Aria nodded again.
Kiirian smiled happily. It was a very human expression. Then he turned back to Lindal and Sera.
“My father is so desperate he pulled you out of your burrow?” Lindal asked him.
“I told him I would not be a good agent,” Kiirian said. “Although I managed to avoid mentioning I was the one who encouraged you to come here in the first place.” He glanced at Aria once more. “I was right. You have access here to wisdom we badly need.”
“You have a message, then?” Lindal asked.
“Not really. Your father wants you to return. You know that already. I was intended to appeal to your…more earthly qualities.”
“You are supposed to be the voice of reason?” Sera asked. She laughed. “My father does not understand you, if he believes that.”
“I think it was more that he wanted to present to you the face of someone you might consider to be a friend and ally.” Kiirian glanced around the barn without moving his head, his eyes rolling dramatically. “The backup is the real message, though.”
Lindal nodded. Now the heel of his hand was sitting on the knife. He just had to curl his fingers around it to withdraw it.
Beth didn’t fully understand the quick exchanges. There was an implied history that she didn’t know. She did understand that Lindal felt threatened and that was enough. She stopped trying to sneak around the table. She moved openly, to stand next to Lindal.
Kiirian’s gaze shifted to her. “The one who keeps Lindal’s heart.” He bowed again.
“One of the ones,” Lindal clarified.
Kiirian nodded again. “Shall we finish this?”
“Fine,” Sera said, sounding angry. “Tell my father I said ‘fuck off’. I am not going back.”
Blake smiled. It was the first reaction she had seen from him in hours.
Kiirian didn’t seem upset by her response. “I may have to explain that phrase to him. Very well. Lindal?”
Lindal’s fingers curled around the hilt. “As you say, there is much to keep me here.”
“He wants only for you to take up your inheritance.”
“I don’t want it. Not if it means leaving here.”
Kiirian sighed. “Very well. I have delivered my message—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish. The elves seemed to be triggered by his admission of defeat. There was a uniform reach for swords under their cloaks. Their left arms swept aside the heavy cloak material, clearing the way for their swords to emerge, as they moved toward Lindal and Sera.
Lindal yanked out the knife, his face implacable.
Every cloaked elf disappeared. Beth watched the one she had been intending to attack jerk back as if something had grabbed his hood and hauled. He looked as though he was falling as he disappeared.
Kiirian whirled to face Aria. “Then it is true! You have learned mastery of the elements…all of them! This is wonderful! My lady, I have been searching for this fundamental knowledge all my life. And it was here on Earth all along.”
Aria didn’t smile. She didn’t react to the praise at all. She actually looked pissed. “The one who leads you has tried to interrupt the cleansing of this world. He will not succeed should he try again and next time, I will not content myself with merely returning his men to him. Tell him that.”
Kiirian swallowed. All the happiness drained from him. “He did not understand how things are here.”
“His offspring are required here,” Aria said and her voice was chilly. “They are essential to the defense against the unclean ones.”
“I will tell him that,” Kiirian assured her. Then he let out a gusty, startled sound as he was yanked sideways and disappeared.
For a moment, everyone in the barn remained still and silent, absorbing what had just happened.
Declan pushed past Beth. “Let me get at the table, please,” he said. “The hour was three minutes ago.”
His movements seemed to refocus everyone. They stirred and went back to what they had been doing, talking quietly.
Beth turned to Lindal. She put her hand on his arm and wasn’t surprised to feel him trembling. His gaze shifted to her.
“It’s over,” she assured him.
“For now,” Sera said dryly. “We just happened to have a better hand than my father did, this time.”
Lindal sighed. “He’ll never give up. He’s so focused on his world and his needs, he can’t lift his head to see the bigger picture.”
Beth wanted to hold him, to tell him it would all be okay, except that Lindal was always awkward about showing any softer emotions in public. Besides, she wasn’t sure she could honestly say everything would be all right, either.
Lindal walked away, his head down, his shoulders stiff with tension. Beth watched him go and tightened her hand into a fist.
“The problem is,” Sera said softly, “my brother has too much honor. He feels a responsibility for the care of our world, because he was raised to understand it was to be his role. Every time my father appeals to him, it just reminds him of that debt.”
“You don’t share that responsibility?” Beth asked, her heart aching.
“I might have once.” Sera grimaced. “It was beaten out of me long before I came here.”
“Sera, look!” Declan exclaimed.
They turned to the table. Declan was holding up the eyelid of the vampeen.
The eye beneath was no longer a glowing red. The red had faded to almost nothing and the eye looked almost human.
Sera bent over to look at it more closely. “The dilation has diminished, too,” she breathed. Her hand knocked against the chin of the child and she looked down, startled. “Did you hear that? It was almost a clatter.”
Declan eased open the lips. The crossed and angled teeth were yellow, more yellow than Beth remembered them being. He prodded at the long animal-like teeth experimentally.
Two of them fell out. They had been close enough together that normal, human teeth could be seen in the gap they left.
