“That’s why the Grimoré have three?” Ángel asked.
Beth shook her head. “I think they have three because that’s how they can control the Grimoré and through them, the vampeen and all the rest. It takes three of them to do it. Which is why a replacement was slotted into place instantly.”
Lindal’s explanation for the ancient name was prodding the buried memory. She made herself leave it alone. “That brings me back to my original question. Why didn’t the Triumvirate kill Remmy, Octavia and Ángel? Why toss them across the continent?”
Remmy had been retrieved from the foot of Mt. Baker in northern Washington, Octavia had found herself on the western edge of Nevada, while Ángel had landed in Los Angeles. All three of them, even Remmy, had been knocked unconscious from the power of the swipe.
“They cannot kill them,” Aria said.
Everyone looked at her. She had been standing on the outside of the group, silently observing as she did. Now, everyone shuffled sideways, so she could be seen by all.
“They can’t kill?” Beth clarified. “Then why not maim them…I’m sorry, Remmy, Octavia, Ángel—it’s not that I wanted any of it to happen. I’m just wondering why, if they’re so damn powerful, they didn’t do more to you. They’ve never shown restraint before.”
“Because they cannot,” Aria repeated.
“Can’t hurt them, or can’t kill them?” Diego asked.
“Yes.”
Diego jerked his chin at her. “How do you know?”
Aria gave Diego a look that reminded Beth of odd occasions when Lindal had looked at her with the same sort of patient tolerance.
“We understand our world,” Aria said. “We have learned how to understand all of it and in doing so, we learned that the pattern repeats in other places.” She glanced at Lindal.
“In our world, too?” Sera asked.
“Yes. Their world, too,” Aria said. Beth knew she meant the Grimoré. Aria never spoke their name.
“In English?” Diego demanded.
Aria frowned. “I am speaking your language.”
“Pretend I have no idea what you meant, just then,” Diego said, with the same barely there patience as her.
Aria considered him, her frown staying in place. “Everything has a place in the world, relative to everything else. Except you.”
“Me?” Then Diego grinned. “Vampires,” he said with a grin. “We’re back to being unnatural again. Great.”
Except that Aria had never indicated that vampires were outside the natural order of things, not even once. “I don’t think she was talking about vampires,” Beth told Diego.
“She is speaking of specialization,” Aithan said.
Everyone turned to look at him. He crossed his arms, the muscles flexing. He was the only one in the bunker wearing a sleeveless shirt, Beth realized. Everyone who could feel the cold was wrapped up. Everyone who didn’t feel the cold was wearing a coat because they were used to looking as if they could.
It was as if Aithan ran hotter than everyone else, which might actually be the case. She knew next to nothing about demons and their creations and with the power of the trinity added in, there was no way to tell what could happen.
Declan looked up from Octavia’s arm. “Of course. We’re the only ones who don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Beth prompted.
“Specialize,” Aithan replied. “Every single species on the planet except for humans has adapted and evolved into highly specialized forms, suited to their environment and designed for maximum survival rates. Snakes found it easier to give up legs and slither instead, for whatever reasons. Giraffes could reach better food if they had longer necks. Mosquitos adapted to a diet of blood and living off warm blooded creatures. Humans are the only generalists in the animal kingdom. They eat anything that grows, make their own food and adapt the environment to suit them, instead of the other way around. They change their behavior depending on circumstances, using a huge brain to process and make decisions. They communicate in a dozen different ways and use tools to enhance conditions. They play. They tell stories. They are highly adaptable, not just through evolution across generations and thousands of years, but also individually, from day to day.”
“I think what Aria meant was that the Grimoré are not generalists. They’ve specialized,” Declan said and dropped the scissors and tweezers onto the tray sitting on the edge of the table.
Beth looked at Aria, wondering if she had followed this conversation.
Aria seemed to sense Beth’s gaze, for she looked at her with the steady, calm gaze that was her usual. “Yes. They specialized. They can’t kill. They can’t fight.”
“They use the vampeen for that,” Beth finished.
“They flicked us across the country because that’s what they do,” Octavia said. “They move things about.”
“They must be feeling pretty threatened by us generalists, then,” Zack said.
“No,” Aria said.
“Thanks for the morale boost,” Diego muttered.
“No fear at all?” Blake asked.
“Do they even feel emotions?” Beth added.
Aria nodded. Then she pointed at Octavia, Remmy and Ángel. “They know. They felt it.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “I was too busy trying to get a clear shot.”
Remmy shook his head. “I barely looked at the triumvirate. That was not my job.”
Ángel was frowning though, staring at the floor. Then he lifted his head. “They were angry. More.”
“More than angry?” Diego asked.
Ángel said something in Spanish. Diego raised his brows.
“Diego?” Beth prompted.
“A white hot fury,” Diego said, “with fear underneath it, which made it burn like the inside of the sun.”
“Good,” Wyatt said. “Pile it on. I hope they’re having nightmares about us.”
There was a murmur of approval. Beth felt uneasy, though. Fear could make even the most grounded person hit out blindly and the Grimoré had demonstrated over and over that reasonableness was not a part of their makeup. A fear that drove a white hot anger…what response might that prompt?
