by Louisa Lo
While so far the Blind Eye spell was doing an adequate job of preventing us from being heard and seen, getting past the reapers was another matter. How were we going to cruise by people who walked the line between life and death, and from whose eyes nothing escaped?
“Well. I figured we’d come across reapers at some point, so I came prepared.” Bonaventure the Third, reverted to his true form, took a tube of gooey black paste from his coat. “Here, slather this on your face.”
I took a slab of the black paste and sniffed at it. It smelled like paint and rotten bananas, and it had a slow burning sensation. “What is this?”
“Ground maggots from the Grimmian Forest.” Seeing the appalled look on my face, Wistari explained, “The only thing that could confuse a creature of both life and death is its familiar. Maggots feast on dead things, but in doing so they create new building blocks of life.”
“Isn’t the Grimmian variety poisonous?” I asked.
“Yes, if you have it on for too long it’ll stop your heart,” Bonaventure the Third confirmed. “Which is why Wistari, Naracion, and I are staying here. Our body mass is less than yours, and the poison is faster acting for us.”
Fir and I smeared the maggot paste on our foreheads and cheeks like it was war paint. With that much of the paste on our bodies, the slow burning sensation had intensified to a sharp, searing pain. It was as if the maggots were still alive and attempting to bite their way into the blood vessels under my skin.
“Take this. For later.” Bonaventure the Third offered me and Fir each a handkerchief. “We’ll try to confuse the reapers’ senses further from this end.”
Knowing we didn’t have much time, Fir and I took the offering and walked up to the reapers. My eyes began to water, and I fought to keep the tears in my eyes. Mixing the paste with my tears was a sure way to spread the poison over a larger area of my skin. It felt like there was a ton of rocks crushing my chest, and worse than the physical pain was the onslaught of grim despair, a voice urging me to lay down and die.
I kept walking.
Just before my vision was lost I got close enough to see the reapers looking right through us and knew we were successful in our invisibility.
Fir took my hand and guided me past the reapers and onward.
“We’re in the tunnels now,” Fir whispered. “The reapers can’t see us anymore.”
I let go of his hand, took out the handkerchief, and wiped off every trace of the maggot paste off my body. My vision returned, the pressure on my chest eased, and gone were the negative emotions of ultimate doom.
I glanced at Fir and gasped. There was blood oozing out of his ears.
“It looks worse than it really is,” he assured me while wiping the blood off. “You had it bad with the eyes, I had it bad with the ears. We all got our weak spots.”
Fir and I continued walking, knowing our allies would be waiting for our return. I felt feeble and unsettled, as my body processed through the poison that managed to get into it. There was a sluggishness to my heartbeat I didn’t like. I felt utterly exhausted, like I’d just run a marathon.
I hoped Gregory, Serafina, and Pedro were faring better on their end. Thinking about Gregory got my heart beating a little faster, or more normal in this case. Who knew he would be good physiotherapy?
“How’s your heart?” I asked Fir.
“Better than yours, probably.” Fir rubbed his chest ruefully. “Must be all the laughter keeping it strong.”
I was a little afraid of encountering another labyrinth of tunnels, but thankfully we now seemed able to go on a straight path. Good. I would hate to do rounds of eeny, meeny, miny, moe and get lost as a result.
After another few minutes of walking, a sense of pure dread threatened to overwhelm me. Judging from Fir’s pale face, he was feeling it, too. There was a pungent energy signature in the air that smelled like antiseptic, as if we were at a human hospital and the place was rubbed down with bleach. Too unnaturally clean. Too sterile. Too clinical.
The powerful energy signature was coming from around the next corner. Someone was probing the air in the surrounding area with unrelenting tenaciousness. The scan swept through us, actively seeking out any stray energy vibes or abnormal happenings. It was different from the good old standard detection method any respectable vengeance demon would employ. There was something ultra-no-nonsense and overzealous about it. No mercy and no hesitation.
