Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6

by Phaedra Weldon

Oh please.

  "The only use for a page of the Grimoire the Seraphim would have is to manipulate the Grimoire in the same way we want to. But if you change something, you change the Guardian. What you put in and take out effects him."

  You think the Seraphim has the same spell you're writing down? That maybe their idea of power is to wipe the book?

  "Yes, I do. The spell Daniel found isn't mine. It was written by an eighteenth-century magician as a way of wiping the memory of a lover who spurned him. The story was, this magician was in love with the son of a noble in Paris. But the son loved the daughter of a painter and spurned the magician's love. So the magician wrote a spell to wipe the girl's memory so she would forget the noble's son."

  That's effed up.

  "I took the spell and tweaked it. It's possible they plan to do the same, and if they wipe everything, two things could happen." She slipped the paper back into the plastic. "One is that the Guardian will be left as little more than an empty shell—an adult with the mind of a newborn."

  When she didn't say the second thing that could happen, I prodded her. Inanna?

  "Zoë," TC said in a low voice, "another option would be to use it to wipe out everything. Not just reboot the book—but either take Darren back to a state before the book was put inside of him, or completely erase his existence."

  Silence occupied the space between us for several seconds before Inanna slipped back to give me control of my body again. I picked up the plastic-covered page. "How…is it possible the Seraphim would do that? Just—wipe him out of existence?"

  "Anything's possible. The Seraphim's side goal is to get rid of anything that will prevent him from achieving his main goal, his purpose. He sees you and Dags as part of what's been stopping him. With Dags out of the way, he feels you'll be easier to get to. No more Grimoire, no more magic to protect you."

  I sighed and looked at TC. "Why me? Why does this have to revolve around me?"

  "Luv, everything revolves around you. Everything that's happened since the Bulwark has led up to your existence—no matter how many of the players tried to prevent it."

  "But why?" I leaned forward on the table, feeling defeated. "I just don't understand, and reading those damned notes Domas wrote didn't answer anything. I mean, there's no mention in there at all about Eidolons."

  "They were made in secret." TC stood and dusted off his pants, then his hands.

  "Why were they made in secret?"

  "I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer that. You should ask their creator."

  "Well, that'd be hard to do. Rodriguez is dead."

  "Rodriguez? He didn't make the Eidolons. He was the one who stole them."

  "Who made them?"

  I did.

  The voice surprised me, since Inanna had gone quiet. "You made them? What for?"

  As weapons to use against the Ethereals. But I was betrayed and had to switch hosts, so I hid them away. Rumor and innuendo led Mr. Rodriguez to their resting place.

  "You made the Banishing one, for my dad?

  Pause. Yes. He told me what he planned to do with it, and I felt it was necessary to hide you away from your great-uncle. But Adiran was attacked that night and unable to return. Many years passed before the Seraphim forgave him and accepted him as a Virtue.

  This was a whole new spin on an old story. I stared at TC, who nodded. "Hide me from my great-uncle? What does that mean? My great-uncle died years before I was born. He died in the fire that killed my father."

  Who told you he died?

  I took a step back. "He didn't?"

  TC now looked a bit worried. "Zoë, do you not know where your great-uncle Domas is?"

  My heart skipped. When I looked at his face, I knew…

  I knew!

  But I couldn't say it.

  So TC said it for me. "Abraham Domas is the Seraphim."

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I'd just had the ultimate pile of shit tossed into my lap.

  "No…" I found myself saying as I looked at TC. "No, no, no, no…" And in my head I just kept repeating it, until the colorful metaphors broke lose. "That's not possible! Why are you saying that?"

  I didn't expect anyone to answer that. I wasn't really sure I believed what they'd just told me.

  My great-uncle was the Seraphim?

  The same ass-hat who started all this mess with his experiments was the Seraphim?

  I grabbed at my hair on the sides of my head and belted out, "How in the hell did that happen?"

  TC winced, but he remained calm. So did Inanna. I was the one having a cherry ride of a bad trip right then. I thought I heard thunder somewhere, and had to reorient myself as to where my physical body was. My mom's house.

