by Gwynn White
Some of his mages were with him, those not currently trapped in the Pegasus dungeon or in the galactic police station’s prison. Citrine, Emerald, and Amethyst were here. Citrine with her yellow hair and vanilla-cream eyes, sat on a pink footstool, painting her toenails. Emerald, her eyes and hair as green as a forest after a spring rain, was posed in a handstand. Amethyst, the woman with long hibiscus hair, dangled upside down from a chandelier, her lilac eyes locked on me.
Opal and Pearl, Vib’s declared favorites, were here as well. They sat around a low coffee table with Vib, playing a card game. They didn’t even look up when we entered the room, but Vib did.
“Ah, Jason Chanz!” he exclaimed happily, rising from his puffy chair. He extended his arms open in welcome. “How wonderful to see you again! I was just speaking to Pearl about you, wasn’t I, dear?” He paused to smile fondly upon Pearl, then returned his attention to Jason. “Have you come to join my little menagerie?”
Vib looked so hopeful that, just for a second, I almost forgot he was crazy.
“No. I’m afraid not,” Jason said.
“How disappointing.” Vib frowned, but his smile quickly returned. “Perhaps another day.” He held up a teapot. “Tea?”
“No,” he said to my relief. There was no telling what was in that teapot.
“Manners, my dear boy.” Vib clucked his tongue. “For it is the little niceties in life that separate man from animal.”
I didn’t think proper etiquette applied when conversing with madmen.
“You brought along a vampire this time?” He looked over Jason’s shoulder. A bitter taste coiled around me, stinging my tongue. It was the taste of Vib’s disappointment. His expression brightened when he saw me walk around Aaron, though. “Oh, you brought your lovely companion too. Fantastic!”
“You were expecting us?” I asked.
“Yes. Of course. I knew you would come.” He nodded happily. “You want to know what’s happening to you, don’t you? You want to know why you’re having these powers, why you feel so out of control.”
I’d thought our turbulent magic was because of our feelings for each other. And maybe it was. But Vib’s words hinted that there was more to it than that.
“Are you saying there’s a magical explanation?” I asked him.
He clapped his hands together. “Yes. Last time you paid me a visit, you inhaled some of my experimental smoke. A special serum in gas form.”
“What was it?” Jason demanded, his voice a scathing hiss.
“Yes, I was afraid of that.” Vib nodded, not really answering Jason’s question. “The blend isn’t quite right. You were supposed to feel more in harmony, not less. I’ll need to tweak the formula. There’s so much I want to know! How are you feeling? Lightheaded? Agitated?”
“Yes, agitated,” I told him. “Because you drugged us.”
“Of course I drugged you. There can be no progress without experimentation.”
“You didn’t ask us if we wanted to be drugged.”
“Of course you do. You want to realize your true potential.” He leaned forward eagerly. “How’s your pulse? Faster? Slower?”
“What did you give us?” Jason demanded.
“A Synergy Serum.”
“Synergy is—”
“A myth?” Vib finished for him. His lips twisted into a manic grin. “Except it isn’t.”
Synergy was a shared bond between two Elitions, usually lovers but sometimes siblings or close friends. Through it, they experienced each others’ feelings and thoughts—and, in some cases, shared each other’s magic. Synergy was mentioned in old Elition stories, but the specifics of how it was achieved were very vague.
“I’ve unlocked the secret. It’s down to some minor tweaking now.” Vib gave me a knowing smile. “You wielded Phantom powers, didn’t you?”
“I did,” I admitted.
“And you?” he asked Jason. “Did you experience the thrill of foresight.”
I’d been living with the foresights for most of my life. ‘Thrill’ was hardly the word I’d have chosen to describe the experience.
“No, I did not share Terra’s prophetic powers. I just lost control over my own,” Jason said.
Vib frowned, tossing a beaker over his shoulder. It shattered against the ground. “I’ll definitely need to try a different mix. And you can help me. It will be fun.” A happy, psychotic smile lit up his face. “I do adore company.”
I could see how only talking to living statues could get old really fast.
“What did you do to those mages? How did they gain their powers?” I indicated his children. “They seem to move as one.”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“A Synergy serum?” I asked.
He nodded.
“An eight-way Synergy serum?”
“Six-way actually. Opal and Pearl are…” He smiled at the twins. “…special.”
“But still, a six-way Synergy serum, six mages sharing powers, sharing minds. Becoming one. It’s mind-boggling.”
“It is, isn’t it?” He expelled a happy sigh, basking in his own brilliance. “An overnight success decades in the making!” His voice rose in triumph.
“But how is this all possible?” I asked.
“A little bit of selective breeding, a few potions, some accessories. A lot of training. I follow the call of the scientist, hoping that I may someday come to understand the true nature of our magic!” he proclaimed in a moment of pure ecstasy.
“These experiments. That’s what you were doing back when you worked for my father,” said Jason.
“Yes.”
“So this is what he meant by ‘controversial’?”
“Ah, yes, so there were other things as well,” Vib replied, blushing. “But the tinkerings that made this success possible were certainly a colossal no-no in his book.”