I had no idea why the Blind Spot was able to withstand such an unforgiving scrutiny, but the probe couldn’t lock on to us, but simply maintained a constant, nerve wrecking broad sweep.
Well, time to bite the bullet.
I took a deep breath and turned the corner, expecting to see a group of the most advanced arch vengeance demons waiting for us.
What the heck?
There was no group of arch vengeance demons around the corner working together to probe the passageway.
Three cribs formed a triangle in the tight tunnel, leaving would-be passersby no room but to squeeze around them. In each crib was a newborn vengeance demon, a month old at most, fast asleep on their sides, their wings miniature and undisguised. The art of disguising one’s wing was a skill learned later in life.
There were repeated patterns drawn on the ground comprised of a dog’s head with snakes for hair like Medusa. And three carved words: Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These were the names of the three Furies, ancient avengers of broken promises and violent crimes, keepers of justice and order. According to legend, they were the founders of the vengeance demons race, like Mitochondrial Eve was to modern-day humans, or Fleur to the tricksters.
There was an ancient belief that vengeance newborns were the most connected with the Cosmic Balance, and they would cry out if they sensed injustices.
Three cribs, three newborns, the patterns and words on the floor. The whole set up was meant to invoke the spirit of the Furies to enhance the natural senses of the babies, to use them as a security alarm system.
Let me say it again. The Council had sunk so low as to using babies to work security. All just to guard Eldon? Really?
Was this why Grandma couldn’t come to us earlier and why she sent Sui-Ling instead? Was this the something she said she was looking into, why she couldn’t join us? I totally couldn’t see Grandma being on board with this, no matter how ruthless she was. There were certain lines you just don’t cross.
Grandma must be in the heart of the Council now, dealing with the lot of them. I had to go to her.
But how did we pass the kids if it meant hurting them? How could I do that if that was the price?
“We’re not going to hurt them.” Fir elbowed me, as if reading my mind. “These vengeance kids are already either drugged or enchanted.”
“What?” I jumped.
“Take a more careful look. That deep sleep isn’t natural.”
“How do you know? You’re a trickster.”
“Who do you think got stuck babysitting you when Mom and Dad went on date nights? You think I wouldn’t know real vengeance baby sleep if I saw it? The wings have this twitching and spreading movement, as if the babies dream of taking flight and wreaking vengeance havoc before they can even walk or talk. Your dad assured me that all newborns from his race sleep like that.”
Now that Fir mentioned it, the miniature wings were tamely settled on the babies’ backs. Damn, those kids must be really out.
“That means somebody who’s also following the high judge had already disabled the alarm and passed through here.” Horror forced its way through my weakened heart. “We’ve kept a fair bit of distance between us and the high judge after getting off the boat. Someone else must’ve been in front of us. Or maybe he or she was even flying above us on the boat, just like the Off-Blacks.”
I ran forward, squeezing past the tight space between the cribs. Then I came to a halt and looked back at the babies. Fir waved me away. “Go, Megan. I’ll take care of them. Maybe a tickle from my trickster beard is enough to sc
are these babies awake. It sure worked for you. Once I’m outta here I’ll send them to safety. Anyway, run.”
I did.
I jogged through the tunnel, abandoning discretion now. I had to assume whoever was in front of me had already either triggered or disabled the other alarms. Either way, the time for stealth had passed.
I came to a stop in front of a bunker-like metal door. I listened. No sound came from the other side. I steeled myself, turned the handle, and pushed in.
I was wrong. The baby alarm disabler wasn’t following High Judge Advocatus.
He was High Judge Advocatus.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Council and the Greys
I WALKED INTO A room that looked like a cross between a medieval torture chamber and a mad scientist’s lab.
