by Anna Windsor
“Come, brother.” Tarek patted Aarif again. “Let us rejoin our family and enjoy this reunion. In the morning our work resumes.”
Tarek turned for the stairs and climbed for the kitchen, hearing Aarif padding quietly in his wake. As Aarif closed the cellar door behind them, Tarek thought he heard a whimper from the chained girl below.
She was strong, that one, despite her appearance, to regain any sort of consciousness with the venom she’d received.
Tarek snarled as he left the door behind him and headed back toward the celebration in the mansion’s walled backyard. It was a pity, really, that he was so certain Griffen would keep his part of their new bargain, because Aarif was right about Rebecca.
She would be an interesting conquest.
( 31 )
Camille had been nervous more times in her life than she could count, but this about took the cake. She had put on her best jeans, a loose-fitting black shirt, and a long leather overcoat to cover her scimitar. He was dressed in like fashion, carrying his broadsword—but he didn’t have to deal with a blindfold.
“How does Central Park sound?” he asked as he walked her along, arm around her shoulder, holding her close to him so she could match his steps.
“Like it did five minutes ago, when you started turning me in circles.”
“Listen.” He stopped her, kissed her. They were two young lovers heading for a big surprise—part of which was true.
Camille kept her arms around John’s neck and did as he suggested, taking in the laughter of children, the rattle of wind through branches that had shed their leaves, and the distant rush of traffic on the main roads. If she really paid attention, she could spend hours detailing each nuance and hint of a noise—Sibyl hearing was as acute as Sibyl vision, just not accurate over long distances.
John kissed her again, warming her lips and finding her tongue with his.
“Mmm.” He tasted like mint again, this time from gum. She liked the sharper sensation, and it made the inside of her mouth tingle. “You’re into this role-playing, aren’t you?” she said against his rough cheek. “Maybe it’s the blindfold. Are you into blindfolds, John?”
“Let me tie you up one day and you’ll find out.”
Goddess, that voice.
And the invitation made her insides tingle as much as her mouth.
“Come on,” John said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
He took her hand again, pulling her along fast, making her laugh and stumble as she ran with him, trusting him more than she thought she could. Running blind. What a complete rush.
She knew he was taking her around and around, covering ground they had already covered, but she tried not to pay attention even though her Sibyl brain automatically traced the route and calculated their position and direction—steadily northeast. Sometime later, Camille estimated they were somewhere near 119th Street, and she had an idea where they were headed. Probably into the aqueduct, down into the earth, into one of the lost tunnels no longer in use under New York City.
She tried to keep her step light and her breathing normal, but she couldn’t help remembering that the Legion used to manufacture Asmodai demons in those tunnels. The demon who’d killed Bette had ambushed them from one of the old aqueduct gatehouses.
Then and now. Two different time periods, two different realities. There are no Asmodai here.
“You okay, beautiful?” John’s voice echoed against stone because they were inside now. “If this is making you nervous—”
“I’m fine. Just keep us going. I—I trust you.”
He squeezed her arm and moved them ahead, just like she asked, taking a more direct route now, and Camille noticed the smells changing. City air shifted to something more stale. At first she picked up mold and rot, but that finally gave way to something more fertile. Old rock and moss. Her tenseness gave way at the familiarity, like the tunnels under Motherhouse Ireland. Maybe all stone places shared things in common. Camille had a flash of the channels of energy she had learned to work since she could first walk and talk. They were a lot like this—big, quiet, dark holes through the earth, through space and time. Passageways. There were so many, infinite directions, infinite possibilities. It would be like connecting every tunnel on the planet, hooking them all together. She could get anywhere if she just knew the way and held the destination firmly in her mind.
She stumbled from the image and the realization, from seeing communications channels in a new, simpler way. John steadied her, and before he could ask, she said, “Sorry. I was thinking about something too hard and not paying attention to my feet.”
“I could carry you,” he offered, talking close enough to her ear that chills rushed along her neck and shoulders.
“Don’t tempt me, hot stuff.”
From somewhere up ahead, Camille heard footsteps.
John slowed, and she immediately had trouble catching her breath.
Asmodai—
It’s not Asmodai. Get over it.
The smell was all wrong for Asmodai.
Whatever was heading toward them, it had fur, and it walked with a measured, stealthy gait.
Cat, her nose told her. Tiger. Rakshasa—but different.
It really did have to be different, because the dinar around her neck gave off little more than a faint buzz with an occasional tremble. That was interesting to her, since the coin reacted to Created, and biologically, as far as anyone knew, Bengals and Created were exactly the same creatures.
Cloth and leather scrubbed against stone. Weapons tapped in sheaths. Big weapons. The space around them seemed small and compressed, still a tunnel, not much room to maneuver. John’s grip on her arm tightened, and she knew he was ready to pull off her blindfold if he needed to.
A few moments of silence ensued, then a very deep voice, more snarl than speech, said, “She is the one?”
“Yes,” John said.
The other … man? Bengal? … made a noise like a long, slow sniff. Then they were moving again, walking at a fast pace seemingly straight toward the center of the earth.