Because they’d likely involved unwilling subjects.
“Citrine was born of this research, though, so I can express no regrets,” Vib said, looking fondly upon the yellow girl. “And she is such a happy soul, are you not, Citrine?”
The ghost of a smirk kissed Citrine’s lips.
“It is a shame my partnership with your father did not work out,” said Vib. “Edward Chanz is without question a fine man, his unfortunate preference for Silver notwithstanding.”
Silver was the prominent healer on Pegasus, an outstanding Apothecary mage. And he wasn’t even crazy.
Vib frowned for a moment before returning to his bubbly self. “But it’s really Edward’s own doing, you know. He’s simply not willing to do what it takes to achieve greatness, for mages to be what we’re truly meant to be. He is hindered by too many of those bothersome ‘moral’ qualms. It was only once I was free from his steely glare that my work could achieve its true potential.”
“And what is that?”
“Oh, it’s ingenious. I always wanted to make mages stronger and faster. To make them heal instantly. To give them new powers and allow them to use new accessories,” he prattled on. “I tried serums of all mixes, to some amazing results. But the effects were always temporary. They wore off as the mage’s body burned through the potion. But I’ve found a way to make the effects permanent.”
“Are you saying what you did to me and Jason is permanent?” I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
“No, of course I didn’t make it permanent. You’re the Elite Phantom and the Elite Prophet. Your powers are different, very potent. It requires a different mix to link you.” He rubbed his chin, as though he had a beard. But there wasn’t a hair on his chin—or on his head for that matter. “I first had to see the results of the Synergy serum I gave you two. There’s no point in making it permanent if it doesn’t work properly. I’m mad, sweet Princess, not stupid.”
I almost laughed at the moment of truth in the madman’s monologue. Instead of a laugh, I let out a sigh of relief. Soon, I’d be back to normal—whatever ‘normal’ was for a Prophet.
No, I hadn’t known that.
“You two are meant to connect, to synergize, and once you do, you will wield powers beyond even your wildest imagination.” A little happy spark of madness lit up his eyes. “That smoke I exposed you to should be out of your system soon. Give it another day or two.”
Thank goodness for that. My fingers were buzzing from the buildup of Phantom energy.
“We could try again. A new mix.” He shot me a hopeful look.
“Get back to the point.” Jason pointed at Vib’s children. “How did you enhance their magic permanently? How did you make them able to shift into beast form? That’s beyond what even a Chameleon can do.”
“Yes, that was an unexpected bonus. Though I did suspect that might happen, given the source of the potion.”
“Which is?” I asked as Aaron passed behind me.
The vampire pressed a button on the wall, and the panel slid aside, revealing several kennels occupied by hellhounds. They snarled at Aaron, thumping their paws against the bars. They were so much scarier than the mages in beast form.
“Hellhounds,” I realized. “You injected your children with something from the hellhounds, didn’t you? What was it? Their venom?”
“Yes. Very good. You really are quite clever.” A calculating smile spread across his lips. “You know, I could use another assistant.”
“No thank you.” There was no reason not to be polite, even to mad scientists.
“Venom,” Vib said. “That was the missing ingredient. Venom augmented my children’s powers—and allowed them to share them with Synergy. It also allowed them to take beast form when needed. And the venom has other benefits as well.”
“Such as?” I prompted.
“It’s the most magical substance I know,” he said. “The witches use it in all their magic, you know. They’ve been cultivating it for centuries, hoarding it, keeping it from the rest of us. It is the source of all their magic.”
“Wait, are you telling me that the only magic the witches possess comes from these beasts?”
“Yes. That’s why the witches harvest their venom. Without it, they can brew no potions and cast no spells. They have no magic of their own. They’re imposters. Posers. Funny, no?” He giggled.
For someone whose livelihood and research were being paid for by the witches, Vib seemed pretty indifferent to their success. He was proud of any evidence proving the genius of his work, but it ended there. If only Edward Chanz had not fired the madman, then we could have at least kept an eye on him. Vib was dangerous with no one around to hold his leash.
“What are you doing for the witches?” Jason asked him.
“Creating power potions—magic stimulants—for their Siennan warriors,” Vib said between humming verses of the Hymn of Rosewater.
“Like Nemesis?” I asked.
He grimaced. “No. She doesn’t need a stimulant. She’s crazy enough already. That ferocious Triad paid me a visit just yesterday, her eyes blazing red.”
That was pretty standard for Nemesis.
“So, Nemesis visited you,” I reminded him when he didn’t continue.
Vib shook himself out of his self-imposed daze. “Yes, Nemesis. A perfect name for her, if you ask me. She was positively insolent, raging around my menagerie, upsetting my poor children. Citrine especially can be sensitive, the poor dear.”
He turned to flood the lemon-haired girl with a look that was half sympathy, half neurosis. Citrine sure looked innocent, but she wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Of all of Vib’s mages who’d attacked us, she’d been the most aggressive.
“Why was Nemesis here?” I reminded him. Again. Having a conversation with Vib was like trying to keep water from pouring out through a sieve.
