Fury Convergence

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  Capricorn then looked back at Yejun. “Why don’t you give whatever you were going to do a try? Perhaps it simply… won’t work?”

  “Yes, thank you for the suggestion, I’d already considered that way out,” said Yejun, stretching his hands.

  “Ah, but the sadness of our friend who rips heads off will bother you. I understand that!” Capricorn looked around and up into the sky. “We all have people we want to please. Well, go ahead, then.” She stepped away from the bench with a flourish.

  Yejun walked over to stand directly in front of Imani and took his sunglasses off, tucking them in his shirt. She gradually frowned, looking up at him, the spectral planes of her face shifting glacially towards anger. He didn’t wait for her to get there, but put his left hand on her forehead. With no more warning than that, magic exploded off him. What was normally a tickle against Amber’s skin and a tang in her nose became exponentially stronger: an all-over itch blown from Yejun, and a scent so sharp her nose burned.

  Capricorn swayed back, holding onto her hat. “Wow! I’m lucky to see this!”

  “Amber…” said Yejun, through clenched teeth. “She’s fighting back. Sing to her or something.”

  “Oh!” said Amber and darted behind the bench. She bent her head close to Imani’s and started crooning her lullaby. It didn’t obviously soothe the ghost, but it at least seemed to be a distraction. Yejun’s eyes flickered everywhere. The buzz against Amber’s skin came from many directions at once.

  As if they were actors interrupted, all the ghosts at the church stopped their scurrying and turned to watch Yejun and Amber. Normally Amber felt like she was the hunter and ghosts her prey, but what she and Yejun were doing made her feel peculiarly exposed.

  Then Yejun made a gesture that was half-shove, half-throw, and the lashing of magic stopped abruptly. “There,” he said, breathing shallowly. “It won’t last.”

  Imani blinked as Amber stopped singing. The spirit looked human again, as she had when that bastard Severin had hugged her. “What’s… what’s happening?”

  “Uh,” said Amber, looking over Yejun’s shoulder. “Yejun, what’s that?”

  Something was forming in the middle of the street. It started as a spinning circle that extended crimson lines, and then the lines tangled together to become thicker strands.

  “Hell,” said Yejun, looking back and then hopping over the bench. “That’s what I peeled off her. I said this wouldn’t last!”

  “Imani, we want to help you,” said Amber rapidly. “We want to help you recover your work and deal with… everything else.” Amber wasn’t sure why a ghost would need to breathe hard, but Imani was. It probably wasn’t a good sign. “Oh god, what the hell is that?”

  The crimson tangle was extending a head like a chisel.

  “That’s basically a bane,” said Capricorn apologetically. “I’ve never seen one form from a ghost before. Of course, I’ve never seen anybody do what you just did, either!”

  A tail, long and whip-thin, emerged from the other end of the crimson shape. “It can’t hurt us, can it?” asked Amber apprehensively. “Ouch!”

  Capricorn, who had pinched Amber in response to her question, said, “It probably can. It might not be able to damage you, of course. But all a bane really wants to do is recombine with its source. They’ll keep going until they do.”

  “Right,” said Amber. “Yejun, stall your bane. Is it a mouse? Oh, ew, it is a giant mouse. Stall it while I talk to Imani!” And she scooped Imani into her arms.

  Yejun said, “Hey! I’m not the muscle! What do you expect me to do?”

  Amber didn’t stick around to listen. A mouse, really? If Yejun hadn’t wanted to be the one to delay it, he should have carried off Imani first. As she sped away, Capricorn’s voice drifted after her. “Would you like my help, my friend?”

  Amber ran to the rose house where Imani had died and set her on the cot. The spirit looked up at her in bewilderment. “I don’t know you.”

  Impatiently, Amber said, “You’re dead. You’re a ghost. A very angry one. Except right now, only for a little while, you’re not. Do you remember that asshole Severin?”

  Imani’s face clouded. “He didn’t come.” She hesitated. “And then he did? I was sleeping but I remember that he came and told me he loved me.”

  Amber didn’t remember that phrase but conceded that the ghost might have been reading between the lines. “And that your kid Charlie was still alive. You remember that part, too?”

