A Prizzoli rolled to his feet, blades in hand, and moved away from the opening. Another came through and took a place at the other side. Then a third, stepping away and to the front.
A figure in red emerged. Her hair took on a purple cast that matched the cave walls. Her dark skin, though wrinkled, was smoother than it should have been. She smiled, and it was gentle. Her words were not. “Return Brika’s Sacrifice or I will destroy you.”
Chapter 19
BLUE
Blue laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Really? Bad villain dialogue?”
The Chief Elder—no, Shardon—tilted its head. Blue had spoken in English, and the villain she’d spoken to didn’t understand. Fair enough.
Levi moved away from her and focused on the guard to the right. “Brini. What are you doing?”
Brini—she recognized him as one of her own guides—glared at Levi and spat at him in the Prizzoli tongue. Levi gestured and rattled something off, growing more vehement with each word. Blue didn’t think she’d ever seen him like this. When he was done, the other guard stared at him wide-eyed. The two other guards hadn’t moved from their positions, but the one in front shifted restlessly.
The guard on the left screamed. Garfield had stalked the edges of the chamber, coming at him from the side. A low pile of stones rested there, giving him the ideal hiding place. Now the piquet had launched at the guard, his claws—little but lethal—digging into his thighs and hooking in the flesh. Garfield tore away and dove behind the rock pile once more. A dark satisfaction came from the piquet. He had defended his territory, his pack, as he was supposed to. Blue sent him thoughts of appreciation and an admonishment to be careful; not all here fought with claws—steel or otherwise.
The guard in front spun to his injured fellow, and he moved to cover the opening in the defense around the Chief Elder.
“Blue.” The whisper just reached her.
Phillip stood in the center of the circle of crystals, Brika cupped in his hands. “Blue, we need to be here.”
She shook her head and focused again on Shardon. If the elders knew what these plinar were, and they must, no way was Shardon falling for that.
It tilted its head. “I am simply trying to save my people. Phillip has stolen an artifact that must remain intact and secure. Otherwise, destruction could once again be visited on us. I cannot allow that to happen.”
So reasonable, those words.
“What if it has already escaped?” Trevon asked as he moved forward, blocking Blue’s view.
Jason joined him. “And found its way to a new host?”
Its eyes widened. “Is that what he told you? Has he not already proven his instability and his obsession with the girl? Has he not already murdered dozens of people? And you would trust his claims?”
Movement in Blue’s periphery caught her attention, but she didn’t look over. Felix or Mo’ata, possibly Forrest. She hadn’t seen where they went when the guards came through. She wanted to turn back to look for them, but she also didn’t want to risk giving them away.
Levi stepped forward, closer to Brini. He did not draw his blades, though his hands stayed close to his sides, ready. “Shardon did escape.” His voice was back to the steady, calming tones. “Think. When did the trouble start? When did the dissatisfaction grow? Phillip was the end of it, not the beginning.” He said one more thing back in his native language. He didn’t take his eyes from Brini.
Brini swallowed and took a step back, closer to his Chief Elder. Levi wasn’t going to be able to convince the guards. And there were probably more on the way.
“It was clever,” Trevon said, taking another step forward. “Who looks at a leader defending her people and sees evil?”
A sly smile crossed Shardon’s features, there and gone so quickly Blue doubted she had truly seen it. “Young man, please do not fall for the deceptions of one such as Phillip. Much can hide behind a pretty face and earnest words.”
Trevon laughed. A deep belly laugh that doubled him over. The Chief Elder frowned. When he recovered, Trevon wiped his eyes. “Oh, believe me, I know all about deceptive faces and earnest words, lady. Or man. Or it. Whatever.” Mocking laced his words on the last bit.
That’s when the cubs sprang. Vivi had joined her brother behind the rock pile on the left. As she went for the remaining guard on that side, Garfield bounded over the mound and launched directly at the Chief Elder.
