Idyll pulled the straw out of her drink and laid it beside the glass. “The king was clearly taking care to make sure that Fey power wasn’t concentrated in one place, which would’ve left it too susceptible to theft. Some power is contained in the Treasures—which are scattered—and some is kept in the Fianna warrior souls. These souls are passed from generation to generation of the people who came out of the County of Meath: original families, like I said.”
Jacken’s eyes narrowed. “So when Videon performs an un-protection ritual on a man with an original family last name, he’s accessing the soul of one of these Fianna warriors?”
“Yes, but only if the bearer of the original last name is in fact a sacred vessel. Not all are.”
Dev rasped a hand over his goatee. “How is Videon finding men with original family last names who actually carry these souls, then?”
Idyll shook her head, her face drawn. “I have no idea.”
Jacken frowned. “And once Videon has access to the Fianna soul, what does he do? Manipulation, abuse, theft…?”
Idyll exhaled unevenly. “This is an intuition, a guess, mind you, but I feel strongly that he’s stealing them. Take these souls, and a person gains immense Fey power.” She waved her hand. “This Videon, however, would need somewhere to store them. As a Tenebris Mala, he couldn’t take these souls into his own body.”
Jacken paused, then cursed. “I think I know how he’s doing it.” He glanced at Toni. “Nyko told me that Videon’s men were wearing amulets that gave off evil power. The men were regular humans, but had strength and healing powers that went beyond regular capabilities—and their scent was off.” He turned to Idyll. “Is that a way to store these souls, with enchanted amulets?”
“Yes,” Idyll said quietly. “The wearer would gain the soul’s power.”
“Christ,” Jacken hissed. “Why the hell is Videon amassing an army of men with Fey power? For his war with Raymond or for something even worse? And how is he able to perform this un-protection ritual to do it? We never determined that, either.”
Idyll fidgeted with one of her necklaces, the longest one with the carved wooden African beads. “It’s worse than you realize. You see, a symbiotic relationship of sorts exists between the Treasures and the vessels. Because they’ve been divided, there can’t be one without the other; the souls depend on the magic of the Treasures for their survival, and the Treasures cannot have complete power without that which is kept within the vessels. By stealing souls, Videon is upsetting the balance of all Fey power. If he takes too many, one of the Treasures will fall, and then all Fey power will cease to exist. That means those of us with Otherworldly gifts—people like you, Toni, and me—will lose whatever makes us special. Videon, too, although he’s obviously too stupid to know it. Their kind”—Idyll gestured at Jacken and Dev—“will likely die off completely.”
Idyll touched the Tarot card at the northern compass-point of the reading. “See here? This is The Empress, the fertile, life-giving mother, our connection to the natural world. I believe she represents the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She sits in the position of an Alternative Future, which I sense means the continuation of the power stemming from her is uncertain.” The thin lines on Idyll’s face became more pronounced. “I’m telling you all, we’re looking at a catastrophe of biblical proportions for those of us of the Otherworld, if Videon is allowed to continue unchecked.”
Faith’s lashes fluttered, then a clammy trickle of ice rolled down her spine. Who would’ve thought that these symbol killings could have such profound meaning hidden behind them. She glanced around at the circle of faces, finding nothing but grave expressions.
“Now it makes sense,” Toni said, “why Raymond isn’t involved with this. He’s smart enough to know this kind of soul stealing wouldn’t gain him power, like Videon thinks, but ultimately destroy it.”
Jacken’s gaze was still aimed at Idyll. “Is there anything in those cards that might tell me how I can stop Videon?”
“You can’t,” Idyll said. “If Videon can perform a Celtic un-protection ritual, then only the Tuatha Dé Danann have the power to stop him.”
Toni’s eyebrows popped up. “The Tuatha exist today?”
Idyll nodded. “As long as the Treasures exist, so will the Tuatha. They are the guardians, or custos, of the Treasures.”
Jacken massaged the bridge of his nose. “Hell, if the Tuatha are in charge of protecting Fey power, then why aren’t they stopping Videon?”