* * * * *
Beth got her answer twelve hours later. After she had told everyone to settle down and rest, while they considered their next move, Lindal had walked her over to their cramped cubicle and ordered her to sleep. As it was still only late afternoon, Beth tried to protest.
“You know I could make you sleep,” Lindal warned.
All the usual arguments rose to her lips. There was too much to do, she needed to plan, there were vampires and hunters and a whole recruited army of allies out there that needed coordination and direction.
She kept coming back to the idea in the back of her mind that she couldn’t quite excavate. Sleep might help it lift to the surface. For sure, it would not emerge if she kept scraping at it and she might push it away altogether with her prodding.
So she pulled off her boots and lay down. She couldn’t possibly sleep. It was four in the afternoon. She could lie with her eyes closed and let her thoughts drift, though. It would be as restful as sleep.
She curled up on her side and Lindal dropped the quilt over her and left.
Zack shook her again and Beth blinked. It was very dark, the way the “natural” light that Aria and her people generated inside the warehouse would diminish to match the day outside.
She was still lying on her side. She hadn’t moved.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
Zack settled on the mattress next to her. “There has been an incursion.”
“Where?”
“Columbia, South Carolina.”
“It’s a medium-sized city,” Beth pointed out. “Where in Columbia?”
Zack hesitated.
“Zack?”
“All of it,” he said, his tone bleak. “The whole city.”
* * * * *
By the time Beth got her boots on again, she could hear others moving out b
eyond the blankets shielding their cubicle. “What’s the time?” she asked Zack, who was still a dark shape against the blanket, although the light seemed to be getting brighter out there. There was more conversation, too. It sounded as if most of it was happening over where the communications stuff was sited.
“Just gone four a.m.,” Zack said.
She had slept twelve hours without moving a muscle. She resented the loss of time, yet she had clearly needed the rest. She didn’t know how long it would be before she got to sleep again and suspected it would be a while, so perhaps it was just as well.
“The whole city?” she said to Zack. “Everyone?”
“Everyone who couldn’t hide well enough or run fast enough.” His tone was still bleak. “You know the vampeen, how fast they can move, how good they are at sniffing out food. There’s…not many left.”
A part of her wanted to weep with the degree of loss, the trauma and pain those who were left behind would be feeling right now. For humans, this would be an unprovoked attack, blind-siding them. They had no idea who was attacking them, or why.
Yet in the middle of her belly was a hard, hot core, giving her strength and building a low grade fury that got her onto her feet and kept her spine straight. “They’ll pay for this,” she told Zack.
“I imagine that was what they were thinking when they pointed the vampeen at Columbia,” Zack said.
She shook her head. “No,” she said flatly. “They don’t get to take out a city of innocents because of something we did. They can come after us. They can try to slaughter us if they dare, but this is unforgiveable.”
Zack sighed. “Okay, then.” His voice was low. “Lindal is trying to stay on top of the phones and the messages. He needs help, though.”
“Let’s go.”
It looked as though everyone was gathered around the row of laptops. There was at least one person typing on every one of them. Lindal had recruited help. He was standing at the end, where all the burner phones were, talking into one of them. Blake and Aithan were using two others, while Declan stood next to them, his head down, listening.
When Beth reached him, Declan grimaced. “I’d help if I can, only I can’t use phones. Not for a call. No one can hear me.”
Lindal turned to her, dropping the phone in his hand back onto the crates.
“What’s the general tenor of the media response?” Beth asked him.
“They’re just starting to talk about it now. So far, it’s a big mystery…or that’s how the authorities are trying to spin it. Only, the networks are interviewing survivors, the ones they can find. They have a different story.” Lindal grimaced. “I don’t think anyone believes this is a terrorist attack. Not a human one, anyway. They just can’t make themselves say the words.”
“Their understanding of the natural world is starting to shift,” Aria said. “Soon, they will acknowledge the truth.”
“That is when they will react,” Lindal added. “Overreact, most likely.”
“They will massively overreact,” Beth said. “That’s what frightened people do.” She looked at the screens on the row of laptops, all of them different sizes and all of them showing reporters and police cars with their lights flashing, ambulances and fire trucks, people in various stages of hysteria, all happening in the dark.
“Night time. They attacked when humans are at their most vulnerable,” Beth said.
Aria gasped and gripped her head with long fingers.
Everyone around her turned to look, surprise skittering over their faces. No one had seen Aria look anything but serene. Beth had seen her frown, before. The expression had barely wrinkled her brow.
Now Aria looked as though she was in pain. “It comes!” Aria gasped.
“What does?” Beth demanded, her heart leaping. She lifted her voice. “Everyone! Watch the entries!”
They fanned out, covering the three big doors into the warehouse and the two man-sized doors.
Aria lifted her head and turned to look at the blank expanse of unbroken wall that ran along the west side of the warehouse. “He is here.”
Beth spun to face the wall, turning in time to see the wall shiver, like ripples moving over water, radiating out from a single location.
