by S. M. Beiko
I pushed the iced tea away. We’d been eating all our meals out and sleeping at the Viscount Gort Hotel. Seneca had fiddled a bit with Deedee’s brain while she was out, making her believe she’d come home early and the destruction of the house was due to a water main break and ensuing electrical fire. She’d be fine if her manufactured memories held, and if she never remembered that Arnas had nearly killed her in a possessed fugue state.
I glanced out the window, watching a car slam through an enormous road-puddle. “I can’t believe this weather!” Deedee crooned, her voice a mix of ecstasy and concern. “I’ve never seen a spring this early in all my years here. And I can’t believe the animals — birds disappearing, deer fleeing upland. It’s lucky your grandmother’s house is on the safe side of Wellington. Though either way, we might find ourselves house-hunting soon, or kicking out the tenants from your parents’ old place, if what they’re predicting about the flood is true . . .”
Finding a new home would be the least of our problems, if the river had its way.
*
Four forty-eight a.m. on the day of the Bloodgate.
Soon.
Seneca is exhausted. His head throbs. He made this commitment to Roan and her friends because he feels in his bones that Denizens must write the Narrative now for themselves if their power, their gift, is to survive in this world. Ancient is too far away to reach, and they have one another for now, at least. That in itself is worth protecting.
But the cost of his promise has been great, even for seven days. It’s meant no rest, no sleep, even. It’s meant constant vigilance, knowing exactly where the four of them, plus Roan’s aunt and uncle, are at all times, and protecting himself from prying questions of his colleagues, his Family. He doubts that any single Owl has attempted to cloak that many people at once for more than three days. Since the sheer skull-bleached feeling of insomnia had taken away his ability to care, he wonders if this means he’s nearly as powerful as Eli, the main creature he’s fought to keep out of his mind.
And the one who batters against his psyche openly now, without restraint.
Just another hour. Seneca thinks, restless and weak. His heart knocks inside him like the victim beneath the floorboards. Please, Horned One of my House. Grant me your grace. Seneca was never one to pray, but he reaches out desperately to his First Matriarch now, here in his dark apartment, sprawled on the floor, trying to send his mind out in seven directions. Stretching himself this way is starting to make him hallucinate, make it more difficult to focus on reality. It warps at the edges, threatening to choke him. He resists. He has to stay strong if their plan is to go forward.
Roan Harken. Barton Allen. Phaedrapramit Das. Nattiq Fontaine. Arnas Harken. Deidre Beaumont.
Jordan Seneca.
Protect us.
He was not expecting The First Owl to reply. He barely registers the window crunching from the impact of massive talons. Seneca turns his head, his mind growing fuzzy as he perceives the enormous Owl swooping towards him. Horned One? Phyr? Queen of the Moon? Seneca asks it inside his imagination, stretching out a hand. The talon wraps around it, squeezing, he at first thinks, in reassurance.
But the feathers melt away like a burnt offering, and the talon becomes a hand, crushing the fine bones of his fingers. Seneca screams, his concentration broken now as Eli pulls him up off the ground. His huge black wings beat a torrent as Seneca’s full weight hangs from his broken hand.
Eli is inside his mind in an instant. But it is not just Eli, Seneca realizes dully. He howls in pain from both his hand and his head, filled with the voices of all the Owl Paramounts who came before. They sting his thoughts with poisoned barbs.
Eli sneers. “The Bloodgate under the Black Star? You were going to let them desecrate our roost?” He squeezes the hand harder, and Seneca has nothing left in him to fight. “You would go against the Narrative and everything we protect for a worthless Fox-girl? Answer me!” Seneca’s head dips, limp, but Eli shakes him awake. His silver eyes meet Seneca’s exhausted ones. They are defiant. Eli’s hand crunches down with such force Seneca can feel his wrist and the bones in his forearm intersecting.
“Traitor,” the barbarous voices whisper as Seneca’s face whitens. “You will be alert when you’re judged for your crimes.”
Now Eli is rising higher from the ground, beating backwards through the window and dragging Seneca behind him. His feet catch on the broken glass in the pane, but he clears the window frame, hanging three storeys over the ice and concrete below.
“Please, Eli,” Seneca chokes, reaching up weakly with his unbroken hand.
Eli’s mouth smiles. “Traitors will not be spared —”
“Not me,” Seneca blurts. “The girl. Eli. Please. Help her.”
The smile turns into a glistening sneer. Eli lets go of Seneca.