“They can’t,” Idyll said. “Not without a conduit from the Middle World to the Shifted World. They’re fairies, you see.”
A tightness flickered across Faith’s forehead. Did Aunt Idyll just say…?
Kacie had a perplexed expression.
Toni sighed broadly. “Just when I thought my life couldn’t get any stranger. Okay. Explain about these worlds.”
“There are worlds within worlds,” Idyll said. “The Middle World is our here and now, our reality. The Upper World is in the stars where one goes to meet spirit guides. The Lower World also offers a place for guidance, but is accessed through use of a power animal. As a shamanka, I can travel to both the Upper and Lower Worlds. But fairies live in a Shifted World: a world that exists here and now, in today’s Middle World reality, but is beyond normal perception.” Idyll tucked the Celtic surname book into her purse. “The Tuatha can shapeshift to human form, but cannot use their power in that form. In their fairy shape, they can affect the Middle World somewhat with their dust. But to use the full strength of their power, they need to act through a person in possession of a fifth element enchantment skill. Fifth elements are the conduits.”
“And let me guess,” Jacken drawled. “You don’t know any fifth elements. Because that would be too easy.”
“No,” Idyll confirmed. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
Jacken’s lips formed a hard line. “So here we are, sitting on the verge of an Otherworld apocalypse, and—”
“Oh, God.” Toni breathed the words.
Everyone at the table turned to look at her.
The bartender was turning off the television sets. It was time to go.
“What?” Jacken prompted his wife.
“I was just remembering the enchantment designator I saw on Pandra. Dr. Jess thought it was the letter V, but…now I realize it’s a Roman numeral five. We know a fifth element.” Toni inhaled deeply. “It’s Pandra.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ţărână: the next day, December 25th, Christmas
Thomal eased a blue-striped button-down shirt off a hanger in his closet, sending the wire triangle swinging. He vacantly watched it rock lazily on the rod. The hanger was bent in two places, but he couldn’t find any appreciation for the interesting asymmetry of that. The color of the shirt also didn’t splash against the backs of his retinas like it usually did, inspiring all kinds of creative painting ideas until he pushed those images aside. His view of the world was narrowing in on him every day, and it was beginning to scare the shit out of him.
He was fucked up all to hell, though; no need to ask Carnac the Magnificent to figure out that one. His marriage-that-wasn’t-a-marriage didn’t exactly make him want to cue the laugh track on his life, but it wasn’t the primary thing messing him up. No, he and Pandra had settled into an uneasy routine over the last two and a half weeks. Every Sunday he came to feed on her to get strong for the training week ahead—although he’d needed a bolster three days ago when he’d been shot at the Park Place condominium complex.
He entered her bedroom without knocking. She stood at the bedpost. He feed on her, avoiding touching her as much as possible, then he spun an about-face and left. All this was accomplished without a single syllable spoken between them. During the week, they also never spoke or had contact. Although he did spy on her. A lot. Why that was the case, he didn’t know and couldn’t figure out right now because all of his conscious attention was focused on his brother’s deterioration.
Ar
c was systematically cutting himself off from everyone who was important in his life, his wife, Beth, and his kids.
Me.
Thomal didn’t think he and his brother had passed more than two words in the last couple of weeks. A whole lotta mondo bizarro still sat between them. Which sucked to high heaven. Thomal missed the solidity of their former relationship, missed the easy camaraderie that had always been between them. It was like being minus a limb.
Exhaling, Thomal drew his attention away from the swaying hanger, which he found weirdly disturbing, and shrugged on his shirt, the movement twinging the healed wound on his abdomen. He buttoned up, then jammed his feet into a pair of loafers, finishing dressing for Christmas dinner at his mom’s house. Beth, Arc, and the kids would also be there. He had no idea what Pandra was—Distracted by his thoughts, Thomal jumped slightly when his phone rang.
He crossed to his nightstand and picked up his cell. “Hello.”
It was his mother. “Arc’s not coming tonight,” she told him, her voice heavy with worry and disappointment.
Ah, shit. Thomal scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Beth will be here late,” Livy added. “The kids are with Claresta.” She was the community’s elementary school teacher, who also babysat her charges on occasion. “But Arc just called and said he wasn’t coming at all.”