  Imani’s face tightened, but didn’t shift into the planes of the Hellqueen as it had when Severin had told her about Charlie. “I didn’t want to. It hurts. He lies sometimes. If he thinks the truth will upset me.”

  Amber hesitated. But Jen had asked her to focus on Imani’s work. “We’ll come back to that. We’re going to help you.”

  “I’m already dead,” said Imani, looking away. “And angry.”

  “Good,” said Amber. “Don’t forgive those assholes. But you’re not just angry at them. Remember Gale?” Imani turned a look on Amber that should have stripped her flesh from her bones. Amber rushed on. “You kept saying Gale destroyed your work. Please tell me what your work was?”

  Instead of answering, Imani’s gaze moved beyond Amber. She turned and saw Yejun running up, holding a hat and a dark jacket over his arm, Grim darting ahead of him. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to stall that thing!”

  Yejun squinted at Amber as he stopped. “What did you expect me to do? He said he’d hold it back for a while if I held his coat and hat for him.”

  “He?”

  “That Capricorn guy. When I got out of there, he was telling it they needed to have a nice chat over tea while stopping it with one hand.”

  “Uh…” Amber said weakly. This was getting a little beyond her. She looked worriedly over Yejun’s shoulder, but whatever Capricorn was doing must have been working for the moment.

  “I came here at first because there used to be a concentration camp here and I wanted to write about it,” said Imani quietly, and Amber and Yejun both swung around to look at her. “Several camps, actually. An internment camp during World War II, and a youth boot camp a few decades ago. I think there was a prison camp for natives in the 19th century too, but most of the evidence for that one is long gone.”

  Yejun pulled a stained little notebook from his pocket along with a pen and started writing. Amber kept a wary eye out for any giant mouse invasions while trying to appear attentive.

  “I had to do my research locally. The town’s been here all that time,” continued Imani. “So many of the other towns in this region were abandoned when the mines dried up.”

  “I guess they found something else to profit from,” said Amber sourly.

  Imani’s gaze focused on Amber. “Yes. I was investigating that, eventually. That’s how Gale and I met. But they didn’t like either of us. Not the way we looked, not what we were doing. When the town elders realized I was going to publish what I’d discovered, they came—”

  An unearthly shriek echoed through the ghost town. Amber recognized it immediately as the cry of a giant, angry mouse, and quivered.

  Urgently, Yejun said, “Imani: You had backups of your research, right? Online somewhere?”

  “What…? Yes!” Her eyes widened. “Let me—”

  “Yes, yes!” said Yejun, crouching beside her with the notebook. “Amber, your turn!”

  “Ack, me?” Amber looked wildly at the horrible creature waddling around a building. It was a giant, crimson rodent, with huge round ears and an enormous quivering nose and terrifying front teeth. It smelled horrible. Had it eaten Capricorn?

  The thought infuriated Amber. Such deliciousness shouldn’t have been wasted on that monster. Angrily, she ran to intercept the beast, bounding over its chisel head and catching its disturbingly smooth tail. That nightmarish screech echoed through the town again as Amber pulled hard. Grim barked at the monster furiously.

  The tail was too smooth. It slid
out of Amber’s hands as the giant mouse escaped and galloped away. A moment later, there was a flash of flame from the rose house and the mouse vanished.

  Imani the Hellqueen soared into the sky and started singing again.

  23

  Focus

  “Yejun?” asked Amber, alarmed, zooming back to the house again. Yejun was crouched down beside the cot, his head down. He gave her a thumbs-up while scribbling something.

  Capricorn jumped down from atop the rose-wrapped ruins and picked up her jacket from the cot. “That was an unusual experience. Did you get what you needed?”

  Amber blinked. “What happened to you?” She hadn’t really thought the mouse had eaten the demon. Of course not. Even the hounds of the Wild Hunt couldn’t properly digest a demon.

  With that sweet, mild smile, Capricorn put on her jacket and picked up her hat, twirling it before placing it on her head. “I held it until my shoes started getting scuffed. I thought that would probably be enough time. Was it?”

