by Anna Windsor
“Absolutely.”
That smile—he really could look at it all day, every day.
“Get up soon,” she said. “Bela wants you to go to the park and train with us before we go out tonight. I think I found the right sword for your height and weight, and Bela’s been busy making you some of our special demon-killer bullets. Oh, and Blackmore called.”
John closed his eyes. Here it comes. “So, what’s my new name, beautiful?”
Camille giggled, then covered her mouth.
It was all John could do to hold back a groan. “It’s bad.”
“Johann Kohl.” She smiled at him. “See? Not awful. He said he’ll Americanize it on all your final documents. John Cole. You’re all set as you, just a different social security number and a different history by the records. You can’t run for president, but otherwise, same name, new man.”
“That’s not far off, I guess.” John wasn’t talking about the name, but he figured Camille knew that. She blew him a kiss, and a second or two later she was gone, leaving him with a major case of the aches and a strong need for an icy shower.
Johann Kohl, soon to be John Cole all over again, took that shower, and he did it without a single gripe in his head.
( 18 )
Two weeks after John got his official new name, Camille realized she wasn’t running away. She was just … well, hiding.
The lab was the best place to stay away from John, and Camille knew that if she didn’t keep a little distance, there’d be no more waiting. They had been talking every morning before the day got started, before the world got cluttered with other people’s input—and she could still feel his hands on her breasts from this morning’s little chat. Her lips wanted his all over again, and the rest of her just burned. A slow, sizzling sensation in all the right places.
But a few conversations just weren’t enough—not that she hadn’t had some quick relationships and in-and-out-of-bed experiences. She just didn’t want this to be like that. She didn’t want a one-night stand with John. She didn’t know what she wanted.
Yes, I do.
“Shut up,” she mumbled to herself as she cleaned off a lab counter.
She couldn’t know. Not yet.
Yes, I do.
What to do with one tiny, mysterious old fire Sibyl during all of this angst—well, that was a puzzle, but Ona pretty much did whatever she wanted to do anyhow. She was especially good at fiddling with whatever captured her attention.
“When I was younger, Sibyl labs were more basic,” she said. She twisted knobs on a microscope Camille had taught her to use last week, then had to pull a stool over to look through the barrel. “Even then, the earth Sibyls didn’t want us near their experiments. You’re very fortunate.”
“Bela doesn’t stay in the lab like most earth Sibyls. We’re all a little different. As Sibyls, I mean.” She gestured to the ceiling and walls. “I don’t feel closed in down here, and I like the cool air and the way everything smells so—clean.”
“Metallic.” Ona moved down to the next microscope as Camille pulled out her wooden box full of projective charms, the ones that hadn’t worked as well. She wanted to do a fault analysis, find the weak spots, and manufacture new sets, in case other fighting groups wanted to try them.
“I’ve always liked the scent of copper myself.” Ona rattled the microscope she was examining. “Elemental energy cleans so much more thoroughly than human bleaches—does much less damage to surfaces, too, I’d guess.”
“It does, yes.” Camille was listening, but only partially, as she handled her charms. The metal ticked together at the edges, almost a crystalline sound, and that soothed her a lot more than Bela’s bland walls.
“Your trips to the docks these last ten nights haven’t been productive.” Ona rattled the microscope she was looking into again, and this time, she gave a little grunt of approval.
Camille looked up from her charms, surprised. “We haven’t found anything all week. Not with traditional searches and observation, or with our sentient searches, either.”
Had Ona been at the OCU briefings at the townhouse headquarters up by the Reservoir? Camille didn’t remember her anywhere in the wood-paneled conference room during any of their patrol reports. Last night the place had been jammed with dozens of tired Sibyls and irritated, frustrated OCU officers—and some demons, the good kind. But no Ona. She had to have been spying in other ways Camille hadn’t considered yet.
Ona kept her good eye glued to the microscope. “Your bedside conversations with your man—those are going better?”
Nosy little sneak. Camille glared at Ona, but of course Ona couldn’t see that with her only good eye busy on the barrel. “They’re going just fine.”
Especially the kissing and making-out parts.
Ona obviously wasn’t finished with her questions, and she kept her attention on the microscope. “And John Cole, has he acquitted himself well in his training sessions and patrols with your group so far?”
“He’s already memorized Dio’s demon list and how to kill each one of them, and he’s meshing okay with Duncan and with our usual liaison, Nick Lowell. From what I can tell, he’s a crack shot and an excellent close-quarters fighter—and he’s holding his own up at the townhouse with some of the demons and half demons.” Camille gave up on working the charms for the moment and set the wooden box down on the counter beside her. “Good with short blades, but the broadsword is still pretty strange to him.”
Ona sniffed like she approved. “His body has abilities he doesn’t understand as yet. He’s afraid of them because he doesn’t know how close the demon will come when he uses them.” She finally stood from the microscope, but her words had given Camille a chill up her spine.
Someone walking on my grave …
She couldn’t help remembering the blank, dangerous expression on John’s face when she’d used nudges of elemental energy to rescue him from his war nightmare the first morning he had been at the brownstone. Strada had been right there, not in control, but definitely present in the room.