This was getting fucking ridiculous. It was time for Thomal to quit waiting for his big brother to fix this, and do something about it himself. “I’ll go talk to him. Sorry about dinner, Mom.” He hung up and trudged out the door.
When Thomal stepped into his brother’s living room, he found Arc sprawled haphazardly on the couch, knees wide, one arm looped halfway along the back of the sofa, the other hand wrapped around a bottle of Budweiser, which he had propped on his knee. Arc was watching a football game on TV, and looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and an unhealthy hollowness to his cheeks. A Christmas tree sat in the corner of the room, dark and droopy.
Thomal closed the door. “Hey.”
Arc didn’t acknowledge him. Just kept watching the game.
Annoyance and exasperation mixed in Thomal’s gut and curdled. His brother wasn’t even making the slightest effort to be reachable. Walking over to the television, Thomal snapped it off. “It’s Christmas, Arc. You can’t bail on your family today.”
Arc shifted his gaze over, a dark aggression in his eyes revealing a rage so deep-seated it gave Thomal the willies. He was beginning to wonder if his brother would ever recover from what had happened.
Or if he would.
He did a lot of his own stewing and festering these days. Seemed stuck there, in fact, but the problem was, the man he usually turned to for help when he was screwed up was currently an equal mess. Dev should’ve been another option—he was Thomal’s best friend—but the finer nuts and bolts of how Pandra had ended up in Thomal’s life was, oh, a slightly embarrassing topic.
“Turn the TV back on,” Arc ordered.
“We need to talk,” Thomal said. “You’re heading down the tube—we both are—and it’s time we put a stop to it.”
Arc’s jaw jutted a bit as he tipped beer into his mouth. “No, we’re not,” he retorted.
That was such an obvious lie, it was insulting. “Man up,” Thomal growled, “and face this.”
A sheen of frost slipped over Arc’s gaze.
Thomal’s voice wrenched tighter. “We need to clear the air between us about what happened.”
Arc’s response was a fulminating silence.
Thomal crossed his arms over his chest, a surge of his own anger sending acid through his stomach, which wasn’t at all nice for the ulcer he felt he was already brewing. “Or,” he snapped, “I suppose I could go talk to Dev about this, start off with, ‘hey, man, if you had a brother and Marissa sucked his dick before hooking up with you, would that, like, make you want to kill lots of things all the time?’”
Arc roared off the couch.
Thomal had never glimpsed such fury on his brother’s face. It probably should’ve clued him in that something bad was coming next, but he was shocked momentarily stupid by the sight, so nearly got his feet tangled under him when he was suddenly being hurtled backward, Arc’s hands fisted in the front of his shirt.
“You think I need reminding about what went down that night?” Arc snarled, ramming him into the wall by the front door. “I was forced to watch.” He emphasized that last word by pulling Thomal forward and slamming him into the wall again.
Air shot past Thomal’s lips. The bleak, soul-shredding anguish on his brother’s face kept him stalled out in a too-shocked-to-do-anything gear.
Arc showed Thomal a set of teeth clenched into a rigid line. “That vicious, black-eyed whore never should’ve had the chance to abuse you, Thomal. I failed!”
“Y-you…?”
“I should’ve saved you!” Arc’s gaze lowered to the hand Thomal had clutched to his injured side.
Thomal didn’t even remember doing that.
Arc shoved himself off Thomal and snarled again, though this time softly, like a wounded animal. He turned and paced a couple of feet away.
“Are you crazy, Arc?” Thomal said to his brother’s back. “We were both locked in chains. Murk was restraining you, too, and he’s no lightweight, and Pandra is stronger than a dammed Cyclops. No way you could’ve—”
“No!” Arc rounded on Thomal. “I should’ve been strong enough to stop them from doing what they did to you.” His face blanched a stark white. “To me.” He rammed both hands through his hair. “I promised Dad,” he added in a low tone.
Thomal breathed heavily for a couple of moments. “What does that mean?”
