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In the conference room, Trennus had squeezed most of the water from Kanmi’s lungs, understanding all too well that the red-tinged fluids flooding out on the short nap of the brown carpet were his friend’s life. “Come on, Kanmi, breathe,” Tren muttered, and heard the sharp report of two shots from the hall. Lassair!
His heart is damaged. The blood is as thick as mud inside of it. It strains to beat, flails itself. His mind requires air as well.
Help him!
I will not let Emberstone die, no. The phoenix’s light vanished as Lassair slipped into Kanmi’s body, and Trennus looked up, in between heartbeats, to see an alu demon outlined in the door. Saraid!
The white stag burst into existence between Trennus and the creature and lowered its huge rack of antlers, leaf-green light streaming from its eyes. Saraid was incorporeal at the moment, but her light was just enough to hold the alu at bay for a moment. Just long enough.
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Kanmi opened his eyes and took his a shuddering breath. His mind was fuzzy and distant. Not enough oxygen to the brain. He turned his head and felt damp roughness against his cheek. Seawater. I’m on the beach under the pier again. Hanno and Tabnit pushed the game too far this time. Mother’s going to be so sad. Father’s going to beat them both with a strap and then turn them over to the gardia. They must be panicking. Distant. So very distant. So this is what dying feels like. Still, he couldn’t quite believe it. There was a warmth in his chest to combat the unpleasantly familiar tightness there, and the panic was fading. His vision skewed, and his chest hurt, but now, he could fight. Just the way he always had.
Not wet sand. Wet carpet. Salt tang, still, but not seawater. Kanmi’s eyes focused. His fingers scrabbled weakly against the rug, and he choked out the first word of a spell. Return. Enter. Renew. Pass through. He set up the construct in his mind and pictured water molecules burrowing through his body. First, what remained in his lungs. That was the easy part. Passing through the semi-permeable membranes of his cells, through the alveoli and into the tiny capillaries in his lungs. Fast. Probably too fast, just as it had all been drained into his lung cavity too quickly. It burned like fire, but his heart began to beat more regularly. His mind began to clear, and that gave him enough impetus to try to sit up.
“Stay down!” Trennus shoved him back to the floor. “You’re in no condition to fight.”
I am fighting, you great big lummox of a summoner, Kanmi thought, without animus, and redirected his mental construct. Oriented it at the water on the floor, and directed the water and salt to return. His kidneys would pay for this later, filtering out any impurities. He couldn’t pull anything into himself large enough to impact a vein, fortunately. He swore viciously as the semi-permeable cell membranes of his skin, usually designed to keep things out, were forced to accept water back in. His own body’s fluids or no, his body wasn’t designed to do this, and it protested. Every nerve screamed. I am not a fucking amoeba, and someone is going to pay for this.
He forced his way back up, and blinked as he felt the warmth depart his chest. Kanmi couldn’t usually see demanifested spirits, not the way Trennus and Sigrun could, but just for an instant, he caught a flicker of flame. Thanks, Lassair.
We could not let you go, Emberstone. Protect the one who binds you!
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“Go! We’ve got this!” Trennus shouted into the hall as an arrow from one of the Median bodyguards behind him sliced into the alu’s arm. He stood slowly enough to ensure that the archers behind him wouldn’t shoot him in the back, and stared up at the green eyes that were all he could see of the alu demon in the darkness of the hall, outside the reach of Saraid’s pale radiance. Trennus’ stomach tightened. The alu, individually, were far less powerful than the pazuzu had been. I can do this.
He’d been explaining the rules, such as they were, for binding and summoning to Adam for close to a year now. A few could pass the Veil either direction, of their own free will, but the vast majority had to be summoned. Once they were here, there were three main methods of dealing with them: killing their physical form, which might only banish the spirit, unless it was another spirit who did the killing. And then there were the options of binding and banishing. Banish a spirit, and they were shoved back into their own realm once more. Binding kept them here in this realm, but caged. Banishing required more effort than binding, and a banished spirit, if it couldn’t just re-enter the world of its own accord, could be re-summoned . . . unless the summoner who banished them found some means of making that banishment permanent.