“Maybe John should be afraid,” Camille said. “Maybe he’s right not to use those skills if they’re so dangerous.”
Ona came over to Camille’s table, shaking her head as she moved. “I’m of two minds about that issue. You may be right—and great evil could come of power raging out of control.” She glanced at the ceiling, like she might be thinking about the mirrors upstairs and the Motherhouses, or maybe the other Sibyls in the brownstone. “Great evil does come from power raging out of control.” She raised her right hand like she was balancing out her thought, and Camille saw those bracelets again, metal melded into skin. “Yet from that very evil, perhaps good rises.”
Camille worked on this in her own head but couldn’t quite get to the no-frills version of the meaning.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Camille.” Ona’s voice had an unusual gentleness to it, and the monotone sounds blended with the cream-and-sand walls until Camille didn’t feel guarded, even though she probably should have. “Tell me the truth and hold nothing back, or we won’t be able to work together.”
“I’m thinking you’re so ancient you’ve forgotten how to talk without riddling,” Camille said, deciding to take Ona up on her instructions and censor nothing, even if it wasn’t particularly respectful.
Ona gaped at her for a second, then coughed and made a choking noise. Her face and bald head turned redder than Camille’s hair, and she leaned forward, propped herself on the sink counter, and wheezed.
Camille stood rooted, convinced this was the big one, that Ona was about to fall out on her and never get up again. Her own pulse hammered in her ears, and then she couldn’t breathe right, either.
Unbelievable. I killed her!
Camille started toward her, but Ona rose, and Camille realized the old woman was laughing her ass off. Each giggle came after a wheeze, like Ona hadn’t laughed without abandon in years, maybe decades—or longer. “That was perfect,” she cho
ked out, wheezing again. “I want more of that from you, Camille. I’ve always wanted to see more of that spirit.” Her laughter slowly died away. “One day very soon, I fear, you’ll need it more than ever.”
Camille gripped the basin of the sink and stared at Ona. Since the old woman wasn’t really dying, maybe Camille should just kill her. She’d probably earn a medal from the Mothers. “You know, I’ve been practicing every day, trying to open channels without platforms and projective mirrors, and the best I’ve done is trip a few times and stick my arm down in the floor before it goes solid or closes up or does whatever it does. I’m beginning to think I suck at that, too. You must have some abilities I don’t. I think it’s time you started telling me more yourself.”
“I think it’s time I started telling you more about you.” Ona wasn’t smiling at all now. In fact, she looked a little nervous. “Better than that, I should show you, because truth be told, that’s why I came here. And this,” she added, pointing to Camille’s wooden box of charms, “would be the best place of all to start.”
Camille suppressed an urge to grab her box and hug her charms to her chest. She had worked pretty hard on those things, and even though they weren’t perfect, they could be salvaged or melted down for use at some later date.
Breathe. Don’t be stupid. Those are just pieces of metal, not pets. They can be reforged if she does something weird to them.
It took some effort, but Camille allowed Ona to look in the box. “Tell me, how did you figure out these energy patterns? How did you form the intent of these metal pieces?”
Camille’s fingers moved to the bulge in her sweater. “I used the dinar. It enhances projective energy, so I thought I could capture some of those qualities.”
Ona rested her fingertips on the charms, just touching, not stirring. “Smart. The coin does what you want, so you modeled your charms after its properties.”
Camille gestured to the box. “These charms fell short, but the ones I gave my quad work fairly well.”
Ona picked up a few of the bits of metal and let them trickle through her fingers like tiny coins. The look on her face poked at Camille’s emotions, because it was loving, or maybe longing. Camille felt guilty for wanting to guard the charms herself, and more than curious about the fact that Ona seemed as respectful of the metal as she was.
“It’s been a long time since I handled metals with so few imperfections,” Ona said, her admiration ringing in each word. “The design is slightly unbalanced on most of these, just a fraction of imperfection in one axis, east to west—but even with that fault, they would have been impressive if you hadn’t used artificial heat to purify them.”
Camille glanced at the nearest gas spigot. “You know I don’t make fire very well.”
“I’m not talking about making fire.” Ona released the charms in her palm and let them clink back into the wooden box. “I’m talking about using it, using what the earth gives you.”
Camille tried to sort that out but couldn’t. “Stop riddling. Tell me plainly what you mean.”
Ona got down from her stool, frowning, and for a time she didn’t say anything. She kept opening and closing her good eye like she was searching for something in her own mind, but she didn’t seem to be able to find it.
“Words can be hard, Camille. The names and terms for what I’ve seen and even some of what I know how to do—those are long lost, even to me.”
Camille thought about herself upstairs, how she couldn’t form the syllables to say what she needed to say to her quad when the emotions got too strong. Did Ona really not remember the terms, or had something happened that made it too hard for her to say them out loud?
Ona kept trying for another few moments, but at last, she shook her head. “I can’t call them to mind, but I can show you my meaning if you’ll accept that as enough.”