He was two feet of big eyes, fluffy fur, and razor mini-claws, and he would save his pack. That was what he sent. He would save them. An image, strong and sharp, hit her. It was Blue, but not alone. Beside her was Forrest and Mo’ata, and behind them was Felix, Levi, and Trevon and—fainter—Jason. Vivi lay at Forrest’s feet. This was his pack. They were his. And the evil one would not harm them.
Blue cried out.
Vivi caught the guard in the face, taking him to the ground. The remaining guard, Brini, turned away from Levi and toward the movement, his blade swiping out. Garfield aimed for the old woman’s throat.
Purple coalesced around the Chief Elder—Shardon—into a swirling aura. A tendril shot out, catching the cub in his chest. He went limp in midair, and Shardon spun away.
“No!” Blue launched herself forward, dodging Trevon and Jason, flew over the guard Vivi still clawed at, and dove for her baby.
“Crap.” Not-Phillip charged out of the circle, Brika still clutched in his hand. An aura formed around him as well, and everyone in the chamber slumped. Trevon shook his head and reached out, only for his arm to fall to his side. A thud came from behind one of the larger piles of rock to the right of the entrance, and Felix staggered out from behind it. Forrest, beside the circle of crystal plinar, fell to his knees. Mo’ata took a few steps toward Blue but couldn’t move his limbs fast enough to reach her.
Blue knelt next to Garfield at the feet of Shardon and gathered the little body to her. Faint feelings of anxiety, disappointment, and shame reached her. “Shhh, no, you did good, you did good, baby.”
Rage filled her, sending her heart pounding. Her thoughts focused on one thing. “You fucking bitch.” She gently set Garfield aside and rose. She stood only a few feet from Shardon, from the life-sucking monster. She was only a few feet away, and she was about to do something completely idiotic.
The monster smiled, mocking. “I meant to kill it. It is surprisingly resilient. Hmmm… Next time.”
Blue pulled a blade and leapt.
LEVI
He wasn’t fast enough. That was the thought that played through his mind. Not fast enough, not fast enough.
Maybe Brini was right, maybe he was Formangi now, unclean. Maybe he had been corrupted by his time away. Maybe…
But he had to trust his own eyes, his own observations, his own ability to sense the crystals. Any lingering doubts he may have had were wiped away when Garfield launched himself at the Chief Elder. No, she was no longer the woman he had known growing up among the guards. Shardon.
Blue knelt on the floor near Shardon, the red robes of the Chief Elder sweeping the chamber floor mere feet from the girl. She set the cub aside, her face pale and still, a cold rage in her eyes. She looked up the Chief Elder, and moved.
“No!” He was too far away.
Strength drained from Levi’s limbs, and a blur of purple shot toward the Chief Elder and Blue.
Brini threw his knife. Levi flung himself forward with what strength remained to him, knocking the other guard to the floor, but he was too late. Too slow. Not fast enough.
The blade flew. Whether it had been aimed for Blue or Shardon, he didn’t know. But it found a target.
Phillip grunted as the blade entered the flesh of his throat. Levi hadn’t seen him, hadn’t thought the boy could move like that. Brika’s Sacrifice clutched in his right hand, Phillip had placed the crystal against the Chief Elder’s cheek even as he’d grabbed Blue’s raised arm.
The three of them froze in some sort of horrific tableau. Phillip and the Chief Elder—Shardon—shini
ng with shades of purple, Brika between them, blood running down Phillip’s throat and chest. Blue caught, mouth open in a snarl, pale and almost… insignificant next to the blazing beings.
Energy rushed back into him, life and strength, even as the trio near the chamber entrance slumped to the ground.
Chapter 20
PHILLIP
He was dying.
Let me fix it.
The voice was back, the one that whispered of dreams and power and wishes and worlds at his feet.
His left hand clenched around an arm, thin, almost fragile in his grasp. The skin was smooth and soft, lean muscle underneath.
Blue.
It is time. Brika’s whispers were different from that other being, the one who had been with him from the beginning.
A third presence, this one dark and old, seething with dreams of death and pain that masked a pit of endless fear. Boy, let go. Then it whispered to the first being promises of its own.
It is time, Phillip. We must do this now, or not at all. Brika opened her consciousness and took them, all of them, inside of her.
