Resurrection

by Lissa Kasey

  Gabe waited there a long time. Half listening to conversations around him, but not paying attention to any. It was a garble of noise. Loud enough that he almost missed the second tug. Not on the dead, but on the golem.

  Forest had been as still as Steve in the chair, not breathing or moving at all, and then he was shifting in his seat, like he was uncomfortable. But that wasn’t something golems could be. Gabe studied the magic tying it together. Page’s work was a mess. With training, Gabe suspected Page could be an incredible power. Would the Dominion let him live that long?

  Forest turned his gaze to Steve. Like the golem could see Gabe resting in the strength of the dead, watching and waiting. But that shouldn’t be possible.

  The intensity of the gaze heated, and Gabe thought he actually felt warm for a minute. Uncomfortably warm. A spell lighting up like a match flare, brief and hot, and insanely fast. Gabe was still trying to figure out what happened as flames flickered around his senses.

  Sam was the first to react, turning, alarmed, reaching out.

  It was then that Gabe realized Steve was on fire, and through him, the spell directing back at Gabe, setting him on fire as well.

  Gabe screamed, and jerked away, leaving the distant spread of bodies, and leaping from the bed even as the flames burned into his flesh, and began to dig into his soul. He tried to break the bond with Steve, setting the dead free, which would drop them all, but he couldn’t break the cord. Not with fire shooting through it to incinerate him.

  He floundered, his skin burning up, clothes acting like kindling, intensifying the fire. Panic and pain clouding his senses. The bed was on fire. The room was beginning to burn. Gabe reached out helplessly as he feared that he’d bring death to them all, the warded house burning down with them all trapped inside. That was not the kind of death he was meant to be.

  Chapter 27

  Seiran woke from a dream startled by Gabe’s discomfort, a threshold of worry and awareness that Sei couldn’t exactly define. But he lingered on the edge of sleep, trying to process if he should actually wake up, or it was something passing.

  Then the fire started.

  It was heat first, Gabe turning hot around him, and then the flames erupting. Gabe leapt up, and Seiran rolled off the other side as flames lit the bed, and Gabe on fire.

  Seiran panicked. He felt Gabe’s disorientation, pain and fear, as he floundered away while burning. Vampires and fire were not a good combo, and these flames were not some spontaneous combustion. Gabe dropped to roll on the floor, but it didn’t seem to interrupt the fire.

  Magic. A spell rather than something of natural origin, it’s why it kept burning even while Gabe should have been able to put them out with ease.

  Seiran felt the power of it dancing over his skin, reaching for him through the bond he had to Gabe. Seiran did the first thing he could think of and shoved the spell back at the caster. Like a mirror, reflecting back with all the force he could pull in those few seconds of insanity. Any other witch would have needed complicated spells to build up that sort of power. But Seiran bounced it back with a wallop that actually doused the flames on the bed and sent Gabe tumbling backward, partially extinguishing his fire.

  The fire alarm was going off in an annoying wail. Seiran felt the last ties of the spell shatter, the casters either injured or trying to escape the backlash. He grabbed a blanket, racing to Gabe’s side to douse the flames. He kept his magic pushing at the spell, like a wall propelling at the witches who dared to reach through the distance and hurt them. It was like being in two places at once.

  He saw others bursting into flames. Not one, but many, scattered around symbols drawn that Seiran didn’t recognize. An organized assault by the Dominion? Or someone else? They screamed and floundered, burning slower than Gabe had, but it would hurt plenty.

  Seiran patted at Gabe, thinking thoughts of a cool breeze or icy lake, though he’d need access to a source, or to pull direct power from the Goddess to use either of those.

  Then Kelly was there, dousing the flames with cooling water. Soaking them all, and washing the basement floor in a layer of icy spill that would be a bitch to clean up later. But the fire was finally out.

  Gabe heaved pained breaths, his skin blackened and flaking away, his blood boiling and burning like lava through his body. Seiran felt the bond between them begin to close, Gabe trying to shut him off from the pain.

  “Don’t,” Seiran demanded.

  It will cause you pain, Gabe said through their link.