When they stopped a minute or so later, a cool, steady breeze told Camille they had entered a much larger space, probably some sort of big chamber. Even though she sensed a lot of life around her, the place was so quiet she could almost hear the air stirring past her ears.
John pressed his hand against her back, encouraging her to lean over, so Camille bent at the waist, and her dinar came forward to dangle in the air below her neck. Somebody started loosening her blindfold, but she didn’t think it was John.
When the cloth fell away from her face, Camille found herself almost nose to nose with a silver-haired woman in a silver gown. She had white eyes and strange scars, she smelled like rosewood, and she felt like a Mother, though Camille couldn’t say which element dominated her energy signature.
Behind the woman, in a gigantic candlelit chamber, stood dozens of soldiers, silent and unmoving, dressed in jeans and T-shirts and armed with broadswords. Not anything like Sibyls, but an army all the same. Camille could tell they were elite fighters, well trained, the type that were always improving.
“Camille,” the woman said, as if she had known Camille her whole life. “I’m Elana, taza of the Bengals.” She touched the coin around Camille’s neck as if in greeting, and the freaky little piece of jewelry seemed to purr like it knew her or something.
“The dinar repels Rakshasa and Created,” Camille said. “But it doesn’t repel you. Why?”
“It knows me.” Elana touched the coin again and made it purr. “It’s keyed to demon essence. Those of us who have learned to be more human than demon won’t activate its protections.”
It knows me.
Great. More riddles.
Camille resisted the urge to ask Elana if she had ever met anyone named Ona. Her energy was as powerful as Ona’s, as limitless as any Mother’s, yet different. This was a woman who could see without seeing, know without being told, and find the answers to the wor
ld’s mysteries without ever whispering them to a soul.
Careful to be considerate and deliberate in all her movements, Camille stood.
“She asked to come,” John said.
“So I assumed.” Elana moved back and let Camille’s blindfold drop to the chamber’s stone floor. “You were right to bring her. I’m impressed that you’ve done so well with the Sibyls. You’re a man of many talents, John Cole.”
“I’m a man with a goal, Elana.” He smiled back at her, and Camille noticed how much more softly he spoke to Elana, like she might be his grandmother. That was fitting. Elana felt scary and powerful, for sure, but yeah, also grandmotherly.
“Camille is a fine purpose,” Elana said, bringing a fast rush of heat to Camille’s cheeks.
John cleared his throat. “I meant killing Rakshasa.”
“That’s on your list, I have no doubt. I think, however, that it’s been a while since you examined that list and checked the order of its items.”
Elana let Camille take in the magnitude and extent of her fighting force, then gestured for them to disperse. When the room had emptied except for six huge fighters Camille figured were her personal guards, Elana said, “I’m honored by your visit, Camille, but if you’ve come to ask us for our alliance in battle, I can’t grant that request—though we remain friendly to and supportive of your aims.”
Elana’s assumption took Camille by surprise. “That’s not my purpose, but if I might ask, why would you refuse a fighting agreement?”
“Like your own people, mine have seen too much of war.” Elana gestured to her warrior guard. “Most of these, even my own guards, never asked for what befell them, and they battle only to protect their own and their freedom. That’s all I can ask of them. We make no pact to defend the world.”
Camille studied the stone-faced Bengal guards, not even able to guess at their ages, but she knew the fatigue she saw in their eyes. “I understand.”
Elana watched Camille for a few moments, though Camille knew that interpretation was in her head, since Elana had no actual vision. “If alliance wasn’t the purpose for this visit, why have you come?”
“I want to learn better fighting skills.” Why did that sound so lame?
It was Elana’s turn to be surprised, because she said, “You? Of all Sibyls, why on earth would you feel deficient?”
She must not know. Camille felt herself deflate. John had emphasized that Elana thought Camille was very important in the coming battle with the Rakshasa. “I’m not like my sister Sibyls. I can’t make fire on command, not easily or consistently at least, and—”
“Of course you can’t.” Elana waved this off with some impatience. “One talent gives in favor of the other.”
Camille stopped talking and she stopped trying to find the right words to plead her case. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a elemental sentient, not a generator. As one ability grows stronger, the other weakens, since they draw from the same source.”
The simplicity and certainty of Elana’s statement struck Camille like a slap, and her head snapped back. She found herself blinking, trying to grasp what Elana had said so easily, like this was something everyone had been taught in childhood, but confusion descended.
“You’re losing me,” John said. “Can I get a quick primer?”
“I’m wondering if I need one myself,” Camille muttered.
Elana’s expression moved from surprise to concern to anger. She made a motion to her guards, and they, too, cleared the chamber. As soon as they were completely alone, in barely controlled and shaky tones, Elana asked, “Why would you not know something so basic about your own abilities?”
Camille didn’t know what to say to this. Finally she explained, “Sentient talents aren’t given much value in the Motherhouses these days. There are no lessons about sentience, just basic definitions and explanations about how to use sentience in conjunction with pyrogenesis.”
Elana’s coloring darkened a shade. “I know the Sibyls chose to develop other skills, but they would have to expect some like yourself to be born with the full measure of older talents—especially when the universe understands the need.”