A summoner could use a piece of his life-force . . . or soul . . . to seal the Veil behind a spirit. That would keep them contained beyond the Veil for two, maybe three times the life of the summoner, much in the way blood-binding a spirit into an object held that spirit in place for the life of the summoner. Spirits banished impermanently could be re-summoned almost immediately, though they’d be dazed and weakened. And here was the part that was art, and not natural philosophy: Every spirit was different. Some were weak, some were strong, and you could only generalize so much. Trennus could bind or banish a weak combative spirit without its Name, generally by wrestling it into submission, either mentally or physically. A spirit of medium strength, he needed more leverage—its Name, a full circle, blood, or something like that. It was the same principle as grappling an opponent physically; the more points of contact you had, the easier they were to control.
The pazuzu had been very powerful. Even with its Name, Trennus hadn’t had enough holds to banish it. Even binding it had been tricky. No prepared container. So he’d used blood-binding and an improvised container. These creatures . . . less powerful. But still dangerous. Let’s see what you’ve got, he thought, and said, “Light!”
Lassair, once more out of Kanmi’s body, flared into brilliance, and the alu in the doorway hissed, one paw pressed to the arrow in its opposing arm, and moved away . . . which was when Trennus attacked, reaching down into the earth for the ambient ley-energies all around him, adding to his own strength and speed. His left hand shot out and seized the creature’s right wrist, as it was turning—the wounded arm was soaked in black blood, and slippery—and began to pull down and into the room at the same time. The hyena-like head turned, reflexively, discolored yellow teeth flashing in Lassair’s pure light, and Trennus barely got his right hand in position in time, open-palm strike to the base of the creature’s jaw knocking the head up and away . . . and then he locked his elbow, struggling to keep the fangs from turning, the mouth from biting off his hand, or tearing out his throat. Second by second, shifting his grip, jabbing for the green-glowing eyes, causing the monster to flinch away, which gave him time. Time to lash out with one foot, ley-energies coursing through him, and kick the creature’s knee, dislocating it if not shattering the bone, and then twisting, pivoting, driving it to the ground.
Raging, writhing, bucking thing comprised of fur, teeth, claws, rage, and will. Like fighting a man with knives clutched in both hands, except there was a hyena head in the mix. Everything a deadly weapon. Trennus followed the creature to the ground, recoiling, trying to get in the rear mount behind it, even as it spun on the ground, reaching under itself with its left arm, turning, twisting, latching onto his left bicep with one clawed hand, huge fingers curling in and behind to cut into his triceps, boring in, tearing, drawing blood. Fine, you want blood, you’ve got blood. He jerked free, controlled that paw with one of his own, and got his other arm locked under the maw, along the throat. The beast had just enough speed and strength to twist its body once more, and lashed out with its left paw now, and caught Trennus’ left leg, just behind the knee—gods, what is it with my knees?—driving through skin and tearing at muscle and tendons. Trennus swore, wrenched his leg back, got his other arm locked in place, and dropped his full bodyweight on the alu. Not enough, not with a creature this size . . . but he reached down into the earth for ley-energy, and became earth. Added t
o his own relative mass, allowing himself to be the stone that bore down on the creature. “Not going anywhere,” he told it, in his native Pictish.
Then he lifted his head and snapped at the others in the room, “Need a container. Now.”
A Chaldean bodyguard who clearly wasn’t a summoner looked around wildly and came up with a waxed paper cup, holding it up, only to be chastised vigorously by one of the others as they continued to scramble through the room’s items. “This,” Livorus said, quickly, opening an ice bucket brought by the catering people. No sparkling wine, naturally. This was a convention hall, and they hadn’t wanted to draw attention by arranging anything fancy. And with Livorus there, no one had dared to offer beer; beer was unRoman. Uncivilized. Barbaric. Instead, there were individual bottles of wine coolers in the ice-bucket, each with its own cork. Trennus had thought these newfangled individual bottles terribly wasted on something so fundamentally undrinkable.