  Yejun stood up. “Well, we can get into her accounts now. It’s a start. I think we should get that journal from Cat and make a prop, though. Something she can take with her.” He tucked the notebook back into his pocket and looked at Capricorn from under his shag of hair. “Why did you offer to help?”

  “Oh, my goodness. You’d just done an astonishing piece of magic, all so you could get a few words with a trapped soul. It would have been very poor-spirited of me to just sit and laugh, don’t you think?” Capricorn bounced on shiny shoes and waved up at Imani cheerily.

  “Yeah, but I thought you were here to advocate for that asshole Severin’s choice to break the world or whatever,” said Amber, also looking up at Imani. Whatever drove her now didn’t seem to hold a grudge about the magic performed on her. Instead, she drifted toward the center of town, singing her pretty anthem of blood, possibly looking for her faerie lover to torment.

  “Oh, that,” said Capricorn. “Well, yes.” She tapped a well-manicured square fingernail on her chin. “Oh, I know! He wanted to support his adopted child, yes? So I’m sure he would have done the same thing.”

  Yejun gave Capricorn a long stare that she met placidly before he finally said, “Yeah…. So let’s hear what else do you intend on doing along those lines?”

  “Oh, I don’t have a PowerPoint or anything. I’m sort of making it up as I go along.” This time her smile had teeth. “Just like you.”

  Evenly, Yejun said, “All right. But if you start trying to undo anything we’re doing here, I will personally tether you down while AT rips your head off.”

  Capricorn gave a theatrical shiver. “Ooh, I wouldn’t want that to happen. I’ll be good! Didn’t I say I’d warn you before I started any of that again?”

  “Yeah, okay, you’re a demon who just said you’ll ‘be good’, so I’m going to go ahead and keep taking everything you say with a grain of salt.” Yejun pulled out his sunglasses and put them back on.

  Amber had an important question she needed answered at this point. She phrased it carefully. “Can you do that to Haliel, too? The tethering?”

  Capricorn’s eyes rounded and she looked between Amber and Yejun as if she also found the answer to this question vital.

  Yejun shook his head. “That one’s mostly a projection. There’s nothing much there to tether. Unfortunately.”

  Capricorn’s sigh of relief was much more dramatic than Amber’s, allowing Amber to keep her idol-worship secret for a little longer. That was good because everybody was definitely going to yell at her when she ran off later to learn at the feet of the master.

  “Why do you care if an angel gets tethered, demon?” asked Yejun as he started to walk backward out of the rose house, his hands in his pockets. It was an annoying trick of his, but it worked to make Capricorn and Amber follow him. Grim, who had furtively claimed the cot, sighed and hopped down to trail behind Amber.

  “Oh, my friend. Demons aren’t the enemies of angels. I just want to help them understand their choices.” Capricorn hopped on a barely visible fence-railing and strolled down it with the grace of a tightrope walker. “And Haliel is charming, don’t you think?”

  “Where is she, anyhow?” said Amber, looking around. If she was going to be forced to watch people other than her be preternaturally graceful, she’d much rather it was the Angel of Joy instead of Miss Delicious and Yejun.

  Capricorn had an immediate answer. “She’s watching the ex-angel and the horse girl walk around. They must be awfully interesting. Shall we go find them?”

  “Sure,” said Yejun. “You lead the way.”

  “Is this really the best way to be spending your time?” asked Haliel as Cat and Brynn picked their way through the ghostly town. “It doesn’t make for very good narrative.”

  “Would there normally be visible flows of energy in a situation like this?” asked Brynn.

  “I don’t know,” said Cat. “There’s never been a situation like this, as far as I know. But one can see the connections between a celestial and their soul-born servants in the Geometry, if one knows what to search for.” He bent down and looked in a storm drain. “And there’s more under to this town than I would have expected.”

  They walked more. Haliel said, “Maybe I’ll go check on the Skipper and Curls. I bet they’re hearing some great stories. They’re probably making real progress. I’ll just head over there, shall I?”

  “Haliel,” said Cat, stopping. “Don’t.”

  With a lazy smile, Haliel said, “We all have jobs to do, Slick. You have this wild goose chase, and I have to document interesting events.”