Camille knew she should be respectful to John’s friend, but she started pacing. “I think I’m the first in a long time with more than minimal pyrosentient talents.”
“So there was no one to teach you? No one at all?” Elana seemed to need to sit down.
Camille glanced around but saw nothing. John had been looking around the chamber, too, and once he realized nothing was there, he offered Elana his arm to steady her.
Elana favored him with a smile, giving her scarred face a gentler, more serene appearance, though her flat, white eyes had gone wide, and that made her seem unusually distant. Camille imagined she saw distraction in those eyes, and new worry, confusion, and concern.
“So you’re familiar with projective energy?” Camille asked. “You understand it?”
Elana’s fingers curled against John’s arm, and color rose in her scarred face. “I am, but until this moment, it wasn’t something I thought I’d ever have to discuss in much detail again.”
“I need to understand, Elana,” John said. “I’m living in a houseful of women who use this stuff every day—and even they don’t seem to fully know what they’re doing.” He stopped. Looked at Camille. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
“It’s true,” Camille said. “All we know is what we’ve found in our archives—which isn’t much—and what we’ve been able to teach ourselves.”
Elana’s complexion was too dark to turn pale, but her lips twitched toward frowning. She seemed to argue with herself for a nanosecond, then she gestured to a door in the chamber and led them to a smaller room with a stone table with seven stone chairs around it.
The first thing Camille noticed in the room was its smell. Elementally clean. Moist, well-kept stone—and all over the walls, paintings, only these paintings were maps. She moved closer to the nearest map and saw that mountains and other landmarks were raised and textured. She touched the tiny wooden and clay and plaster areas, noting the lines running from everything, faint but connected, like little threads tying the whole world together. Because of new structures left off the maps and old landmarks still visible, some of these works of art were old indeed. A few had jagged words painted in a few places, labeling them, and the center map, a wide desert landscape, had what looked like a child’s pencil scrawl near the center, saying, Heaven.
The maps had been signed simply Elana.
Camille glanced at the woman as she took a seat at the stone table. Elana might have lost her eyes, but not her art. That said a lot for her determination.
John took the seat across from Elana, and after Camille had settled herself next to him, Elana said, “And now for your primer, John. I believe you’re familiar with the more common Sibyl talents, such as elemental genesis.”
She stretched out her hand, and a small blue flame popped up at the table’s center. Camille wondered about Elana’s ability to make flame, but many people with elemental talent could perform rudimentary skills and tasks with earth, air, fire, or water.
“Terminus is an additional talent, related to genesis.” Elana once more extended her dark hand with its pink ribbon-like scars and motioned to Camille.
Camille held her hand over the flame and absorbed its energy, and it went out.
Elana re-created it a second later. “Kinesis, moving energy, follows much the same principle as terminus.” She made a pushing motion with her hand, and the flame on the table arced to a new position like someone had smacked it with a bat. “Used with caution, on small amounts of energy, it’s quite useful—but if a Sibyl attempts to move too large an amount, the consequences could be deadly.
“And that brings us to the fourth power, that of sentience, called such because Sibyls had no other way to describe the process of knowing the world through their element, or knowing their element so intimatel
y, by pulling its energy through their essence and projecting it out again, enhanced in force and power by the magnitude of their elemental gift.” Elana reached for the flames on the table, and they moved into her hand.
She turned her head away from John and Camille, opened her mouth—
And roared out a gout of flames easily ten times the size and heat of what she had taken in.
Camille sat straight up in her seat as it happened. Okay, very strong elemental talent, especially if her base ability isn’t fire.
When Elana finished, she leaned forward against the table, and John had to catch her to keep her from slumping face-first on the rock.
“I have very little natural projective talent myself,” Elana explained to John when she could speak again, extracting herself from his supporting arm and sitting erect once more. “But that’s hardly the point. It doesn’t take much of that ability to do tremendous damage—to the Sibyl, or to the world.”
John let Elana rest for a second, then went straight back at it. “I don’t get it. It’s impressive and all, but why is that any more dangerous than the rest of the Sibyl skill set?”
Elana gave him a kind smile. “When a Sibyl uses projective energy, she’s neither creating, absorbing, or moving power. She’s merely pulling it through her, serving as a mirror, if you will, then projecting it.”
Camille got that part, and so did John, because he said, “I understand. But why—”
“Don’t you see, my boy?” Elana opened her palm, and the little blue flame came back, then disappeared, like it fell through her palm. “The Sibyl is only a conduit. The natural world is supplying the energy she’s using.”
Everything Ona had tried to tell Camille came blazing back to her, without all the riddling, without all the wondering this time. It hit her. Shit, did it hit her, and hard.
John was getting it at the same time. “Then … the energy they could use, it would be—”
“Limitless,” Elana confirmed. “Without boundaries. An earth Sibyl might take down a mountain or a entire mountain range—or form one. An air Sibyl might alter the wind movement across the world and single-handedly destroy the planet’s ecological balance. It was this talent that destroyed the water Sibyls long ago, when they were aplenty and kept their Motherhouse at Antilla.”