Eldon was lying unconscious on a metal slab, with instruments all around him like he was in a sizable operation theatre of some human medical drama. In stark contrast, ancient symbols, created with the same paint and brush strokes as the ones by the three cribs were scrawled on the floor surrounding him. A single fluorescent lightbulb was installed on the ceiling, but it wasn’t turned on. Instead, the room was lit by a few dozen candles, placed in tarnished silver candlesticks that the Phantom of the Opera would be proud to have in his lair.
Unlike those by the cribs, the symbols surrounding Eldon were glowing, casting the entire slab in a cylinder of blinding light. On the ceiling, where the light beam hit, was the Council’s half-formed passage that was giving the Dualsingian plane all those lovely earthquakes. It looked like what any cross-dimensional passage should look like at the beginning of its formation—a piece of normal space warped like a vortex of a whirlpool, except that it couldn’t move past this stage. It was trapped at half open, with the space involved set in a constant pattern of twisting and untwisting itself.
“Hello, Megan.” High Judge Advocatus revealed himself with a dry smile on his face. Now I wished I hadn’t sent Esme away. I could use the back up. On the other hand, being discovered like this was the exact reason why I didn’t want her further involved.
“High Judge Edbert Llewellyn Advocatus.” I took my time addressing the guy by his full name. Slowly enunciating each syllable. Anything to drag things out. I had no way of alerting Serafina’s group that I’d run into problems. I could only hope to distract the high judge long enough so that they could complete their work without interference. “How are you? How’s the Council rocking? That changeling there is looking good. How’s the interrogation coming along?”
High Judge Advocatus frowned. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”
“Of course it does. Trickster blood, remember?” I knew I was being totally ridiculous, but what else could I do? I couldn’t beat the guy. All my allies were busy elsewhere. It was obvious I didn’t come to the Tree and get lost trying to find the ladies’ bathroom. I had tried to hide Eldon before, for Hades’s sake.
“Do you know the trouble you’re in, young lady?”
“I got this far, didn’t I?”
“Only because I allowed you to pass through the Furies.”
Realization dawned. “You mean it was you who disabled the kids they were channeling through?”
“Of course. And in case you’re wondering, my action has the full support of the Council.”
I cast my eyes around for something, anything, I could use to gain an advantage. Instead, I saw more and more Council members as they appeared in the room, until almost all fourteen members were there. Including Macallister Sebastian Sumpsi, Minister of the Vengeance Ethics Commission, Gregory’s father.
Everyone was there, except Grandma, longtime honorary member of the Council.
A chill pierced deep into my heart. “Where’s my grandmother?”
High Judge Advocatus chuckled. “Now the little trickster has finally decided to become serious.”
I clenched my fists at my sides, barely containing my rage. “Where is she?”
“She left. She abandoned you, Megan. She knew you were coming, but she left you for us to deal with.”
No, that couldn’t be right. She loved me. I’d doubted Gran’s love time and again, the last time being when I was tricked by the Greys. But she had never failed me, even when I didn’t know I could rely on her. I wasn’t about to trust the words of an arrogant ass like High Judge Advocatus over a lifetime of love.
“What did you do to her?” I narrowed my eyes on him. If Grandma didn’t abandon me, and she wasn’t here, then what happened? What could possibly explain her absence from the very Council of which its modern version she’d helped shape?
High Judge Advocatus smiled. “Alright, enough games. We’re at the close anyway, dear.”
Who in the last two days had more or less said the exact same words to me?
The Fake Sui-Ling, by my parents’ birdbath, before taking Eldon with her.
I stared at High Judge Advocatus. “You were the one who masqueraded as Sui-Ling!”
“As I said, enough games. I have to thank you, Megan.” High Judge Advocatus bowed formally to me. “Without you we would never have come this far.”
“What the heck are you talking about?”
“We ran into each other when you visited my niece, remember?”
When I went to enlist Serafina’s help in finding Eldon, upon Gregory’s request.
“You listened in on our conversation,” I breathed. That was how the fake Sui-Ling was able to replace the real one and get to my parents’ house so fast. In trying to help Eldon, I was the one who set the Greys on his trail, which inadvertently got him captured and tortured. Irony was a bitchy fairy I intended to slap.