  My great-uncle's minions attacked my mom!

  "Calm down." TC's voice held a note of command in it. He was probably getting a headache from my outbursts. "The last thing we need is for you to get so pissed off you let that Horror out again."

  Okay, that stopped me cold. I stared at him and lowered my arms. "That can happen?"

  He gave me that duh look I hated. "Yes? The Horror is still a part of you, luv. Right now you're in control of it. The last thing any of us wants to do is have it control you."

  Do you really believe I would allow that to happen?

  He shrugged. "Sis, I don't know if you could stop it. It was powerful and it took the Eidolons, along with you, to put it back in the bottle."

  "But…" I ran a hand through my unruly hair. "You're saying it could pop out again?"

  "Yes."

  "Why in the fucking hell didn't you tell me that before?" I glared at him with my best Wraith-y pissed off look.

  It worked, 'cause he took a step back. "Hey, I thought you knew. Why is it no one ever tells you things? Just like I thought you knew Domas was the Seraphim."

  "No!"

  "Calm. The fuck. Down." He came toward me, and I stood my ground. If he wanted to scrap, I was ready. I wanted to wale on something. He put his hands on my shoulders, and I watched as the ends of my hair wrapped sensually around his wrists. Not in a confining way, but more in a playful way. I wondered if my Abysmal side remembered more about my relationship with TC than I did. "I am sorry. I won't assume anymore that you know things. I just assumed Rhonda would have at least filled you in on that bit of — "

  "Rhonda knew?!" I backed away and hovered over the debris. "How long has she known?"

  "Zoë, calm down. I don't know."

  "And Mom. Does she know?"

  "She just found out herself. And I have to give her credit—she put it together on her own. Adiran didn't want to tell her, but she confronted him and—"

  "Is that why you did the sudden buddy-buddy act with my dad? Huh? Did you forget what he did to me? I could have died in that damned egg."

  "No, you wouldn't have, because no one was going to allow that to happen. Zoë, there's still a lot more you obviously don't know—"

  "No shit!"

  "Get down here now!"

  I did. He had this thing in his voice that I couldn't always ignore. I didn't remember him having it before, so I had to wonder if it came with the job of Phantasm. "Don't yell at me."

  "Then stop yelling at me and listen. I want to tell you everything I know, but right now we have more pressing agendas that need to be tended to."

  Wow. His diction sure had changed. But I knew what he meant.

  A rogue Dominion was threatening my long-dead great-uncle, a.k.a. the Seraphim, whose dream was to close the Abysmal Plane and create an Ethereal-policed Physical Plane.

  Good God, I have the world's most dysfunctional family!

  I don't process things very well. I don't think I have the brain capacity or the strength to really understand the horror of everything happening at once. So when I thought about it—Dags's loss of me, Joe's finger, my foot, Rhonda's betrayal, Daniel's death—I had to fight against the urge to dig a hole somewhere inside myself and hide. I didn't want to think about them, so I compartmentalize
d them. Stuck them into their individual boxes with the stupid idea I'd look at them later.

  But when was later?

  Later had to be now. This shit had to stop.

  Emotions for a Wraith—not a good idea. I doubled over inside with worry for Dags and Joe, mourning for Daniel—who'd left a big fucking hole in my life—and rage against Rhonda, Gabriel, Zacharel, and every other dumb-ass punk that wanted to damage my calm.

  "Zoë?"

  I realized I'd shifted back to just me. I stood in the middle of what had once been a thriving business. All destroyed because of some damned megalomaniac's wants. "I want it all to go away, Azrael." I used his given name to let him know I was reaching my end. I stared at his boots and felt his hands on my shoulders again.

  "It can, once we finish what your father started."

  That…didn't make a damn bit of sense to me. I looked up into his face and frowned. But before I could ask, he pressed his lips to mine. There wasn't the re-emergence of that snake-like tongue I remembered, the one that'd taken me hostage so long ago. The man that kissed me now was warm, and felt alive as I accepted his kiss.