  Cat looked up. “Do you really want me to be ‘interesting’, Haliel?”

  “Oh, yes please,” begged Haliel. “I volunteered for this gig entirely because I hoped you’d be interesting.”

  Driven by an instinctive dread, Brynn was already moving when Silver Horse and Sunset Horse both shouted Stop him! in her mind. She slid her arm around Cat’s, reached up and tweaked his nose, covered his eyes with her fingers, and tried but failed to trip him.

  He scooped her up in one arm, then peeled her off him and set her down. “No,” he said, giving her a steady look. “I know how dangerous the consequences could be. But thank you.”

  Adrenaline-induced jitters made Brynn’s voice shake as she said, “I don’t. I don’t understand what’s going on at all. What were you going to do?”

  Cat spread his fingers and put them on her head. He was quiet for a moment. Above, Haliel’s pen scritched on paper.

  Finally, Cat said, “The Wild Hunt is made of mortals. Originally shards of celestials, but mortal ones. We killed them, after all.” He lifted his hand from her head. “What do you think would happen if a full celestial joined its ranks?”

  “I don’t know!” Brynn decided it probably would be better for Haliel to go off and bother somebody else. Amber and Yejun would be best.

  “Neither do I,” said Cat calmly. “Let’s not find out.” He started walking again.

  Brynn caught his sleeve. “No. You don’t do this. You tell me what’s going on right now, for real, no Cattishness.”

  He looked back at her, still calm, like he was making a decision in a grocery store. “I want to talk to Jen without the horses’ interference.”

  Don’t you dare, said Silver Horse.

  “I live in California!” said Brynn fretfully. “Do it when this is over. Go inside the farmhouse, shut the door, ignore their shouting and talk. Or whatever.”

  Cat smiled wryly. “The only time Jen can ignore the wise counsel of Earth Horse is when he’s on your arms.”

  You let us out right now, Brynn, said Silver Horse furiously. I have to kick somebody.

  Do it and I’ll kick you, said Sunset Horse. He’s mine and I’ll see to any kicking, if you please.

  Brynn put her hands over her ears, even though that never worked, and then said, out loud, but to everybody listening, “I’ll think about it.”

  Haliel said, “The mounts ar
e bothering her, aren’t they? That’s what it means when she covers her ears like that, am I right? Would you like to tell me what they’re saying? No? That’s fine. My own dialog will be better anyhow.”

  “Can’t we let her go somewhere else?” pleaded Brynn to Cat.

  “Nah, you’ve finally gotten interesting, Ink. I mean, you’ll never find anything just walking around down there, but you two keep arguing and we’re going to get right to the meat.”

  Cat shook his head, turned away, and kept walking. Brynn looked up at Haliel, narrowing her eyes. Then she said, “Cat, what happens to a celestial if we kill just their bodies? I know they can come back, but… what happens right away?”

  “They become much harder to talk to,” said Cat, in the most Cattish of ways, without stopping.

  Brynn glowered and stomped after him. She was increasingly convinced this was a dead end: maybe the result of Haliel’s needling but also true. They hadn’t seen any other lightning flows. Cat kept looking into storm drains and scuffing through dead gardens, but if he had a reason he was keeping it to himself.

  “This isn’t working,” she persisted. “We need to try something else.”

  Cat wheeled around. “Feel free.”

  “I am,” said Brynn. “I’m trying to talk to you.” Scritch scritch came from overhead but Brynn ignored it.

  “I’m not a faerie, Brynn. I didn’t destroy a town in a fit of pique. And I’m not going to engage in the thought exercise of what I’d do in Gale’s situation.”

  Brynn’s fists were tightly clenched. She remembered the stories she’d heard from Branwyn and Marley about who Cat had used to be. Nobody seemed sure what exactly had happened, except for the bare facts: the angel Ettoriel had vanished, defeated by his own rampant emotions, and some time later, his vessel had reappeared, calling himself Cat and declaring he was his own person.

  According to Branwyn and Marley, Cat wasn’t an angel, not according to their magical Sight. And according to Cat, Ettoriel was simply gone, never to return. He’d suggested the Ragged Blade was involved, without ever stating it outright, in that Cattish way of his.