Declan straightened up. “Another dose,” he declared. He looked at Beth. “It’s working.”
Beth sucked in a sharp, hot breath, excitement spearing her.
Blake moved up alongside her. It was the first time he had moved in hours. “This changes things.”
“Not for your daughter,” Beth said. “I’m sorry, Blake.”
He shook his head. “I’ve made my peace with that. Emily had to die for us to reach this moment.” He looked at the vampeen. “None of us would be here now if she had lived. This child will live, instead. That’s the pay off.”
Beth squeezed his shoulder.
Blake pulled his gaze away from the vampeen, to look at Beth. “You and I should talk. I’ve learned something, standing here and watching her change.”
“Her?”
Declan glanced up. “Female, about eight years old. I didn’t tell anyone. It was too depressing to think of her that way, not until we were sure of this.”
“I heard her in my head,” Blake added. “Just as I heard Emily, before she died. And there’s more.”
Chapter Fourteen
It was freezing outside. Worse, there was a blizzard building up. Snowflakes were batting against the side of the barn and the sky was so dark with thick, heavy clouds that it felt as if night was setting in, even though it was barely afternoon.
Lindal stood with the snow up around his ankles and shivered. He wouldn’t go inside. Not yet. He needed to find some sort of equilibrium, a way to look at Beth and not panic. There was too much to be done to have a meltdown now.
Except that all he could think of was the fear of being pulled back to his world and never seeing her or Zack again. It had been gnawing at him for weeks and with Kiirian’s arrival, he had finally noticed how deep it had eaten into his core.
He had stopped trying to think of a rational decision the way Zack had urged him to. There was no point. It didn’t matter which way he decided, it would not only hurt people he loved, it would d
estroy one world or another.
It was an impossible decision. Hobson’s choice, he’d heard it called, here. Instead, he had been playing for time.
His father sending Kiirian here meant that time was running out. His father was going to force him to make a choice.
“The disease in you will not help with what lies ahead, elf.”
Lindal knew it was Aria before he looked. She was wearing the same light robes as always and she didn’t look the least bit cold. It made him feel even more frozen. “I’m not sick,” he told her.
She stepped closer. “Dis-ease,” she repeated. “It is a sickness of a sort, especially for our kind.”
The snow was not touching her, he realized. It wasn’t falling anywhere near her. As she moved even closer, he could feel the warmth of a pleasant summer day radiating from her. It enveloped him and he almost groaned with the pleasure of it. He straightened up, letting his arms fall back to his sides.
“Your father’s father’s father once laughed at us, did you know?” Aria said.
He looked at her. “Is that why you sent them all back to my father with their tails between their legs?”
Aria didn’t seem to have any trouble with the human idioms that he had spent months and months trying to wrap his mind around.
“He was right to laugh,” she said soberly. “At that time, this world was in peril because of our mismanagement. We had so much to learn, to understand about control. Your people withdrew, leaving us to learn alone and that was right, too. This is our world to care for. We did learn how. It took generations, but we learned.”
“I can tell,” Lindal admitted. “It’s a pity humans are so intent on destroying the place all by themselves. It ruins all your work.”
“What makes you think our work is ruined?” Aria asked curiously. “If not for our work, this world would no longer exist.”
“You off-set human negligence…” Lindal breathed, astonished.
“We compensate, while humans themselves learn something of the mastery we found. They will become apprentices, caring for their world properly and in the meantime, we adjust and wait.”
Lindal stared at her. He couldn’t help it. “My father’s brother, Kiirian, has spent many human lifetimes looking for that knowledge, the control you have found. He has shunned glory, comforts, even a home, in the search for answers. He would serve our world as you have served Terra.”
“Your father’s brother seeks knowledge only for the power it would bring him,” Aria said coldly. “He brought your father’s message to you for the same reason.”
“Currying royal favor,” Lindal said, “while pretending he was on our side?”
Aria nodded.
“I appreciate the insight,” Lindal told her honestly.
She leaned forward. “You are the same kind as we, only your people have not learned what we have. They continue to seek all-encompassing power over their world. We have learned it is a matter of balance between the energies of the world.”
“The elements,” Lindal said, as it fell into place with an almost audible click in his mind.
“We would teach you this balance and how to control it,” Aria said.
“Me? Why me? I’m not of this world.”
Aria laid her hand against his chest, over his heart. “You have become of this world. Your power has shifted. Just as your sister’s has. Love has the ability to make great changes.”
Peace fell over him. Lindal remembered to breathe and it didn’t hurt, as breathing had sometimes made his chest ache lately. “That is a lot to think about. Perhaps I may accept your most kind offer. Just not now.”
Aria stepped back and let her hand fall. “For now, there are more important things to take care of.”
“And now I know what to do,” Lindal told her.
* * * * *
Beth took Blake back to the pile of hay she had been using as a chair and they sat facing each other.
“I thought at first I was imagining it,” Blake said, speaking quietly. “All of this has been stirring up memories, so I thought the voice in my head was just another dirty memory.”