  I realized in that small second that a part of me was comparing it to Joe's kiss.

  TC pulled back and gave me a very sad smile. "We can't stay here. We have to start the end of this."

  "I know. I think I know where they are."

  "Between?"

  "Yes." I gave him a long sigh. "I want a normal life, Azrael. I just want to be happy. I want to get married, have kids, be a soccer mom—and not know any of this."

  "I don't know that you or I are ever meant to find peace, luv. I can't see the future—never have. But what I do know is that you're destined to do a great thing. You were born for it." He took my hands in his. Again, warm, firm, smooth hands. "You're going to have to trust me on that. We might have started out on opposite sides, but right now, it's going to take the two of us to move this forward and set the planes right."

  I frowned up at him. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll agree to it, on one condition."

  He tilted his head to his right shoulder. "Anything."

  I licked my lips and swallowed. "That no matter what happens, if Rhonda Orly has to die—I want it to be by my hands."

  Chapter Forty

  We teleported to the building in Between, Georgia. The same abandoned, overgrown building Maureen had used to drag her Revenant victims into to kill them, and the same place where Joe and TC had pulled me out of the Abysmal Plane and Rhonda had erased Dags's memories of me.

  I really didn't like this place.

  It hadn't changed much—if at all. I was pretty sure I spotted the same weeds growing against the building. And my 'Spider-Sense tingled when I opened the door—we'd come to the right place.

  In fact, Tamera met us just inside.

  To the casual observer—i.e., kids stepping in to smoke pot or do drugs or make out—the place would look like it should: an abandoned power relay station. But to us, well, it was a place between the planes.

  TC had explained to me that before Bulwark, the Guardians had lived in these places. Houses between the worlds. Alongside the Irin who watched the Physical Plane for those intruding from outside. But since they were all destroyed—before Dags and I came along—they were abandoned.

  TC told me the fact that the structures couldn't be destroyed annoyed the Seraphim. I had no idea why that would bother anybody. I figured my great-uncle Domas was just a control freak.

  In the past, I'd never had a clear picture of my great-uncle. Not really. Not even after reading a good bit of the Dioscuri Files he'd written about his experiments and observations. He just seemed—methodical. Very scientific.

  But now I had a bigger picture of who he was. The first thing that came to mind was comic book super villain.

  TC and I stepped in together. Wraith and Phantasm. Sort of a king-and-knight kinda thing. Or so my pea-brain wanted to color it.

  I looked around to see if I could get an idea of where Joe and Dags were, but nothing showed up on the Wraith-dar.

  We looked bad-ass. TC still had on his Matrix gear and, well, me—for the first time, I felt I looked intimidating in my Wraith form. Though the left, white bunny slipper was still a weird-ass thing. Looked like I put them on in the dark.

  "Do you have the stone?" Tamera, still dressed in her hospital gown, offered out her hand. At least her wrist had been tended to, thought the bandage had seen better days.

  "No way," I piped up. "Not handing anything over to you. I want to see Joe."

  Her expression darkened as she brought her hand down. "Fine. But you're just delaying the inevitable."

  "Tamera!" a voice exploded from the right.

  TC and I did a half crouch when we heard it, and turned to see Zacharel step through a door with its frame hanging sideways. I knew the dilapidated surroundings were an illusion. I just couldn't see through it for some reason.

  Tamera jumped at Zacharel's voice. She bowed her head like a good little servant and backed away. Zacharel held out his hands. "Welcome. To both of you. I trust you've brought my prize?"

  "I trust Joe's alive and you plan on putting his finger back on?"

  "Oh, that." Zacharel looked troubled. "I'm afraid I don't have that kind of juice." His attention zeroed in on my white bunny. "But I see someone's been consorting with the First Choir. Touché, little Wraith. The Seraphim give you a fake foot? I sort of liked my trimming the fat."

  "That's enough, Zacharel," TC said. His voice had a tremble to it. Not that he was trembling, but that everything else around us was. "Where's the cop?"