  Pain was a mild statement for the feeling, excruciating, a better term. How was it possible to be that damaged and still feel so much? Or be conscious?

  “I am earth. I can help you heal this.” It hurt to look at him, blackened and nightmarish, reminding Seiran of the vampire bodies they had found. Had this spell come from the same group? He had to work to steady his emotions. Now was not the time for panic. The flames were out, and this was unlikely to kill Gabe, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be brutal.

  Jamie took the blanket from Seiran, carefully wrapping Gabe up. “Let’s get him to the arboretum.” There was no way that touching him wasn’t going to hurt. And Gabe seemed to half pass out a second as Jamie lifted him.

  Fear and grief rose in Seiran’s gut. He knew the damage was too great for Gabe to heal without going to ground. But Sei wanted to scream at the injustice of it. He’d just gotten Gabe back and they were trying to work through shit. Now Gabe would be back in the ground for who knew how long.

  They all headed upstairs, passing the kids who were all waiting in the kitchen, awake with wide eyes and scared. The door to the basement had been broken, likely Jamie coming through after hearing the alarms. Everything else seemed untouched.

  “Is the fire out?” Kaine asked with huge, terrified eyes.

  “It is. It’s okay, go back to bed,” Seiran told him. It was like three in the morning. They should all be asleep.

  “Can we help?” Ki asked.

  Seiran reached out to squeeze his kids’ hands as he moved to open the door to the arboretum. “Bed. But thank you.”

  Jamie carried Gabe to a large open patch of dirt in the garden. They all liked to roll in the fresh spread when they played in their shifted forms. It was wide enough for a couple bodies, as even Jamie enjoyed a good roll in the dirt when he turned bear. It was also the only ground that was untouched by plant life of some kind.

  The fae swirled around them in a crazy smash of color as Jamie carefully lowered Gabe down and peeled the blanket away. Gabe swallowed and tried to speak. His eyes open, seeming mostly coherent, though Seiran could barely breath through the shared pain.

  “Don’t. It’s okay,” Seiran assured him. “Let the ground take you. Rest. Heal.” Seiran got a storm of emotions from Gabe. Mostly the white-hot rage that someone had sent a spell their way. Tried to destroy the zombie of Steve, for what? To silence the dead? Destroy evidence? Or an attack specifically to weaken Seiran? Gabe sent all of that in a blaze of hot emotions. “It’s fine. I’ve got this,” Seiran promised. “Not a kid anymore, remember?”

  He leaned down, careful not to touch Gabe’s skin. The blanket had rubbed the blackened bits off, exposing damaged nerves and muscles. Seiran swallowed hard, hoping he was keeping the worst of his fears to himself. “It’s okay. Rest. I love you. And I will still be here when you get back.” Seiran shoved the conviction of his words into their bond, letting Gabe feel the truth of them. Yes, Seiran would miss him, but it was okay.

  Don’t want to go, Gabe whispered through the bond, but he was almost completely lost in pain. His eyes turning a mix of red and black, warning of the revenant.

  “You can either let go and heal, or keep fighting it and risk freeing your revenant.” Seiran hovered his fingers above Gabe’s face, not willing to touch him and chance hurting him further. “I love you. But not all is forgiven, so I expect you back soon.”

  Gabe looked undecided, but Seiran pulled a rolling wave of earth power letting it sooth
e a cooling wash over Gabe. Gabe sighed, giving up the fight, and began to sink into the ground, the earth swallowing him up in a way that was specific to vampires. It wasn’t like zombies in reverse, with vampires digging their way in rather than out, but more like the quicksand of old movies. The ground shifting and becoming soft, fine, and almost like water. Seiran had often thought the kinetic type of sand that the kids used to play with was the closest he could recall to the way the earth reacted to vampires. It could be solid, smooth, and unyielding, but soft and delicate as it cradled them deep.

  Seiran watched, until Gabe was completely overtaken. He could feel the grip of the grave as an icy touch to soothe the pain. Gabe’s storming emotions vanished in a familiar quash of their bond. Not closing exactly, but becoming less defined. The strength of the earth magic took Gabe fast, breaking down the damaged body and releasing the mixed edges of soul and revenant to drift, dream, and heal untethered by mortal coil.

