Blood Revolution (God Wars, #3)

by Suttle, Connie

  "You're joking," Griffin accused.

  "No, he's not," Ashe strode into the room. "I've worked with her recently. There's no doubt of what she is. Between the two of you, however, you've managed to cripple her. Make her fragile. She should be strong and confident, yet I see that she isn't. Have you not read that worthless book?"

  "What worthless book?" Griffin turned to Ashe.

  "This worthless book." Ashe Pulled a copy of Torture in Texas into his hand and tossed it to Griffin. "That's your daughter on the cover—at age fourteen. Thanks to Thurlow, there, she was tortured when she was a child."

  "That is not all I have to say, nor the real reason I am a prisoner, now," Thurlow hung his head. "Once I learned the woman was pregnant, I placed a mark upon the child in her belly."

  "Not the first time you've done that, either," Griffin pointed out maliciously.

  "No. But you know that a power mark cannot be removed, once placed. I can find the Mighty Heart, no matter where she is, because of that. I place her in danger, by merely existing. The one who should be hidden from all is visible to me."

  "We believe the power mark enabled Breanne to stay alive when she was younger," The Ear spoke. "That does not mitigate the harm done by the interference. We are not pleased."

  "I understand," Thurlow bowed respectfully to The Ear before turning back to Griffin.

  "I am sorry for my part in all of this. For my interference. For the retaliation, as I wished to punish you in subtle ways. As you see, I managed to harm the innocent more than I ever harmed you. That is my failing. Perhaps I will be given a task in the future, to atone for these wrongs."

  "You think a task will make me forgive you?" Griffin exploded. "No. I will never forgive this."

  "It's not about you anymore," Ashe pointed out. "So don't try to make this about you. This is about keeping everything safe from now on. Neither you nor your father will ever be able to release the information given to you this day. I command it." Ashe's eyes went a deep blue and stars fell through their depths.

  "It would be wise to remember that you are not one of the truly powerful," The Ear glared at Griffin. "Except for your father, you are the weakest one here." The Ear disappeared swiftly.

  "Ren, take them home," Ashe sighed. "I doubt he'll ever be sorry for his part in this," he jerked his head at Griffin.

  * * *

  Breanne's Journal

  What metal there'd been in the church had been reduced to a twisted, melted ruin. The rest was ash, most of it fine and stirring in the early-morning breeze.

  None of us had slept, although Hank had pulled me into bed and settled my head on his shoulder. For two hours we'd lain together like that, neither of us speaking, his hand gently stroking my face and hair.

  We'd gone to the church destroyed in Abilene, Texas, because it was the closest one. It didn't matter, really, which one we visited—they all looked much the same. A pile of rubble lay in each of the fifty states and the nation was in mourning.

  Many were calling this an elaborate terrorist attack, and in a way, they were right. These acts were meant to instill terror, worldwide. I worried that churches in other countries might be hit as well, but kept those thoughts to myself. Bill was probably ahead of me on that, and I didn't want to ramp up his concern.

  "All I can smell is burning and death," Hank sighed and shook his head at Bill, who looked exhausted. I couldn't see that things would improve for him soon, either, since nobody had any idea where to start looking for the perpetrators, or how they might be taken down, considering how many we might be dealing with.

  "I think they were transported in and out," I said, hunching my shoulders. "I've been around the perimeter twice, and can't smell anything other than humans."

  "I've gotten reports that some of the bodies were decapitated before the church was burned," Bill held up his cell. He was getting constant messages, keeping him in the loop, but it was overwhelming him. I figured there were plenty of others feeling just the same.

  "That spells vampires to me," Charles said.

  "Yeah," I nodded to him. "Bill, did they say the slices were smooth?" Yes, that was a morbid thing to say, but a vampire's claws will deliver the cleanest of cuts in a beheading.

  "As nearly as they can tell with charred flesh, yes," Bill nodded.

  "So that's why they waited for the evening services," I said.

  "You're probably right about that," Hank agreed.

  "We may be dealing with Saxom and his brood again," Charles suggested.