“Dirty?” Beth frowned. “Then you’re not talking about when your daughter died?”
“That, too,” Blake admitted. “The voices I have been hearing in the last few hours were whispers. Remembered commands. Only, they weren’t memories, because what they were telling me to do wasn’t something from the past.”
“They were telling you to do something?”
Blake nodded. “Kill everyone. Enjoy eating them. Speak of where I am, where the bright ones are.”
“Bright ones.” Beth blew out her breath. “Us. The Trinities.”
“The trinities stand like beacons in their minds,” Blake said. He picked up a stalk of hay and twirled it in his fingers. “When I was bitten, when I was…turning, I could hear the same voices. They were angry, demanding we find the bright ones. They couldn’t see you.”
“The bunker is shielded.” Beth said.
“At that time, the command was overwhelming. I couldn’t have resisted it. I was getting closer to being able to obey, to talk back to them.”
Beth pressed her fingers to her temples. “You would have shown them where we were. It never even occurred to me that it was possible. We were so focused on fixing you.”
“You kept thinking of me as a person, an individual with self-awareness,” Blake said. “When I had very little free will left. That girl on the table over there…you couldn’t think of her as a person until just now. That is why you brought her here instead of the bunker.”
“Then she is hearing the same commands?” Beth asked. “The demand to kill us and tell them where we are?”
Blake nodded. “When she was fully vampeen, she had no control over it. She had to obey. Now, it may simply be the whisper of a remembered voice in her mind. There is no compulsion in it anymore.”
“You can hear the Grimoré talking,” Beth said.
“Only when I’m near the vampeen. They act like aerials. The more of them in one place, the stronger the signal and the more overwhelming it becomes.”
“I’ll bear that in mind. Do you know what this means, Blake?”
Blake shook his head. “If you’re thinking this will let you anticipate the Grimoré, then you’re wrong. They don’t discuss war strategies with the vampeen. They just give direct and short term orders. What it does mean is that you were right about the control they exert.”
He nodded his head toward the child on the table. She looked as if she was sleeping. “It’s not conditioning that drives the vampeen. It’s control, pure and simple. Take away Grimoré control and they will scatter, their cohesiveness lost.”
“Which means we can move against the Grimoré and cure the vampeen once they’re gone.” Beth gripped her hands together. “We’re in the end game, Blake.”
The girl on the table stirred and gave a small cry of pain.
Blake moved with vampire speed, over to her side. “You’re safe,” he told her.
Declan suddenly appeared on the other side of the table. “Consciousness,” he said. “Faster than I thought would happen.”
Beth hurried over, too.
“Is it safe to remove the rope, doc?” Blake asked.
“Maybe just leave one around her middle?” Beth suggested. “Leave her arms and legs free to move.”
Declan nodded.
Blake snapped the ropes with a twist of his wrist and looked at her. “Can you hear me?”
She blinked. Her eyes were a silver gray and clear. She studied Blake. Then she nodded and brought her fist up to her eyes to rub them.
“Can you talk? What is your name?” Declan asked her.
She stared at Declan, her eyes growing troubled.
“You don’t know your name, do you?” Blake said gently.
She shook her head, just a little. Her chin quivered.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” Declan told her.
> “She doesn’t remember.” Blake brushed the fine locks of hair off her forehead, which was pale and very human-normal. “Thank God,” he breathed.
Chapter Fifteen
Three days later, Beth regathered everyone upon the informal little plank benches. This time, someone had brought a sawn-in-two oil barrel with holes punched in the side and turned it into a campfire, sitting in the middle of the rough circle.
There were bottles of spirits being passed around among those who could drink it, too.
Despite the camp atmosphere, Beth could tell everyone was listening to her with close attention. The cure of the vampeen child they were now calling Eve had stirred them. For the first time in a long while, Beth could feel the hope and determination in them. They were no longer just going through the motions while waiting for an end to a war that they never really believed would end.
Now they knew it could end and that made all the difference in the world.
“I am going to share all of my thinking with you,” Beth told them. “I want you to find the holes in my reasoning. I want you to help me find our way. I trust every single one of you sitting here tonight with my life, so there is no reason to keep any of this from you. However, for now, this stays among us. The elves, the vampire clans, the hunters out there and the ranger forces…they will all be informed in time, when they need to know. Is that clear?”
A lot of heads nodded. No one spoke. Beth was satisfied, anyway. Knowledge, even intimate knowledge, tended to pass among the trinities as most people talked about the weather forecast, especially here in the bunker, where privacy was almost completely lacking. They had become experts at keeping essentials to themselves and passing on what should be shared. Their bond would help reinforce that sense of solidarity, too.
“Lindal had a discussion with Aria the other day,” Beth began. “It was about control and balance. At the same time, although I didn’t know it then, Blake was explaining to me that the Grimoré do control the vampeen, mentally and physically. They move them around like Warhammer armies, with as little regard for individuals as a Warhammer player would have for his pieces of plastic.”
Terra's Victory (Destiny's Trinities Book 7) Page 14