  Would decades pass again? Seiran sucked in a hard breath, his chest tight, and fed the rage.

  He’d been complacent too long. Following the rules and keeping his head down. Trying to protect his family and himself from the wrath of those who would never offer him any quarter. Gabe’s return had given him hope, not only of finally not being alone anymore, but of finding a way free from all the chains they’d shackled him with. He’d had a few moments of hope, thinking he could escape the Dominion and find another course for his life, Gabe’s calm strength and incredible power a wall to hide behind.

  But that had been stupid. Seiran didn’t need to hide. He was the scion of Earth, the Green Man, Father Earth, Pillar of magic, a mortal god in his own right. And once again the man he loved had been stolen from him while he was expected to sit back and obey.

  Not anymore. Stick a fork in him, he was done.

  He turned all the grief to rage, feeling it awaken inside, not unlike the revenant he’d recognized from Gabe’s eyes in the end. It was a bit like pouring out the cool calm lightness he’d been gifted since Gabe had been back, and taking in all the heat and darkness. Maybe this was what made Sam feel so powerful when he teetered on a red out. A couldn’t give a fuck attitude that nestled deep in his soul. Burn it all down. Fuck the consequences.

  If Seiran didn’t have a direction for the rage, it might have turned quickly to world destruction. But Gabe was in the ground. His kids were a dozen feet away. And this rage had a source.

  Seiran recalled the last bits of what Gabe had been dreaming before the fire started. The warehouse with all the bodies, Steve and the golem. Something had been pulling on the golem. Casting a spell through it? That was not normally possible. Though a lot of things about that golem had been off. The souls, the struggle to control it, and even Page’s recounting of how he’d made it.

  Seiran got to his feet and summoned Bryar, which was a tug on their eternal tie. The fae might have chosen Bryar as their sacrifice to gain an alliance, but Seiran trusted him more than any other fae. Not only because they shared a child made of magic, but because Bryar had been born from blood magic spells, and forever craved battle. There wasn’t really a better fae to have at his back if he was going to rage against the machine.

  Today would be a good day to indulge. No more waiting, no more games, no more sitting on his thumbs and hoping everyone did the right thing.

  “Sei?” Jamie said, reaching for him.

  Seiran sidestepped him. “Get the kids to bed, please.” He let the Goddess rise again. She demanded control and to use his strength to destroy. But Seiran’s grip on the power was better. As though Gabe’s return, even as short as it was, had strengthened something in him. Could he stand another decade with Her constant demands without Gabe at his side? He prayed he wouldn’t have to, but first he had to deal with some witches.

  Bryar appeared. Popping from a small glowing bug into the human-sized man. Not much about Bryar looked human in this form. He was too pretty, too perfect, and very ethereal. The misconception of elves, Seiran knew, had come from fae like Bryar. He was also dressed for war. Covered in armor that looked more like a beetle shell than anything human, hair pulled up, and a sword bigger than Seiran strapped to his back. He could have stepped out of an anime or video game and looked like he fit right in.

  “We fight?” Bryar asked.

  Seiran nodded. “You have to get me there first. But yes, we fight. We kill,” Seiran said. He needed to get to the warehouse. No long trips through the veil. “Can you sense Sam? I need to go to where he is right now.”

  “Sei…” Jamie tried to protest. But Kelly was shuffling him and all the kids inside.

  Sei felt another barrier ward go up. Water wrapping a cool hand around the property, and rain began to fall. Kelly was preparing for more fire. Good because if Seiran had been a fire witch instead of earth, the entire world would already be burning.

  Bryar cocked his head to the side. “Fast travel through the veil makes you sick,” he said.

  “Yeah, well I’m hoping to upchuck on some witches. And then dissect them with plants right after. Let’s go.” Seiran pointed at Jamie and the kids again, mouthing through the glass door, “Bed, all of you.” He took Bryar’s outstretched hand and was instantly pulled through all time and space.