The propraetor worked the cork, which was oversized at the top, to allow for easy opening—no corkscrew needed—and removed it, with a faint pop, before pouring the out on the floor, almost like a libation. “I trust this will do, Matrugena?”
“It’ll . . . be . . . fine . . .” Trennus grunted, still holding the creature down. “So long . . . as no one . . . turns off the damned lights . . . .” He had a bad vision of him holding the creature pinned, Lassair’s light fading, and it turning into a wisp of smoke in his arms, just to rematerialize behind and atop him, its teeth crunching down on the back of his neck and shattering the spine and brainstem in one shot. “Someone . . . draw a damned circle . . . .”
One of the other summoners grabbed a marker from a dry-erase board and hurried over, tracing the binding circle on the rug—having to go over in some places, several times, to make sure the lines were true. “Bottle,” Trennus snapped out, and Livorus rolled it to the middle of the circle, and the alu bucked and writhed, trying to get to it, trying to crack it. Trennus growled and forced it back. “No, you don’t.” He turned his head, verified that the circle was finished, and began the second phase of the battle, the mental one. Forcing the alu out of its physical form, with pure willpower. Forcing it to dematerialize, constrained by the circle itself. It dissipated under him like morning fog, and Trennus’ body slumped to the ground, but he’d been ready for that. He could still see it, a distant and wavering form, misty and immaterial . . . and he paused. I could try to banish it . . . no. Don’t have enough other spirits to leverage for help, and I’m not using a piece of my life-energy to seal it past the Veil permanently. Trennus raised his head, and looked around the room. The other summoners all had a spirit or two coiling around them, protecting them. “I can banish, if you help. Or we re-bind.”
The Chaldeans and Medians exchanged uneasy glances. “Bind,” they chorused in agreement.
“Keep in mind, any one of you tries to claim that this is a cultural artifact, and tries to take it back?” Trennus gritted out, “I’ll note that it’s in a wine cooler bottle and break it over your heads.” He brought his hands together and started the ritual of binding. It was simple enough. It named the creature being bound by Name, if known, by type, if known, and then set up constraints. In perpetuity until the container or its seal are broken.
The insubstantial creature howled, a sound only audible within the minds of the people in the room, and Trennus forced it into the green glass bottle, reached out his hand imperatively, and Livorus slapped the cork into his palm, and Trennus tried to cram it back in the hole . . . . “Won’t fit,” he muttered, struggling.
“Got it. Move your hands,” Kanmi muttered from where he was kneeling on the floor. Trennus pulled his hands away from the top quickly, just trying to keep the cork across the top of the bottle, which was actually wiggling and writhing in his hands, as the demon inside fought to be free, the outside of the glass turning cold and frosty as the alu stole energy from the air, trying to render the glass more brittle. Easier to break.
The top of the bottle glowed red-hot, and deformed in on itself like a drop of sap hardening in the air. The demon, sealed so, was bound. Trennus eyed the bottle as he set it, carefully, on the floor. “Bartolo and Iacobus,” he read from the label. “Spirit, be known that your Name is . . . apparently Watermelon and Elderberry, from this day hence.” He was giddy, his arm and knee hurt, and the gods only knew how many more of these alu were out there. Out there, in the dark, where Sigrun and Adam had gone. “Esh, stay with Livorus. I’m going after Caetia and ben Maor.” Trennus made it back to his feet, and told Lassair, in his mind, Think you can stop the bleeding?
I can try, but providing light from within you might prove problematic.
Do your best, please. Then yes, light.
“I’m coming with you—” Kanmi started to get to his feet, and then sank right back to his knees.
“Stay down,” Trennus told him. “Livorus needs someone here. Close the door and get some light going in here.” He reached down and gave Kanmi a wrist-clasp. “Stay safe.”
“Stay alive,” Kanmi told him. “Take a bottle or two with you for the road.”
“Yesterday, I’d have said I’d only drink one of these if my life depended on it.” Trennus grabbed a couple of bottles anyway. “Apparently, it does.”
