"Mother, don't speak. Save your strength." She looked about wildly. "Is no one bringing a healer?" she shouted in frustration. They were all just staring.
"Angela," Ephix said. "There are none with the skills, not for this."
"You ... came to me that day," Char continued, speaking faster, more rushed, as if she feared she'd never get the words out in time. "You came to me so filled with anguish and guilt, but none of it was ever your fault. Not that day nor the one years earlier. None of it." Char began to cough, spitting up blood.
Years earlier?
Then Char's hand tightened between hers, and the succubus continued. "When I die, the barriers I placed between you and the Other will die with me. You will have to make a choice then: live with what you are or end yourself. You cannot continue this half life."
"And what am I?"
Char closed her eyes and inhaled as if she were steeling herself for the end. They flashed open again, wracked with pain. "You are a source mage, Angela, the first new one I have heard of since before we Fey cast the Fey Sleep over humanity."
"I ... you said you didn't—"
"I lied. One of many lies, and I am sorry. I did so for you."
"What is a source mage?"
Char shook her head, so slight a movement Angie almost missed it. "Ephix will tell you more. I do not have the time now. Please ... leave me with my sister. We have matters to discuss and little time left to do so."
"Go on, Angela," Ephix said. "I will tell you what I may, but not now."
Angie kissed Char's fingers. "I forgive you, Mother. I forgive you for everything and ask that you forgive me as well. I was stupid and childish and angry."
"There is nothing ... to forgive, daughter, only love."
"I love you, too," Angie said, her words ending in an anguished sob as Tec helped her stand and move back, leaving the sisters alone.
Angie buried her face in Tec's chest, tears running down her cheeks. Ephix placed her ear near Char's lips, lips that moved so slowly Angie feared she was already dead, but Ephix shook her head, her posture becoming erect with indignation. Again, Char's lips moved. She's pleading, Angie realized. For what? Then, to her surprise, Ephix, her powerful shoulders slumping, nodded her head in agreement.
Char smiled.
And died.
Something ... fell apart within Angie's head. In a single heart-wrenching moment, she felt the presence of the Other within her again, the presence that had been a part of her for so many years.
It was as if it had never left.
Its surge of satisfaction coursed through her. The Other's voice throbbed in her skull. WE ARE ONE.
Chapter 27
Angie stood alone, shivering despite the summer night's heat, although she wasn't entirely alone; Tec waited nearby, a shadow among the trees, watching her. One of the elves, a specialist in healing magic, had healed her injuries and all the stings. From far off, she heard hundreds of Fey singing, a heartrending death dirge for her adopted mother. Char's people had moved her corpse; Angie didn't know where and didn't ask.
She was empty inside.
No, not empty. A presence shared her life with her—her shade, the Other. It was silent now, but it had communicated earlier, just as it had after the crash.
Or maybe she was crazy.
That might be preferable.
She vaguely remembered the Other working through her once more and casting the fire spell at the demon Char had battled, an impossible spell that no human should be capable of. What was that thing, the Other? What was it really?
When Ephix approached, it was in her human form: a plain, big-eyed young woman wearing a simple toga, her feet bare. As always, Ephix's face was indecipherable. She could have been one of Char's Greek statues.
"Angela," she said softly, almost a whisper. She reached out a hand to touch Angie's face, but Angie drew back sharply. Just for a moment, a trace of something that might have been pain flashed through Ephix's dark eyes, but then it was gone. "There are things we must discuss," she said in a curt tone.
"What am I?" The question was more a demand, her shoulders pulled back, her fear of Ephix diminished somehow.
"To understand that, one must understand the nature of magic, how mages draw and manipulate its forces."
"Mana in the air. All living creatures exude mana, a by-product of their life forces. Mages draw upon that ambient mana and cast spells."
Ephix nodded. "All other mages. You are different. You are a source mage, the first in a hundred years or more."
"I draw life. I don't know how, but sometimes—when I need to—I touch people and..."
"And take their mana, direct from the source, Angela. That’s why your magic is so powerful. The energy you draw is pure and undiluted."