  With a pop and a disorientating roll, he landed in the warehouse, stumbling to keep his feet as he arrived to utter chaos. It was a battle of zombies, golems, and vampires, some still undead, others true dead. What the fuck?

  He swallowed back bile and readied himself to jump into the fray, only he wasn’t sure who was on their side and who wasn’t.

  “About time, Ronnie!” Sam snarled as he smashed a fist into a golem, sending it flying across the room. Not the golem they’d been watching, but one of many new golems.

  At least a dozen of them, maybe more, though Forest sat in a chair in the corner and didn’t move other than to stare with creepy eyes outward. Steve was slumped in a chair across from Forest, burned, and seeming lifeless. Had the last of Gabe’s magic faded when he went to ground?

  “We’re fighting the golems?” Bryar clarified. “Or is this a kill them all scenario? Please let it be the second.”

  “Golems!” Sam said.

  “That’s not as fun,” Bryar grumbled as he leapt across the room to hack the head off a golem. While the thing separated, and even looked like sticks and clay, it instantly reformed. “Well, that’s better. I love a challenge.” He whacked it again, hacking it apart and exclaiming with glee as it reformed. “You do throw the best parties, vampire.”

  “Why are there still zombies?” Seiran asked as he called roots from the earth to smack the golems away.

  “I sort of accidentally borrowed that power…” Sam said, not sounding sorry at all.

  “Really? Cause the other shit isn’t enough? Fire, earth, water, wind, and now death magic? Are you going for god status?”

  “Finally, you admit I’m a god,” Sam snarked leaping across the room to pull a golem off a vampire investigator.

  “Really, Sammie?” Seiran let his earth powers flow free, the ground turning green and blooming around him. Branches and roots reaching upward like the tendrils of a giant sea monster to wrap around his prey. He reached for the golems and the zombies, trying to define what was still actually living, and what was just an animated being.

  With enough wrapping them, the golems had to pause, though they still fought and struggled. Something, or someone was controlling them. At least these felt more like the spells Seiran was used to. Maybe he could unravel the magic binding them to their goal? Usually, golems continued to reform until completing their objective, which was what in this case? Total destruction to all of them?

  Seiran reached the nearest golem and found it empty. No souls, just animated sticks. A very weak golem, though as always, the blood magic tying it to this world was strong. But there was also no visible name mark on them, which is normally how a golem was bound. What the fuck?

  “Sam, why do these not have a name
mark? Is that possible?”

  “I think it’s just somewhere we can’t see right away? And I’m not examining golem buttholes for it.” He punched another golem, sending it skittering backward for a few feet, but it bounced right back like a fucking yo-yo.

  “Huh,” Seiran rolled his earth power through it, searching for the center tie, or name as it might have been crafted in the spell. He even pushed out a pulse with his omniscient sight, looking for ripples of magic. And there it was, a mark on this one near the back of its arm.

  Seiran touched the mark and unraveled the tie, severing the blood bond. The golem shattered, falling into a heap of sticks and clay.

  “Really, Ronnie? Just poof? I thought you wanted to tear some shit up.” Sam leapt at another golem, not punching but wrapping himself around it to hold it down. “Find the mark then, show-off. Unravel this fucker before I gotta call up more zombies. This is not a power I find appealing.”

  “No?” Sei asked, wondering, but he raced to Sam’s side, searching for that pulse and finding it on a leg this time. Another unraveled. “Why not just use fire?”

  “’Cause we already have burned vampires, and I’m the only one fireproof in the room.” Sam brushed the clay off and stared at the mess Bryar was making. “Good choice for child bearing, Rou. He’s just another nutjob.”

  Bryar was surrounded by golem parts, all mixed up and trying to reform, but he kept hacking them into smaller pieces, laughing maniacally like a villain the entire time.

  “He’s having a good time,” Sei offered. “You don’t like my parties?” Sei focused on another golem, a writhing leg of foot wide roots ensnaring the creature. “Why are the vampires also zombies?”

  “Well, the vampire zombies were an accident,” Sam said. “Some of the vampires helping out were on fire. Then the golems poured in and I just thought rise and whoops…”