place.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Brannon looked over the group as they followed Draeson into the building. It was small—the better to sneak up on Morgin and limit the potential casualties—and each with unique skills, but they didn’t seem like much to rescue two people, destroy a demon, and save the world.
Taran had abandoned his priest’s cowled tunic in favor of a gray, close-fitting one and wore a long knife on either side of his belt.
Ula’s skin was still a paler shade of its usual dusky purple, but the whites had returned to her eyes and the glow was gone from the beads in her hair. Her body had an air of limpness about it. When the earth spirits had first left her, she’d been unable to stand on her own, but she had recovered quickly and assured them that she felt fine. Her pulse was normal and she didn’t seem to have a fever, so Brannon took her word for it. She was, after all, the only one of them with the faintest idea of how to do what must be done.
Brannon touched the Djin woman’s shoulder and fell into step beside her.
“I be okay,” she said, automatically.
“I believe you.” He held out his arms. Djin runic markings covered his skin, each drawn in the special mud by the earth spirits. “How do we know this will work? I don’t feel any different.”
She touched the marks with a kind of reverence. She had told him she remembered nothing of the time the earth spirits spent in her body and didn’t recognize what they had done. “The spirits never lie. If they say they give you strength for the fight, they do it. But they not give more than what is needed.” She gestured around them, taking in the hallway and the stairs leading down to the mortuary workroom. “No Morgin here. Not need strength yet. When you need, then it will come.”
A whiff of formaldehyde and sawdust filled Brannon’s nostrils as he took a deep breath. “And if Morgin manages to kill me before the spirits decide I need help?”
Ula shrugged. “Then you will be safe from the terms of your bargain.”
He looked to see if she was joking, but she had already moved away, following the mage and priest down the stairs.
Ylani, he noticed, had added a small hat to her outfit, perhaps having decided she had tempted fate with the gods enough for one day.
“Ambassador, you shouldn’t be part of this. Take one of the horses and ride for Trallene. You can get a boat back to the capitol from there. You’re not safe here.” He was very conscious of the matching facial mud-marks the earth spirits had drawn on them both. Ylani wore hers like the latest fashion.
“Well, that’s not going to happen, so let’s skip ahead to the part where you’ve tried to convince me and now accept I’m coming with you, shall we?” She smiled, patted him on the shoulder and headed toward the staircase.
Brannon hurried after her. “At least promise me that you’ll keep out of the main fighting. If you’re killed, our chances of stopping another war with Nilar are pretty minimal.”
Her smile disappeared. “I promise I’ll try. But if this goes badly, a war will be the least of our problems.”
They descended the stairs and entered a room with wide, high benches, and shelves piled with jars and folded sheets. The formaldehyde smell was stronger here, as was the unique smell of death, masked by small bunches of drooping flowers at intervals around the room. Several of the benches held shapes covered by sheets. The sheets were stuck down in places by blood.
Brannon made sure to notice each one. These were Morgin’s victims. Only a portion of the people he had killed so far. There would be more if they could not stop him.
Ylani trailed a hand over the edge of one of the benches containing a corpse. “So many dead. I guess there really isn’t any humanity left in him.”
Brannon felt his gut twist and looked away. What must she think of him, the Bloodhawk? “He was killing long before his humanity left him.”
Draeson gestured them forward. “Ssh, we’re getting close now.”
Beneath the morgue workroom was the cellar. Beyond that, passageways spread out like spokes on a wheel. The mage led the way into one of them and darkness closed in, hiding everything from sight.
Brannon laid one hand on Taran’s shoulder in front of him and the other on the wall. The others did the same to form a chain and they moved slowly forward. As his eyes adjusted, he could see the first hint of light up ahead. They rounded a corner and heard voices as well.
“Wait here,” Brannon whispered. He crept toward the light.
The corridor widened into a large round chamber. Lanterns hung at regular intervals around the walls, casting enough light to see by. The room had once been a crypt, but now the sarcophagi had been pushed up against the walls, stacked atop each other, and in some cases tipped over, spilling their skeletal contents onto the floor where the bones had been kicked into corners. The center of the room was cleared, a stage with its players set.
On the far side of the room, Jessamine and Tomidan were each bound with rope and lain across a sarcophagus. Even from this distance, Brannon could see the little boy was shaking. Jessamine had twisted her body so that she could see what was going on in the room. “Morgin,” she was saying, “don’t do this. I know you’re still in there. Fight it!”
Brannon felt something inside him unclench. They were alive. There was still a chance.
Morgin and his mother were in the center of the room. They ignored Jessamine’s pleas, engaged in a discussion of their own while Morgin drew a circle of runes on the floor in chalk.
“You’ve done enough, Morgin,” Shillia said. “This is it. You’re powerful and people recognize that. Karia will be impressed, I’m sure. You don’t need any more.”
Morgin sniggered. He finished the last curve on a rune, then leaped upward. His body twisted in the air, and he landed on the ceiling, clinging with his hands and feet like an insect. His head tilted to one side and he began drawing another circle of runes to match the one on the floor.
A gentle movement beside him let Brannon know Draeson had followed him. “She’s lost control of him,” the mage whispered. “And she doesn’t even realize it yet.”
Brannon nodded. “Has Ula started the banishing ritual?”
“Yes. But she needs line of sight to finish it.”
“Morgin.” Shillia’s voice
grew hard and authoritative. “I said that’s enough. You got what you wanted. You’re important now, like you should be. Now get down!”
Brannon sucked his breath in through his teeth. Somehow he didn’t think this new Morgin, wholly inhabited by a kaluki, would respond to parental bullying the way the old Morgin may have. From what he had seen of the boy since they arrived, Brannon suspected Mayor Shillia must have been the brains behind the plan, using her relationship with her son along with his dissatisfaction and ambition to easily win his cooperation. She was a politician and a mother—a master manipulator her son could never overthrow.
But Morgin was no longer her son.
He carried on drawing the runes. “Mother, mother, mother. Do shut up.”
Shillia blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Morgin Vere, I am your mother no matter how high you climb in this life and you will be respectful, is that clear?”
Still clinging to the ceiling, Morgin went very still.
Silence filled the space like cold cream, thick and greasy. The new circle of symbols was complete.
“Morgin?” Shillia sounded shrill. “I said, is that clear?”
The thing that was Morgin let go of the ceiling and fell, landing on his feet to face her. His fingernails had grown long and curved, like little grappling hooks. He held one hand out in front of him and the nails grew longer still.
“What’s clear,” he said, “is that I no longer need you.”
He lashed out and the hooked fingernails slashed across Shillia’s throat. Her eyes bulged. Blood sprayed out and Jessamine screamed.
The mayor clutched at the gash as if to close it with her hands, but it was too late. She fell to her knees and then over onto her side, her eyes stared and her lips twitched as she died.
“He’s killing people. Let’s move.” Brannon was halfway across the room almost before giving the order. Shillia’s blood still pumped out of her throat in weak spurts, but he knew she was dead. Nothing he could do would repair that kind of damage to the jugular in time to save a life.