Then a figure stepped through the wall and moved toward them. He was nearly seven feet tall, with damp flesh that looked as if it had been immersed in water for a century or two. Black eyes with red rims and red irises.
Helidoro.
“They’ve learned how to breach our shield,” Zack said bitterly.
“He is not here. Only his…presence,” Aria said.
“Look at his feet,” Lindal said.
Helidoro was walking in mid-air, his feet six inches above the ground. It looked as if he was walking on solid ground, except that he walked straight through the tents and cubicles and the plank benches, as if they were not there.
He stopped six feet away from Beth and inclined his head. His lipless mouth pulled into a grimace that she assumed was his version of a smile. “My masters have sent me to ensure you understand.”
“Destroying a complete city was clear enough,” Zack said heavily.
“No, he means why they did it,” Beth said. She could feel trembling starting up somewhere in her gut, spreading out through her limbs, making her feel weak.
Helidoro gave another of his ghastly smiles. “You believe you have found a weakness. You think to take advantage of that. The…city, the nest of humans, is a demonstration that this is not so. It is also a warning.”
“Fuck!” Rhys breathed, sounding awed and horrified.
Beth realized all of the trinities had returned to the center of the room where Helidoro stood. They had formed a circle around him and every single one of them had their weapons drawn.
Not that it would do any good at all. Helidoro gave one of the little flickers that made it look as though he was a transmission, which in a way, he was. There was no blade, no bullet that could touch him.
“A warning about what?” Beth asked. There was a coppery taste in her mouth. Adrenaline. Her chest was hurting with the frantic thud of her heart, too.
“We made the offer once before. Now we will enforce it. Leave us to harvest freely. We will take only what we need, as we need it. Stop us, try to defeat us and we will reap one of your cities in return. Continue your resistance and we will take everything and leave this planet a barren ball, bereft of any life. Not even your elementals will recover from the razing we deliver.” His gaze flickered toward Aria.
Then, with one last grimace, his image flickered, then disappeared.
Chapter Eighteen
Beth glanced around the big circle of trinities. Everyone was looking at her as they put away their weapons. She could see the tension in them, the need to speak. They had been given a voice—she had encouraged them by listening to them and sharing her thoughts. She couldn’t shut them down now.
“Aithan?” she said softly. Aithan’s responses were always the most measured of anyone’s here. All that time studying philosophy had given him a unique perspective.
“It’s a pretty pickle,” he said. “You have to ask if it is fair that humans, who still have no idea what is really happening here, should pay for something that we do.”
“It’s coercion,” Diego said flatly. “They’re holding humans hostage, to force us to the Grimoré will.”
“They would have done this sooner or later,” Zoe said. “They’re just saying it’s punishment for attacking them.”
“You figure they’re going to take down all eight point four million people in New York city sooner? Or later?” Wyatt asked her. “What about L.A?”
“Chicago.” Cairo added.
“Houston.”
“D.C.”
“Erie.”
Rhys’ contribution made only a couple of people smile.
“Try Vancouver,” Cole suggested. “Or Mexico City. How long before they reach South America and all the massive urban sprawls there?”
Octavia thrust her shoulder in between Diego and Remmy, who stood with his arms crossed, a deep frown on his face. “We have to tell the humans! We must warn them.”
“You can’t,” Sera said softly. “As soon as you do, the Elves will shut down their portal and we need them. We can’t win this without them.”
“I’m happy to try,” Noemi said. “Isn’t what the Elves are doing another form of coercion? They’re forcing us to behave a certain way.”
“The Grimoré have been here for three years,” Alexander said. “They’ve had time to breed hundreds of thousands of vampeen. You really want to go up against an army of that size with half our forces missing?”
“I know I’d rather try than depend upon someone who isn’t all in with me,” Noemi shot back. “Besides, once we tell the humans, then won’t they want to fight with us? Just think what an M9 shoulder mounted rocket launcher would do to the vampeen.”
“You mean, the vampeen who are really humans who don’t want to be there in the first place?”
Beth wasn’t sure who asked the question. Noemi’s shoulders dropped in reaction.
“If normal humans were involved, half our informal vampire rangers would melt away,” Zack said. “Vampires don’t want to be exposed any more than elves do, but for different reasons.”
“Don’t you think their fear is unwarranted?” Declan asked quietly. “Humans have adapted to refugees, gay rights, equality for women. They can even consider creationist biology at the same time they’re studying evolution, without their heads exploding. After the Grimoré and vampeen, vampires will be an easy step for them.”
“The one woman lieutenant in my precinct is still paid below the level of men who have been lieutenants for less time than her,” Blake said, “and that’s just my personal experience. Then there’s the Ku Klux Klan, fundamentalists of every stripe and gay bashers.” He gave Declan a wry smile. “I think the vampires are right to fear being revealed to humans. They’re better off passing as one.”
A dozen voices lifted in protest. Beth wondered if they were aware that the rough circle they had used to hem in Helidoro was getting tighter and tighter and at the same time their voices were rising.
Terra's Victory (Destiny's Trinities Book 7) Page 17