"And my life-sense gift?"
"Linked. Perhaps in the same way that a predator can smell blood."
"So now I'm a predator, like you?" She practically spat the words out.
If Ephix was offended, she gave no indication. "No, Angela. Whatever you are, you are nothing like me. Give thanks for that."
Angie shivered, remembering now who she was insulting. "I don't understand any of this."
"Who could? In a thousand years, there has only ever been one other source mage among the Fey and none among humanity that I know of. The entity you and Char call the Other likely waited within its prison, dormant, for hundreds of years, maybe longer."
"It's a demon."
Ephix shook her head. "Of course it isn't. That was a demon you fought earlier, and whatever the Other is, it isn’t remotely the same thing as that foul stain upon reality. If not for the Other, I do not think we would have driven it away."
"Then what is it?"
"I do not know. Nor did Char. But she and I were agreed on one fact: It is a type of shade, but in the same way that a queen is a woman, a lion is a cat... and a source mage is a mage."
It's not a fire demon? Angie's mind raced. But what then?
"My sister told the truth about the choice you must make. You can accept what you are and possibly gain the power to stand against your enemies, or you can let it destroy you, let fear and guilt hollow you until you end your own life. War is coming, of that I am certain."
"I ... this is too much."
Ephix glanced away in the direction of Tec. "Jaguar Knight," she called out, "come closer. This decision is yours as well as ours."
Ours? Angie stared at Ephix and then Tec as he joined them.
"What of you, Jaguar Knight?" Ephix demanded. "What would your master have of you?"
Tec glanced from Ephix to Angie, his demeanor that of a man who has accepted his own death. "I have to stop the Tzitzime. Whatever Mother Smoke Heart has planned for Erin, I can't let her succeed."
"And where will you go?"
The answer was obvious, even without the benefit of Char's divination magic. "The Bunker," she blurted out. "That's the only place Nathan could go, his secure base."
Tec nodded so softly it was barely noticeable, his emerald eyes like stones.
"You'll die," Angie said, stating the obvious. "He has hundreds of soldiers and his combat mages."
"And if I don't try, then thousands more—maybe hundreds of thousands—will die when whatever Smoke Heart has planned comes to be."
"Then I shall go with you," Ephix stated. "My sister will be avenged."
"It'll be war," Angie said. "The end of the Concord."
"I suspect the Concord was broken this night already. But I’ll go alone, without my vampires or other Fey. I promised my sister I would take care of our people, and I will not bring them to ruin if there is any other way—yet I also cannot allow Chararah's murder to pass without reprisal. Blood calls for blood. Even if I must find him in his dreams, I will kill Nathan Case for his treachery."
Dreams?
Something passed between Tec and Ephix, an unspoken decision. They're going to their deaths, Angie realized, and they know it.
She remembered
the day so many years ago when she and Nathan had first come to Char's school. Before that day, her memories were a blended mess with almost nothing standing out, but there were images, glimpses of a life before Char's school: her father's smiling face, her mother holding her, her older brother teasing her. But the harder she tried to hold to those images, the more they drifted away. She couldn't even remember their deaths. Nothing of that time remained solid. It was as if she were trying to grasp smoke.
By contrast, her memories of Char were solid and filled with love. Her memories of Char flashed before her in an instant: Char adopting her as her own daughter, Char bringing her into her home, Char teaching her magic and swordcraft, Char holding her when she cried, comforting her.
Char lying about exorcising the Other but doing so out of love.
For all her faults, Char had always loved her.
And Erin needed her.
And then she realized something else: Nathan had been lying when he’d offered to bring her back to the Home Guard. Even then, he must have known the Tzitzime would kidnap her, torture her, and kill her. He had gone along with it.
"I'll come," Angie said softly, surprising herself. "I know the Bunker, maybe better than Nathan." And she did. As the Home Guard's S2, she was also the security officer.
Tec and Ephix watched her. Ephix placed a hand on her shoulder. This time Angie didn't flinch away. "Your mother would be proud."