When I survived this.
High Judge Advocatus had to be a member of the Greys then. But he was also a Council member. Just how did that work? Especially since he didn’t seem to be acting against the Council’s wishes.
I’d doubted Gran’s love time and again, the last time being when I was tricked by the Greys.
Like how the high judge was trying to get me to believe the worst of her just now.
“There has never been an alliance between the Council and the Greys, has there?” I looked around the room; at each of the Council members Grandma had called friends and allies for decades. “You’re not working with them. You are them. You were one of theirs all along. That’s why you weren’t all that hot on pursuing all those leads that Dan Pillar provided on the Greys.”
The extremists who wanted vengeance demons to stand by the Absolute Good and rule the world with an iron fist, and the governing body of the said vengeance demons, were one and the same. Great.
All humor faded from High Judge Advocatus’s face. “You’re sharper than I’ve given you credit for. Your grandmother came to the same conclusion. Too bad I wasn’t able to finish her off before she escaped.”
Finish her off? My heart squeezed painfully. Just how badly was Gran hurt? She must be in horrible shape if she couldn’t even warn me about this trap.
And a trap this was. I had no doubt of it now.
“What the hell do you want from me?” I spit out. I directed my question to High Judge Advocatus, aka Fake Sui-Ling, who seemed to be the leader of the group of traitors.
And what traitors they were, to the very Concord they’d sworn to protect. I mean, I knew they were strict about following rules, and that they were assholes in general. But to bring about the destruction of existence as we knew it? I thought deep down there was decency in them. I thought working for the Council meant I was fighting for something. That was why I worked so hard to get into Demon U, to be licensed by their system, to play their game and measure my own success in accordance to their standards.
Suddenly, my previous worry about not being able to go back to vengeance co-op seemed laughably trivial.
“Not just from you, but also from my niece. We need you both. Where is she, anyway?” The high judge looked around as if Serafina would magically show up. “The Eldon that Serafina last talked t
o was actually controlled by us. The poor lovesick fool never knew the difference.”
My jaw dropped. “How could that be? Listening to Serafina, there had been no doubt in her mind that the Eldon she saw was his true self.”
“Oh that.” High Judge Advocatus waved his hand. “We’d managed to gain some access to his memory. Enough to mimic him. The principle is the same as when I assumed Sui-Ling’s identity. All the talk about being willing to forsake the claim to the throne and asking her to leave him to his fate? That was all us. It took an idealist to believe something that naïve. Believe me, dear, once you taste power, it’s not something you give up on.”
“So your plan was to get Serafina all mushed up with a self-sacrificing Eldon, so she’d come straight here to save him?”
Well, they thought wrong. Serafina chose to follow the plan the Council thought she would reject. She had gone to Dualsing on Eldon’s advice and left me to rescue him.
Damn, what kind of mess had Serafina, Gregory, and Pedro walked into with that kind of misinformation? What kind of mess was I in the middle of?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In Serafina’s Shoes: Advisor
“LADY SERAFINA.” TRUST THE Dragon placed himself between me and Deirdre, forcing me back a couple of steps with his sheer size. The dragon was miniature no more, in his full glory of shiny scales and golden aura. It outshone even the flood lights.
I nearly stumbled due to my injured ankle. Trust caught me by my sleeve using his teeth. “My apologies, but I cannot allow you to kill the queen.”
He lifted the semi-unconscious Deirdre and gently adjusted her into a more dignified position. “As I said before, we must allow the heir of Dualsing to carry out her destiny as it was foretold.”
“Her destiny? You mean her reign of terror?” I looked at Trust disbelievingly. “To what end? So she can continue to hurt and kill? So she can make her people thrive by kidnapping more children? That would only ensure support for the Council’s war effort and drag out this conflict. To what end are you willing to see your own predictions through?”