  "Where are the Eidolons?"

  "You first."

  "I'm afraid not. You see, I don't trust—"

  TC waved his hand and our surroundings changed. We were inside of the anteroom with the endless view into space. It reminded me of the Well of Souls I'd seen in that egg. To the left was the spiral staircase that led to the two floors of rooms below.

  That's when I saw the blood. It'd been splashed and splattered over the floor and over the stairs. I didn't remember there being blood before.

  "Impressive."

  "Hardly," TC said. "Zacharel, do you really want to go up against me?"

  "I'm not stupid, Azrael." Zacharel moved to the staircase and started down. "I don't plan on dealing with you at all."

  The floor gave way beneath me and I fell. I heard TC yelling out for me as my wings unfurled and stopped my rather quick descent. I managed to hover in the stars. But there wasn't anything above me or below me but that vast expanse. "TC? Hello? Zacharel, what the fuck?" My voice echoed out around me.

  "Such language, Wraith."

  It sounded like he was below me. So I eased myself down, sort of sensing this was all still an illusion. Once I was on both feet, the expanse disappeared and I was in an underground room.

  Actually, it looked like an underground dungeon. Cages lined one of the walls. Chains hung from the ceiling, and scattered around me were ancient instruments of torture. A guillotine, a rack, an iron maiden, etc.

  Sort of gave a new meaning to the phrase "going medieval on you."

  "You don't have them, do you?"

  I turned to face him as my wings curled under and vanished. "I do."

  "I don't see where. Unless that come-fuck-me getup you're wearing has pockets in some very interesting orifices."

  "Damn, Zach. Are all Ethereals as potty-mouthed and asinine as you?"

  "No. I'm unique." He put his hands behind his back. "So…do we jump at each other again, Zoë? As we did in the club that night? Oh, by the way, did you enjoy your little feast?"

  I swallowed. I didn't want to remember I'd devoured souls that night. "Where is Joe?"

  "Oh, he's right over there. You'll have to go look to get a good view of him. I'm afraid he's not in the best of health."

  Shit.

  I sprinted to the row of cells and found him in the second one.

  It was worse than I t
hought.

  Dried blood stuck to most of the floor as well as his clothing. He lay on his left side, faced away from me. But I could see his bruised cheeks, his bloodied lip. His left arm rested at an odd angle against his thigh….

  When my gaze traveled down to his right hand—there wasn't one. His forearm ended in a clumsily wrapped swath of bloody cloth. His left hand was also missing, replaced by a bundle of tightly wrapped, bloody rags.

  "It was so easy to take him—after all—you'd already taken so much of his strength. I salute you for making it easy for me. Alas, all he had to do was give me the Destruction Eidolon. But he refused. Over and over again. I'd heard a witch's power rested in their hands. Much like the Guardian's hands. One hand receives while the other hand gives. I'm afraid your cop didn't want to tell me which was which, so I took them so he couldn't escape. If he'd have just told me which one gave, I'd have only removed the one."

  I tried to sieve through the bars and found I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried.

  "Can't do it. You see, I've used the Eidolon I appropriated from your mother to reinforce everything down here. If you break it, it reforms." He reached up and dug under his collar to retrieve Mom's necklace. The green stone wrapped in silver. "These are such ingenious little devices."

  Ever see colors with emotions? I always had. Blue when I was content. Green when I was happy. Purple when I was depressed.

  And red.

  Red when I was angry.

  There were several shades of red in the universe.

  And I saw them all in that moment.

  A direct attack wouldn't help. He'd somehow blocked TC from being with me, which meant he had a ward strong enough to hold the Phantasm back. I guessed he'd had Rhonda's help. She was nearby. And so was Dags.

  My main concern was Joe. All that blood…was he even still alive?

  I thought a mile a second, looking into my Wraith-y toolbox for something I could use against this asshole. But the only thing that kept coming to mind were the Eidolons themselves. Each was powerful—but even powerful things had weaknesses. They all bore a type of kryptonite to explore. Dad told me there was a riddle in the Eidolons.