Phillip blinked. Or he thought he did. Did he even have a body? What was this?
“This is me.” A woman, her dark skin dusted in gold, stepped beside him. A flowing skirt and loose top in shades of gold and green echoed the colors of her eyes. She was beautiful, and her voice…
“Brika?”
A gentle smile. “Yes.” It fell away, and her gaze moved beyond him. “We are not alone.” She leaned in. “Please remember there must be a sacrifice. I can no longer contain him on my own.”
Three figures coalesced in front of him. One looked just like Phillip, but the eyes were wrong and he seemed… insubstantial. The second was a man swathed in robes of red and purple, gold stitching and embroidery swirling along the folds. He was tall and broad, and his smile promised pain.
The third was… Blue. “The hell are we? Phillip?” Her wide eyes fixed on him, and she swallowed. “What did you do?”
Brika stepped forward. “What had to be done. We needed a sacrifice. This one,” she said and flicked a finger at the tall man, “can not be allowed to range free once more.”
“Brika, pet, you don’t mean that. How many years did we have together? I gave you the world. I would have given you more if you had not betrayed me.” Thunder, the promise of a storm designed to leave destruction in its wake, sounded in that voice.
She sighed. “You never gave. You never knew how. You only took.”
Shardon smiled. “As is my right.”
Blue crossed her arms, then let them drop. One hand clutched the hilt of a dagger sheathed in blue leather. “Phillip?” she whispered.
He knew what Brika wanted, and he knew what Shardon feared—Blue as the sacrifice. Blue, who would fight for those she cared about, who was so sure of what was right. Who shone even in a crowded room, like a star to guide the way. Who…
Who loved someone else. Who loved Forrest.
She was supposed to be ours. She is ours. Not-Phillip whispered to him.
Understanding and sorrow moved through him. He stood there, cradled in the light that was Brika, separate from the other self, from everything that had been pulling him down a dark path.
She was never yours.
I am you.
Maybe. But she was never yours because she was never mine.
We wanted her. The whisper was faint, pouting and pleading.
You know what the plan is. You agreed to it.
What if I changed my mind?
Phillip’s stomach twisted. He wanted. He wanted all of the things other-self promised. He wanted the strength that filled Shardon. He wanted to be able to point at something and have it as his. He wanted to come out on top; he wanted to win; he wanted to feel the life that coursed through him when he drank of another.
He wanted.
Then he remembered Phe staring up at a giant boy. He remembered a slight girl in a blue skirt teasing him about smiling for the camera. He remembered Kevin, disappointment written clearly on his face as Phillip dug through his locker. He remembered another girl lying dead in an alley, looking so much like Blue.
He remembered all he had been and what he had become. And he remembered Blue, staring at him with tear-filled eyes as she lay in a bed in a room tucked away in the Zeynar’s home on Karran.
Phillip then did what was probably the only truly unselfish act he had ever performed. He stepped forward between Brika and Shardon. He pulled the other-self toward him. An instinct guided him, and he tethered this other being to him.
What are you doing? Other-self struggled.
We made her a promise once.
Not-Phillip, other-self, stilled. We did. We promised to keep her safe.
It is not safe in here. Not for her.
They turned their attention to the two other beings, the plinar. They held out a hand to Brika, who—after a slight hesitation—took it, smiling warmly and with understanding. Then they turned to Shardon, who stood straighter, though his eyes darted all around.
Phillip looked at Blue. “Tell Fo I’m sorry. For everything.”
She nodded, her eyes wide with fear.
He let go. His body, lying on the floor of a stone chamber and blood flowing from its neck, took a last breath, then stilled. He didn’t try to heal or resuscitate it.
If a sacrifice was needed, well…
Brika squeezed his hand. “Do you mind terribly? I had not intended this. The girl…”
Connected as he was to Brika, Phillip saw that she truly thought it was Blue’s duty, a woman’s duty, to take this on, to act as the check, and to save her people. “I’m sure,” he said or thought or… something. He wasn’t actually talking to her, though it appeared that way. They simply were, in that moment.