“She stops by often to bother me with her empress’s grocery list of requests for their program. Except she calls them ‘requirements’, the impertinent hussy,” Vib growled. “In any case, her last intrusion was just after she’d spent five hours in line at the Galactic Transportation Authority, courtesy of you.”
Vib looked giddy at the thought. I guess he wasn’t a fan of Nemesis.
“She was in an uproar, demanding that I give her all the potions now. Though I very clearly told her they would not be ready for another half year, at least not at the scale she wanted. I had half a mind to ask my darlings to toss her out on her bony backside. She was quite rude, calling my research slow. It is an art, not an instant portal to answers.”
Aaron was clinking his armored hand against the bars. The hellhounds inside the cage growled in response.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“One of the beasts has a loose collar,” replied Aaron. “It looks like something has chewed through part of it.”
“It’s behind bars. I don’t think it can break through the cell.”
“You misunderstand.” Aaron gave the beast a long, assessing look. “This one is phasing.”
“What do you mean by phasing?”
“Flickering.”
I joined him by the cages. Sure enough, he was right. The beast sat there watching us, an odd flicker in its eyes. The irises kept fluctuating between red and blue. What the hell?
I reached through the bars and grabbed the collar, tearing it off the monster. What was left of the fabric split apart in my hand.
There was a flash of blinding magic, and then the hellhound was gone. A naked man lay in his place.
His body shimmered like moonlight. I judged him to be about the height of a short human. And he was very thin, almost waifish. Long, black hair lay across his back, falling over delicate blue butterfly wings.
I knew that face from the history books. The man lying in front of me was a fairy, a member of a species that was supposed to be extinct.
19
The Galaxy’s Original Werewolves
I looked from the naked fairy lying on the floor, to the rest of the hellhounds. “Fairies,” I gasped.
“Every last one of them,” Vib told me.
“Fairies are shapeshifters?”
“Yes. Fairies are natural shapeshifters. You could say they are the galaxy’s original werewolves.” He looked amused by his own joke.
“That’s what you meant earlier when you said it was natural that your mages gained the power to shift into beasts,” I realized. “Because the source of their power came from these shapeshifting fairies.”
Vib smacked his lips with delight. “Yes.”
“How many fairies are left?”
“I have twenty-one in this facility. Those are the ones the Avans gave me for my experiments.”
“And how many fairies are elsewhere?”
“Thousands. Tens of thousands perhaps. They haven’t given me exact numbers.” He threw back his head and laughed.
I didn’t see anything funny about any of this. “The witches didn’t kill them all.” I walked past the cages. “They enslaved them.”
“Yes.”
“For their magic?”
“Half a millennium ago, the witches invaded the fairies’ world. We all thought they’d exterminated them. It turns out they’d realized what kind of power the fairies had—and how they could use it,” Vib explained. “The witches slapped collars on the fairies, collars that kept them in their beast form. Collars that controlled them.”
“The witches kept them alive to harvest their magic.”
“Yes. The fairies’ magic venom can only be extracted from them when they are in beast form.”
“And worse yet, the witches used the fairies as guard dogs. They treated them like animals,” I said, disgust burning in my throat. “Everything the witches have—their potions, their magic—was stolen from these fairies. Everything about the witches is a lie.”
“Well, not everythi
ng,” said Vib. “They are very powerful. The witches’ power armor is almost as good as the vampires’. They’re insanely rich too. And they pay well.”
“What about the weather spells?”
“Fueled by fairy venom.”
“Fairy venom can really do so much?”
“Yes.” His eyes lit up. “It is remarkable. So pure, so versatile. A fairy’s mood determines which spells they can cast. So the magic they wield when they’re happy is different than their magic when they’re sad. Their venom changes in the same way. It has different magical properties depending on the fairy’s emotional state at the time it was extracted. The witches figured out early on that they’d get different venom out of a fairy when they scared him, or made him happy. Or sad. And the various mixtures of those venom varieties fuel all kinds of spells.”
My mouth fell open in outrage. “The witches tortured these poor people to build an arsenal of magic.”
“Torture is such a strong word.”
I clenched my fists. “You knew.” My voice dropped to a low snarl. “And you didn’t free them.”
“Why would I do that?” Vib asked. He looked genuinely confused. “I need them for my research.”
It was like talking to a child. Vib was brilliant, but there was something missing in him. Empathy. Compassion. The basic understanding that people were not faceless numbers in a mathematical equation.
I went to his storage cabinet and began rummaging through it.
“Stop that. Stop it at once!” he shouted in alarm. “Everything in there is meticulously organized.”
I ignored him and continued my search. Along the way, I found a syringe marked ‘Phantom Accentuating Serum’. I slipped it into my jacket pocket. I found a heavy tranquilizer dart and took that too. Who knew when I might need it. When you didn’t fight to kill, you needed every trick you could find.
Finally, I found what I was actually looking for: a blanket. I pulled it out of one of the drawers, then returned to the cells. I opened the cage with the sleeping fairy, then spread the blanket over his naked body.
“Help me free the rest of them,” I said to Jason and Aaron.