Arc dropped his hands. “Before Dad died, he made me promise to look after you. I…” His eyes glistened. “That night in the hotel room, I broke my word to him.”
You promised Dad you’d…? Heat needled the back of Thomal’s neck. Did that mean his father had been pretending when he’d acted happy about Thomal going into the Warrior Class? Well, fuck, if what Arc just said was true, then clearly Dake hadn’t believed in Thomal’s abilities. And, obviously, neither had his brother, seeing as Arc had bought off on Dake’s plan. Tightening his jaw, Thomal yanked his button-down shirt back into place. “You can unload that guilt trip right the hell now, big brother. I don’t need your babysitting.”
“Yes, you do.”
The flush ran from Thomal’s nape up into his cheeks.
Arc’s voice went toneless as he started reciting facts. “That night at the Double Tree Hotel ten months ago when we went into Toni’s room to help her and Jacken, Ren threw you out a four-story high window. The night we were at Scripps Hospital to kidnap Toni, Ren strangled you nearly to death. The night the Spec Ops team saved Marissa and the other women, you got shot. You got shot again on the recent mission to save Dr. Preston. Then when you were on the op to—”
“Jesus, Arc,” Thomal cut in. “You act like I’m the only warrior who ever gets wounded. What about Dev taking an exploding Bătaie blade to the shoulder when Lorke was trying to capture Toni? Or—”
“Dev purposely threw himself into the line of fire to save her,” Arc countered.
“Great.” Thomal stepped back and flung his arms out. “So when another warrior gets hurt he’s heroic, but when I do, it’s because I’m being a doofus?”
Arc drew in a deep breath, then exhaled it in a long stream. “You’ve always had to work twice as hard as the other men for half the results, Thomal. Frankly, I’ve never agreed with your decision to go into the Warrior Class. Going from paints and brushes to fighting? I mean, come on.”
Thomal’s jerked his chin in, his stomach burning so hot now that a load of saliva dumped into his mouth.
“I’ve tried to keep an eye on you, but…” Arc sank down on the couch again and grabbed his half-empty beer, his knuckles white. “You’ll excuse the hell out of me if what happened two weeks ago isn’t sitting well. I hate losing. You may be used t
o it, but I sure the fuck am not.”
Thomal’s face actually hurt, he was blushing so furiously now. All these years, his brother actually thought of him as a doofus. The concept was beyond comment. He said nothing.
Arc glanced around the couch, then jammed his hand between two cushions and extracted the remote. He clicked on the TV, the gesture a pretty damned clear dismissal.
Thomal slammed out of his brother’s house and stomped down the front steps, nearly bowling into Claresta returning with Lysha, Brynt, and the baby, Garez.
“Hi, Thomal,” the teacher greeted him. “Merry Christmas.”
“Hey,” Thomal returned shortly, angling past her.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to ask you—”
“Do you think we could talk later? Now isn’t the best time.” I’m kinda busy eating myself alive with self-doubt and guilt. Dammit, if only he hadn’t let a moment of weakness stop him from tearing out Pandra’s throat, none of this would be happening.
Claresta inhaled a quiet breath. “I know your life is out of sorts right now, Thomal, but I could really use your help. I need you to teach Hannah and Willen Crişan’s eldest boy, Ællen, how to draw.”
“I don’t do that anymore.” Going from paints and brushes to fighting? I mean, come on. Hunching his shoulders, Thomal stalked on.
“Ællen is having the same problems you did in school,” Claresta said softly.
Thomal jerked to a stop.
“Learning how to draw helped you, didn’t it?”
Ah, shit. Thomal aimed a hard gaze across the street at nothing. What was he supposed to say to that?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Topside: La Mesa, San Diego, five days later, December 30th
The front door of apartment 6D started to open…
John Waterson shoulder-rammed himself the rest of the way inside, sending Ria stumbling back with a sharp gasp.
He slammed the door shut behind him. “You really should check your peephole before you open the door,” he grated between his teeth, the rage he’d been nurturing for a month adding a scratchy menace to his voice. “You never know who might be lurking outside.”
The Community Series, Books 1-3 Page 84