"You'll need my help as well," a soft female voice said from behind them.
They turned to see Astris the forest nymph standing behind them, a long cloth-wrapped object in her small hands. Dried blood splattered her beautiful face, covered her naked chest, but Angie could tell it wasn't hers.
"Why are you here, Astris?" Ephix asked. "My sister sent you on a task."
"The task has ended, Night Mistress," the nymph said, a shudder coursing through her. "My charge is dead, murdered by a demon."
Ephix sighed, her eyes closed. "How could we be so blind to the true threat?"
"I would come with you," Astris added. "It must be stopped."
The nymph's bravery was entirely out of character for her kind, but Ephix simply nodded, accepting her offer of help. But what can a nymph do?
And then Astris unwrapped the cloth around the object she held, exposing Nightfall's ornate hilt. "I've brought you this, Angie."
"It's just past four a.m.," Tec said as he glanced at the stars. "That doesn't give us much time."
Angie stared at him. He can tell time by looking at the stars? A quick glance at her great-grandfather’s watch told her he was right though.
"The Home Guard's Bunker is within the old Naval Air Station Lemoore," he continued. "That's at least a day’s ride by horse." He glanced at Ephix. "You have horses, yes?"
"We do." Ephix inclined her head.
"Wait," said Angie, stepping between them, placing her hand on Tec's chest and staring at Astris still holding her sword. "Let's back up here. Why do you have my sword?"
Astris thrust the hilt at her, and Angie took it, feeling the rush of adrenaline she always did when holding the sword. She drew it from the cloth and held the gilded swept-hilt basket up to her face. When she did, the runes carved into the black metal of the blade lit up with a blue arcane glow, much brighter than they ever had before, enough to light up the others' faces.
"How? What happened to Mads?"
"Dead," Astris answered, a glimmer of pain in her beautiful eyes. "From what I can tell, slaughtered by the same fiend that murdered Mistress Chararah."
"Astris was working for my sister," Ephix stated. "She was serving as her eyes in Sanwa City. My sister was always too trusting of humans, but she was no fool. She just never saw the extent of the rot within Nathan's soul."
"That makes no sense," Angie said weakly, remembering now Mads’s anger with Nathan, his need for a hexed weapon—the only weapon that can penetrate a mage’s shade.
"It makes more sense than any of us realized," Ephix said bitterly. "Nathan always hated my sister, even before she kicked him out of her school."
"Why did she kick him out?" Tec asked.
Ephix sighed, her eyes hard and narrow. "She caught him trying to steal one of her grimoires, the one that taught the art of bonding mages with shades." Her voice grew hard, reminding Angie of what Ephix truly was. "He's finally taken his revenge," Ephix spat.
"It's clear he's working with the Tzitzime," Tec agreed.
Now Angie remembered Nathan's last conversation with her in the hospital. "He told me he can bond shades, that he's teaching his own mages."
"Skills Smoke Heart could easily teach him."
Angie looked away, a part of her dying. Nathan had betrayed her; that was obvious. He had helped murder Char and kidnapped Erin. Oh, Nathan. What have you done? "Those mages that were with him tonight, I don't know them. They're new. But where are the others, the ones that trained here at the school?"
"His hatred of my sister and all things Fey blinds him," Ephix said simply. "I suspect he doesn't trust them. Likely, he believes them tainted by Chararah's teachings. He's purged them, I imagine."
Purged? What the hell does that mean?
Nothing good.
"Okay," Angie said, her mind racing. "It means he doesn't have the support of the entire Home Guard."
"It doesn't mean that at all," Tec stated bluntly. "All it means is that he's consolidated his power."
"Marshal can't be going along with this. He wouldn't."
"An hour ago, you'd have sworn the same about Nathan," Ephix stated coldly. "There is no one we can trust to help us, no one."
And it was the truth. Angie looked away, unable to meet her eyes, her emotions surging. How could I be so blind? "Us then," she finally said. "It has to be us. We go get Erin back, and her brothers."