  "Oh, dear God," Bill's shoulders drooped. "We don't need Xenides again. Or any of the others. They can mist. Mindspeak. Some of them are shapeshifters."

  "This is so wrong," I muttered.

  "There's something else, too," Bill said, shaking his head after reading another message on his cellphone.

  "What's that?" Winkler asked. He, Weldon and Trajan had come with us; they'd sniffed farther afield than I had, and hadn't found anything either.

  "Hank, your club was destroyed last night," Bill showed Hank an image on his cell. "With everything else going on, it was shoved to the side. Fire Chief in San Francisco thought to send it to me this morning."

  "How many dead?" Hank lifted the cellphone from Bill's hand and stared at the photograph.

  "Nineteen—it was a slow night," Bill sighed.

  "It's my guess Janine saw you go into KingDom's just before it blew," I told Hank. "Nobody's found her, have they?"

  "No," Bill said.

  "She's with them. The ones who did this," I swept out a hand, indicating piles of black ash and twisted metal. "She's still getting back at us—at you," I pointed at Hank. "She took Jayson down, now she's treating you to the same. The trouble with this, however, is that innocent people are now dying because of her."

  Hank blew a smoky breath before hauling out his cell and calling Terry. Did I know he'd hired my attorney? Not until then.

  "Terry, I need you to handle the insurance and anything else for the club," Hank said.

  "Already on it," Terry replied—I could hear his voice clearly. "I contacted the insurance company this morning, and I'll coordinate with the police as your representative. I already have the information from Director Jennings, saying you were with him and had nothing to do with this."

  "Damn straight I had nothing to do with it," more smoke ensued. "Was Trey at work when this happened?"

  "No. The two new hires were—Trey had the night off. I talked to him—he's pretty upset."

  "Tell Trey we'll work this out. Tell him not to worry about his paycheck, all right?"

  "I already did," Terry said. "Want me to arrange for cleanup after the investigators are done with it?"

  "Yeah. Sell the property, too, afterward. I'll move the club somewhere else. It never had enough parking, anyway."

  "I'll need Breanne's signature on some of the paperwork."

  "I'll get that for you. Thanks, Terry. Let me know if you need anything else." Hank ended the call, his eyes dark pools of anger. Well, he wasn't alone in the anger department. Janine had signed her own death warrant, as far as I was concerned.

  * * *

  Lissa's Journal

  "Cara, I don't know what to do." I blinked at Gavin, who settled on a chair beside my desk and blinked dark, troubled eyes at me.

  "He's gone, Gavin," I said. "There's nothing we can do about it."

  "No, my love. It's not just our son. I have memories that I did not have before. They keep filtering into my mind, as if they are being written into the past. There is no conclusion as yet, and it worries me greatly."

  "Oh, no." I chewed my lower lip as I studied Gavin's face. Normally, he didn't display so much emotion. He looked gray. Worn. More than troubled. Sadness overlaid all those things, and my heart bled for him. "What are you remembering, honey?"

  "I met Breanne in the past. Acted, in part, as her surrogate sire. How foolish I was, back then," Gavin shook his head.

  "What?" I was on my feet immediately. "You didn't
mistreat her again, did you?"

  "No." He almost shouted the word. "No," he said again, more quietly. "I gave her free rein, as much as I could, and I cannot explain that at this time. I have no explanation for it, actually. Back then, I was just as strict at following protocol as I ever was."

  "You think she had anything to do with that?" I asked, doing my best to regulate my heart rate and breathing.

  "I do not feel this is true, but I cannot fathom how it might have been otherwise."

  "Gavin, I don't know what to say. Maybe you ought to tell me what has happened so far."

  "It began like this," Gavin said. "A vehicle drove past Winkler's home in the Dallas area. The tag was eventually tracked, and we learned it was registered to Saxom Meletius."

  My breath stopped.

  Chapter 17

  Lissa's Journal

  "Yeah, we're getting the same thing." Kiarra stood beside the kitchen island Adam built for her inside their NorthStar home. "It's like a television series, where you get bits and pieces as they happen in the past. Nobody knows what's really going on or what the outcome might be."