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In the convention hall itself, pandemonium. Earlier in the day, there had been eight or nine thousand people working through the booths in a slow ooze, jostling like red blood cells in tight capillaries. Now, there were about a thousand people left, mainly booth workers, vendors, and a few latecomers. They’d heard a series of light snaps, like a popgun going off, or the rattle of a string of firecrackers. That had gotten a few heads to turn inside the hall, but no one had panicked. No one had run. Just the mild curiosity of a herd of cattle, detecting something unusual, like a scent on the wind.
Then the lights had gone out, leaving the reddish glow of emergency backups, which were DC-powered, and only by the exits. A few yelps of surprise, followed by desultory jeering. Again, no real panic. The thrum of a surprise, alarm. Footsteps, hesitant in the pitch black. Reaching out blindly, brushing into cloth, skin, people around them. Fumbling for a flashlight, or just standing still in a booth, trying not to blunder into anyone else. They’ll have the lights back on in a minute. Maybe someone forgot to pay the bill?
Then, sneaking suspicions rose. That popping sound a moment ago sounded like gunfire. Maybe there’s a lunatic with a gun? No, don’t hear the gardia or the JDF firing back . . . .
. . . and then, the first scream from outside, in the lobby. The first sound of real gunfire, as an automatic rifle went off, full-bore. The doors at the front of the hall slammed open—only the darkness of a starry sky visible through the windows of the front lobby and rotunda, and a few glimmers from the lights from the parking lot and the cityscape beyond. The shapes silhouetted in the doorframes were black against black, with staring, mad, green-glowing eyes. And then they all heard the laughter. Mad, fey laughter, echoing everywhere, bouncing off the walls.
The first sound of gunfire had been enough to incite panic, and the laughter simply added to it, as people ran, every direction, at once. Some, at the back of the hall, tried to run towards the only exits that they knew weren’t blocked, the ones at the front of the hall. The places where the emergency lights glimmered faintly. The people at the front of the hall, turned to get away from the noises, from the dark shapes that appeared like predators around a waterhole . . . and the two masses of bodies collided in the aisles. Unable to see, unable to dodge. Headlong impacts. Cries of pain as nose met forehead, as limbs tangled and individuals dropped to the ground . . . just to be trampled by the people behind them. Screams of pain from the people on the ground, panic from the tangles of limbs above them, feeling flesh give and yield under their feet. One or two people kept their heads, shouting, Everyone stay where you are, we’re trampling people! Dizzy glances back over shoulders, fighting to move forward, bodies all around, seeing
eyes in the darkness. Behind. Beside. Being herded.
Unable to move left or right, booths and bodies blocking the way. And then one of the sets of eyes vanished to the right, and there was a whisper of sensation through the air, fine as the rustle of silk . . . and then the eyes reappeared, to the left. Sickening sensation of absence as suddenly, the body to the left, the one that had hemmed and pressed in, was yanked away. There was a hole in the crowd. A place to go. A vacuum. Instinct screamed in the brainstem, Don’t go that way! And then pushed that way by the pressure of bodies to the right. By the bodies behind. Struggling . . . and then the mad laughter started again, and the crush got tighter. Harder to breathe. Sheep being herded. Fish being forced to school.
Voices rose in howls of anger and outrage, an inhuman chorus . . . and then more holes at the edge of the crowd as people were torn away. Terrified screams. Hot splash of something against a face, and trying to get away, trying to get to the center, where it was safe . . . .
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Adam kicked open the next door, and they stepped into the convention hall itself. Sigrun’s rune-marks, too bright to look at directly up close, provided a wan bubble of light barely ten feet across, which seemed fragile and insignificant as Adam looked up at the catwalks seventy feet above, and spotted a pair of gleaming green eyes looking down at them. He fired, directly at one of them, making the eyes vanish, as the creature found a different patch of shadow to hide in. “Sigrun,” he told her, dropping the muzzle of the gun back down, and eyeing the wrecked booths and the squirming mass of humanity down the long corridor ahead of them, “have I ever mentioned that that light of yours makes it very difficult to sneak up on someone?”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 68