"That's what I'm trying to get at," said Tec in exasperation. "Even if we rode out right now, we'd be at least ten to twelve hours getting there. That'll be about two p.m."
"And?" Ephix asked.
"Smoke Heart is almost certainly going to move them somewhere safe, somewhere within the Aztalan Empire. We have until the sun rises, and then we can expect an Aztalan transport aircraft to land at the Bunker. Once they take off, we're out of time. At best, I'd give us three, maybe four hours."
He was right about the need for daylight, Angie knew. After the Awakening, few if any aircraft still flew at night. Only the Home Guard with its shielded Shrikes had working electronics for night flight. Most aircraft still flying were so old they'd have been museum pieces when she was born. These days, only spit and prayer kept them in the air. The Aztalans would wait for daybreak to attempt a landing. They’d have to fly over the Democratic Republica Mexicana del Norte—she winced internally, remembering that only a few days ago, she had been convinced the Nortenos were behind everything. The hopelessness was crushing.
"Then it's over. We can't save Erin and her brothers."
"Perhaps we can," Ephix said. "I know a way to travel the distance in an hour. But it is dangerous."
Tec laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. "We're talking about four of us attacking an armed base to save a family of werewolves from an evil blood cult, and you're worried about danger?"
"You don't see the hand of fate here, Jaguar Knight? There are four of us, which is providential, because the mounts we seek will only carry four, one for each of us."
"What mounts?" Angie asked.
"The Mares of Diomedes."
Angie stared at her in confusion. Char had spoken of the mares before, the fastest of all horses—as well as where they dwelt... "That's not possible. The mares are—"
"Yes, Angela, we must enter the Hollows."
Chapter 28
"We can't enter the Hollows," Angie said in a small voice as she stared at Ephix. And they couldn't. It was akin to asking them to swim across the moon. No one could enter the Hollows; certainly not people. Up until this moment, she had always believed the Hollows were a myth anyhow, another of the
tall tales the Fey told to confuse humanity.
"Not easily, perhaps," Ephix said. "But trust me, I can open a path for us. My sister is not the only grandmaster mage in our family. My skills are not as potent as hers were, but they are up to the task. And I have a talisman, a key to the Hollows. The problem is that there are others within the Hollows who will not be pleased with our presence. We must be in and out as quickly as possible. Hence the Mares of Diomedes."
"You're speaking of Lodin, aren't you?" Tec asked. "The leader of the hunt."
"I am, Jaguar Knight, although I am surprised you are aware of him."
"I'm not," snapped Angie, feeling her frustration mount. "I thought the Hollows were a myth. I thought Lodin was a myth."
"We don't have time for a history lesson," Ephix said, "but I shall say this much. The Hollows is a shadow world of this one, a world through which we Fey once moved back and forth with ease. The Fey Sleep was not, as you humans believed, a spell that blinded you to our existence—at least not exactly. The Fey Sleep blocked you from magic, but it also allowed us Fey to slip back and forth between this world and the shadow realm of the Hollows at will. We were never invisible so much as existing in two planes of reality. When the dragons shattered our spell, what they really did was force us from the Hollows and back into this realm."
"I've never heard that before," Angie said. "Nothing remotely like that."
"I have," Tec said.
"It's true," Astris said. "While we could move back and forth"—she shot a nervous glance at Ephix—"and some did, most of us simply lived in the Hollows. Until that day we were unceremoniously dumped back here. Some of us, though, were strong enough to remain within the Hollows. Lodin. He rules the Hollows now. It’s his kingdom."
“One he jealously protects,” said Ephix bitterly.
"This is crazy," Angie said, looking from one to the other. "Insane."
"It may well be, but it is also the only path we can take to save your friend in time. Believe me, Angela, I can open a gate to the Hollows through which we can pass. Once there, I can summon the Mares and beg their aid. If they carry us, we'll cover the distance to this Bunker in less than an hour. Then all that remains is to open another doorway back to this realm."
The Awakened World Boxed Set Page 24