“Of course I will.” Camille scooted the box of charms back from the counter’s edge. “Maybe we’ll find our own words and names for things—or perhaps you’ll remember it in the doing.”
Ona considered this but didn’t respond. She slipped her hand into the wooden box and, without looking, lifted out a charm that gleamed in the laboratory lights.
“What’s this one?”
“Copper.”
Ona placed the charm on the lab table beside the box and went after another bit of metal. “And this one?”
Camille smelled the flat tang of the substance even without touching it and said, “Iron.”
Ona set the iron charm next to the copper piece, then pushed the whole box to the left, away from them. When she had everything positioned as she wished, she turned her back to the table holding the charms, then stretched out her hand.
Camille stared, trying not to worry that Ona really had gone soft in the mind, but—wait. Something felt different in the air. She smelled … smoke. Yes, that was it. She smelled it, but she didn’t see any. Was the scent coming from outside, somehow?
Not possible, since the lab was sealed, mostly to protect Mrs. Knight and the rest of the block from noxious fumes and minor lab accidents and explosions.
The smoke smell got stronger, but Camille couldn’t see anything other than Ona standing with her hand outstretched. She was so still there wasn’t even a flutter in her fingers.
Ona closed her eyes.
A second later, a rush of energy sucked out Camille’s breath like she’d been suddenly stuffed into a vacuum.
Light seemed to leap into Ona’s hand—streaks of it, shooting straight up and landing directly in her now upturned palm.
Camille’s vision blurred as she staggered forward from the hot, fiery impact, and she had to catch herself on the edge of the table.
What the hell?
No flames—but I smell fire. I feel it everywhere.
Then the energy stopped suddenly, like somebody had snuffed out a match, and Camille gasped for air. The stone floor in front of Ona had that puddle-like look Camille had seen before, always in relation to Ona. The stone grew solid again, and Camille blinked to clear her watering eyes.
When she looked at Ona, Ona was pointing to something.
Two more charms lay on the lab table. They were the exact same shape and size of the iron and copper pieces she had created last year, and, she presumed, they shared all the same projective properties. She reached out with her pyrosentient skills, touching the new charms with her fire energy.
“They’re perfect,” Camille whispered. “No impurities. No imperfections at all. It’s like you shaped them directly from their molten ore, like you took them straight out of the earth.”
Ona nodded.
Camille remained enraptured by the charms for another few seconds, then realized the meaning of Ona’s answer. “You … took them straight out of the earth?”
“I did,” Ona said.
“How?” Camille had to fight her urge to grab Ona and hold on tight until she got every bit of this information, until she understood enough to use it herself. “How did you do that?”
Ona glanced at the charms, showing the same longing Camille had seen earlier, but she made no move to touch them. “I asked the fire to give them to me.”
Camille glanced all around the room again, convinced one of the machines had to be on, or that she’d missed a tiny blaze Ona had been using somewhere. “What fire?”
“All the fire.” Ona said. “It was the fire under the earth’s surface that possessed what I needed, so that’s the fire that answered when I called. In small measure, you can learn to shield yourself from the exchange of energy so that it doesn’t leave you fighting for consciousness for days. In larger measure—” Ona hesitated. “Well, there are no shields large enough for some things.”
Camille absolutely couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But how could you possibly communicate with the fire like that?”
Ona frowned. “Ancient channels of communication cross this earth like termite tunnels. They’re everywhere. You use the mirrors upstairs, so you know
that, Camille.”
“But—”
“Those communication channels aren’t just for objects and the stray live transport and to throw words back and forth.” Ona opened her hands and arms like she was beseeching Camille to understand. “Even if they were just for talking, though, anything with energy has a voice, doesn’t it? If you can just—”
“Learn its language,” Camille parroted back, the line so deeply ingrained from her training years that she couldn’t have stopped herself from saying it even if she’d wanted to. Everything with energy has a voice, if you can just learn its language. A sense of amazement traveled through her, warm and slow, as new meanings for that old axiom opened in her mind. “You talked to the fire.”
“We talk to fire all the time. Our existence is an endless conversation with everything that burns.” Ona’s hand lifted toward the charms she made, then lowered to her side again. “That’s the truth of us, Camille. The truth of fire Sibyls.”
Camille didn’t know what to say. The possibilities Ona had just opened for her were enough to cloud her awareness completely, and then Ona asked, “Have you heard it?”
The question sounded wistful, like Ona might be remembering a lover, or maybe a terrible, all-consuming addiction.
“Have I heard what?” Camille murmured.
“The fire.” A little impatience now. Ona’s words seemed rushed. “Has the fire spoken to you? When you use your pyrosentience, when you’re deeply connected to your element and drawing the flames into your essence, have you heard the roar?”
Camille stood dumbfounded and still for a thump of her own heart, because she had heard that before. She had thought she imagined it, or that it was an artifact of the power she was using, something like her own mind’s reaction to holding so much fire inside her. Even thinking about it gave her a fresh round of shivers. She had never heard a sound so deep, so endless. It took her away from the real world sometimes. It was … almost addictive.
How could it possibly be real?