He met Blue’s eyes, smiled, and pushed her away, out of Brika and back to her body, even as his own lost the last of its power. That connection snapped, and it was just Brika, Shardon, and Phillip inside a crystal prison.
Shardon howled. He beat at Brika, then at Phillip. He flung thoughts filled with death and blood and rotting flesh. He tempted with ideas of wealth and girls with blue eyes. He sought out cracks in the shell of consciousness Brika had formed. And found one.
Phillip surrendered to his other-self. Not-Phillip sought out the weak points and reinforced them. He held on to the promise he had made the girl named Blue that he would keep her safe. This… this was something none of those others could do for her. Even if she did not know this, he did. And the original Phillip, the first Phillip knew it as well.
Shardon attacked, his energy ripping through Phillip’s own, tearing a piece off here, another there, until he was scattered. It was strange, for there was no body anymore. Just the crystal, the original home. But not this one. The lines of energy were different. The pattern of the structure followed different lines.
Not-Phillip found the scattered shards of himself, pulling together enough to chase after Shardon, who was now tearing at Brika.
Rage filled not-Phillip. Brika was good. Not much in life was good, truly good, but Brika was. Just like Blue. He pulled more of himself together. He needed more energy, more power; he wasn’t fully formed yet, and it was a disadvantage.
Brika had said they needed to be in the circle formed by the other plinar. The boost from them should be enough to contain Shardon, to shore up the walls of energy she used to contain him. The original-Phillip had told Blue this. Not-Phillip hoped she remembered.
He launched himself again, this time aiming to scatter Shardon as Shardon had done to him. He hit the other being and bounced. He tried again. He surrounded him, seeking a way past his barriers, barriers not-Phillip had yet to learn to make.
While Shardon was distracted with this, Brika fled to her walls, to the points that were thin, where the structure had deteriorated and the web of herself had unraveled. She shored them all up but the most damaged area, where Shardon had originally escaped from and Brika had furthe
r opened to pull them all in. They needed more energy to complete the repair.
The tearing began again. It hurt. It felt as though his skin was being stripped from him a few inches at a time—except he didn’t have skin. Yet still it hurt, and not-Phillip screamed without a throat.
BLUE
Gasping in a breath, Blue blinked. Garfield butted her cheek with his head, circled, and did it again. Her arm lay in something warm and sticky, and a rock dug into her side.
Phillip.
She jerked up, and his hand, the warmth now faded, fell from her forearm. Brika winked in his other hand, but the glow was soft, much softer than it should be.
Forrest fell to his knees beside her, his chest heaving, hands trembling as they reached for her. Beyond him, Levi stood over a slumped Brini, and Mo’ata, Trevon, and Jason struggled to their feet.
A large hand gripped her arms and pulled her to her feet, spinning her. Thick arms crushed her to a broad chest.
“Sneaky,” she managed to get out.
She wanted to relax into those arms, to rest, to sigh and sleep for a week. But she couldn’t, not yet. Phillip had tried to tell her something before, but she hadn’t listened. Brika winked again, a spike of light, then it faded.
“The crystal.” She struggled out of Felix’s arms and dove at it. Forrest tried to block her, and Felix caught her around the waist. “No. It has to get to the circle. Now.”
Felix didn’t let her go. He nodded to Forrest, who scooped it up and tossed it to Jason, who in turn threw it to Mo’ata, who had run for the circle of plinar at Blue’s first move. It was a clean throw, but Mo’ata was struggling, still recovering from the earlier drain on his energy. It must have hit him harder than the others. The clansman threw himself into the air, the long line of his body stretching into a clean bow, and snatched the crystal with his fingertips, rolling and coming to a stop within the circle. He scrambled to put the crystal down, and backed away.
The glow built. Blue imagined she could see the struggle, the dark and the light, jockeying for the upper hand. The other crystals pulsed, their lights fading and growing in no pattern that she could see. Then, with a flare that caused her to duck and cover her eyes, they steadied. Gradually, the glow of the circled plinar faded to what it had been, Brika’s matching—a clear purple.
For a Pixie in Blue Page 21