  I watched as she nervously pushed long, white-blonde hair over a shoulder. "You mean you're getting the changes to your memories, like an updated script?" I asked. "That's not fucked up or anything."

  "It means the enemy is fucking with the timeline," Merrill walked in and went straight to the coffee machine. That's what he did when he was worried. Actually, it's what he did anyway. He was addicted to coffee. Loved it. Drank several cups a day, and being what he was, it never bothered him a bit.

  "Of all the people to pull away from death," Kiarra muttered, her arms hugging her waist. She meant Saxom. I knew that without asking.

  "Darling, none of that," Merrill pulled her against him while the brewer worked on his fresh coffee.

  "I worried about the memory of a report that inserted itself into my head this morning, of churches blowing up in all fifty states in the past," I said. "So when Gavin came and told me what was happening with him at that time, I just about freaked."

  "Breanne is there, isn't she?" Adam walked in and nodded to me—he'd heard our conversation from down the hall.

  "Gavin says she is."

  "I thought it was bad enough when the army of rogue gods was destroyed," Kiarra sighed. Merrill pulled a barstool out for her and lifted her onto it gently. "All of us were holding our breaths, and at the time, we didn't even know why."

  "Belen talked to you, didn't he?" I asked.

  "Yes. We know about Breanne now, but we, Dragon, Grace, Devin and Conner are the only ones who know, besides some of the Larentii."

  "I think the rogues are still trying to kill her, or maybe some others, to alter things in their favor," I said. "And that's terrifying."

  "Lissa, we know about Gavril. Conner told us." Merrill came to me, now, while Adam moved to Kiarra's side.

  "Merrill," I moaned. "How did things come to this? How?"

  "Hush, my darling," he soothed as he pulled me against him.

  * * *

  Breanne's Journal

  Just as I suspected, people across the country rose up in anger, saying they weren't going to allow anyone to steal their religion. Even the ones who hadn't been terribly religious before were up in arms. Flowers were appearing at churches everywhere, and not just at the ones destroyed.

  Television talk shows were filled, not just with stories of the destruction and names of lives lost, but with declarations from those willing to "go to war," as they put it, to take down any and all responsible.

  Yes, foreign countries and foreign terrorists were blamed, when they had nothing to do with it. Unless a Sirenali told them to, that is. As for going to war, the people spouting those words didn't have a chance. This Sirenali had vampires, chimeras, possibly more lion snake shapeshifters and who knew what else to fight his or her battles. Short of destroying Earth and making it uninhabitable for our unwelcome visitors, there might not be any way to get rid of all of them.

  That's where I came in, I suppose. Sure, I'd gotten rid of half a million rogue gods, give or take a few, but I'd tricked them. I hadn't stood my ground to fight them, and this looked like a pitched battle. If more rogue gods were ultimately behind this mess (and let's face it, attacking the religious base would be right up their alley), then things might turn out badly for me.

  "We have to find them," I said, startling everybody inside the media room. We'd gathered there to watch the televised reports, but I'd remained silent while the others pointed out flaws and ridiculed this pundit or that, for devising outrageous plans to defeat an enemy they knew nothing about.

  "Bree, they're as insubstantial as smoke. If you can't find them, what do you think we mortals might do?" Opal asked.

  "No idea." My neck and shoulders ached from the buildup of tension. I hadn't felt like eating anything, and lunch had come and gone long ago. Jimmy kept Kathleen consoled and fed everybody else—he was keeping busy and still grieving his loss, just not as much as before. A last conversation with Trina had done wonders for him.

  "Let's go look at Hank's club," Bill stood and stretched. "I don't have to be at that meeting for another four hours."

  "All right," I agreed. "Do the locals have it blocked off?"

  "Yes. And we can grab something to eat there if you want."

  "Maybe. Everybody ready to go, or do you want to grab a jacket? It'll be cool," I said. "I know I want one."

  A flurry of movement occurred as everybody (except Gavin) rushed toward bedrooms to grab something to wear over shirts, jeans and slacks. In ten minutes, I folded them to San Francisco, leaving Trace behind to help Jimmy and to guard my sleeping sire.

  * * *

  "Is that him?" V'ili asked Janine. He gave her a sharp-toothed grin—he'd estimated that the missing owner would show up. He'd been so sure of it, in fact, that he'd set up hidden cameras across the street. He and Janine watched a live feed from those cameras now.

  "Yes," Janine's head bobbed, much like that of a dashboard dog. She bore cuts and bruises from V'ili's attention the night before. He'd shown her a bit of what he was capable of doing. Today, she was barely able to walk and still stared at her master as if he were everything to her.

  She hadn't understood what he might do to her—that her will would be eliminated completely and that he would demand things from her that she was too timid to do in her normal, human state.

  None had ever defied V'ili. He held strong obsession, and even other Sirenali bowed to him. Last prince of a royal house before the fall of Sirena, he was determined to restore his race. He cursed the Larentii, too, who'd destroyed his world to begin with.

  It didn't matter that the Sirenali had invaded the Larentii homeworld and attempted to destroy it. While they might breach the shields around the planet, they couldn't lay an obsession on even the youngest Larentii. They hadn't fully realized that until after the attack.

  In the only known episode of Larentii violence, the Larentii Wise Ones, with the aid of many other Larentii, had gathered their power and destroyed not only the Sirenali attacking their world, but the entire planet of Sirena.

  For whatever reason, a few with power had bent time to collect many of the strongest from V'ili's race before their deaths, and now they served those who'd rescued them, but were given a free rein and a promise that their world would live again. After the others had been destroyed, of course. V'ili looked forward to the destruction.

  "My cousin is there," V'ili's grin became toothier. "He will make sure that Mr. Bell and his friends never trouble us again."

  * * *

  Breanne's Journal

  The club was a wreck. It had burned, as had the businesses on both sides of it. The chimera hadn't cared about what might be destroyed past that, so anything farther away was damaged but not harmed beyond repair.

  Just like the churches, it bore little evidence, and that had already been collected. I doubted anyone would get anything useful from any of it. The safe,
however, had somehow survived, as Hank had installed it below the floor. The police had already removed it and taken it away after Terry told them where to look.

  "Unbelievable," Jayson shook his head as we stared at the wreckage.

  "Can you spare some change?" A man dressed in patched clothing approached. I watched him warily, but Hank was the one to go Thifilathi and grasp the Sirenali by the throat. Bill shouted for everybody to get back as the man turned into a scaled monster who struggled to bite the hand gripping his throat. We all watched as the Sirenali kicked and flailed before going still.

  Hank had crushed his throat. Yes, I read him before he died. I couldn't get to his obsessions—those were always blocked. I saw he had Sirenali friends, however, and that definitely wasn't a good thing.

  * * *

  Janine was terrified. She'd seen Hank become something she didn't recognize. If she could get her mind to work on its own (she couldn't) she might have guessed that he was a demon. Instead, she turned a blank gaze to V'ili.

  "High Demon," V'ili said, before cursing in his native language. This was the one other race the Sirenali feared. They couldn't place obsession and they couldn't defeat them. Had the High Demons policed the dark realm as intended, the Sirenali would never have approached the Larentii homeworld. They'd fallen lax after Kifirin's disappearance, and the Sirenali did as they pleased. They'd paid for their greed, however, and their desire to control Larentii. "I will see that this one dies," V'ili hissed and sent mindspeech to Acrimus.

  * * *

  "He wanted to place obsession on all of us," I said. Hank pushed a plate of cheese, grapes and melon in my direction. I'd hauled everybody to my house in San Rafael after Bill's locals came to collect the Sirenali's body for study. "And there are four more here," I said. Hank, Opal and Trajan set about making sandwiches for the others after a quick trip to the nearest grocery store.

  "So there were five," Bill shook his head. "Instead of just one."

  "They could all have different assignments, and be screwing all of us," Jayson said.

  "Jayson, you just gave me a headache," Weldon growled.

  "Regardless, he's right," Bill agreed. "We have four more targets to worry about, and that doesn't include all the fire-breathing things and the poisonous things."