*
I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. It was still early, still dark, but that worked in our favour. The four of us gathered in the shadow of the greenhouse just behind the legislature. This was where Seneca has promised to meet us.
“Where the hell is he?” I hissed, spine hunched.
Arnas ducked back amongst us after doing a survey of the area. It was fairly calm down Broadway at this time of morning on a weekend, and we knew where the perimeter cameras were. They were pointed away from us, just like Seneca had said they would be, but without him here, we didn’t know how long that would last.
Was he dead? Was he trapped? Had he been caught out helping us? Or maybe it had been a trick all along. Despite my worry, all I could think of was that horrible psycho Eli, grinning over the body of the dead girl all that time ago. My spirit eye revealed nothing, and part of me didn’t want to know.
I wished that Sil were here — underhanded, lying, devious grandma or not. She’d always been by my side to tell me off or to save my hide. But this time it was up to me, and she couldn’t do much but sleep and gather her strength.
And if I failed . . . I didn’t want her to see.
Phae put a reassuring hand on my hunched back. Some of the tension eased off; not sure if that was the Deer in her, or just her homegrown calm. “We all know the plan. We know what we’re doing. If he’s been compromised, we wouldn’t still be here, untouched.”
“Phae’s right, as per the norm.” Barton shifted in his wheelchair, eager to launch. “We’d be swarmed by now, either by Owls or those creepy river-things . . . Uh —” He stopped short and glanced in Natti’s direction. She had a river hunter fledgling standing beside her, sniffing the air experimentally, but neither seemed to take offence.
“It’s fine,” Natti muttered. “Brother will scramble the other hunters if they come. He knows what to do.” She didn’t touch the creature she called Brother, but they shared a significant look. It was hard to believe we’d managed to bring one of them to our side, and while I initially kept my hackles up when Natti had brought him along, we were good so far.
Arnas checked his watch for what felt like the hundredth time, his waves of nervous energy enough to shake me. He was the only “responsible adult” amongst us, but he seemed dubious. “Seneca should’ve been here half an hour ago. It’s the drop time in two minutes. We need to move.”
All this time waiting for the big moment, limbs ready to leap in and mind ready to get it over with. Now they froze in the pre-dawn darkness. Point of no return, here we come.
“Right.” I exhaled. “Getting in is the easy part. Arnas, Barton, time to set up at the Black Star. Phae, feeling juiced up and ready to cover them, and me if it comes down to it?”
Barton and Phae nodded solemnly.
“Natti, you still good on offense?”
I caught her nod and the jerk of her head towards the river. Brother perked up at her signal, but seemed to hesitate, staring off towards his former frozen dwelling with what might have been fear in those freshwater eyes. He finally took of
f in a flash of black, slithering up onto the statue of Louis Riel pointing his scroll towards justice and curled himself around the arm, stiff and waiting.
“That leaves me . . .” I shook out my arms, loosening up. “You’ve all got places to be. But this level’s boss is mine.”
Barton smiled. “Plus ten bad-ass over here.” He squeezed my arm. “We know you can do this, Roan. We’ve got your back.”
I looked round to the lot of them. My friends. My new family, mixed and ragtag as it was. But still mine. They all nodded.
It was time.
Natti did one more visual sweep of the area around the greenhouse. She turned to us and signalled with a raised hand. Time to fall out.
Arnas tapped Barton’s wheelchair, ducked, and dashed off. Barton peeled after him. They were headed for the back entrance, a service door with a ramp. When they passed through, according to Seneca, they’d look like the next shift’s janitors — hopefully this illusion still stuck, seeing as Seneca was nowhere in sight. Natti and I took off to the east side of the building, rounding it as close to the Tyndall stone wall as possible. Phae fell in behind us, but kept back, in case an attack came and we needed shielding. The three of us were headed for the front entrance. Our disguise was admin staff, familiar faces that wouldn’t set off any bells. And if we went in the front and were compromised, we’d be the first they’d see — hopefully we could hold any Owl offense off long enough for Arnas and Barton to set up shop on the level below.
I scanned the eaves and crevices of the sculptures surrounding us. Nothing roosted amongst them that I could see, but the stone gazes were relentless, and we felt watched anyway.
I pulled out the keycard that Seneca had given me. “Here we go.”
Before I could swipe it, the auto lock clicked and the door swung open.
“Shit,” Natti said for us.
I heard Phae’s voice catch. “Trap. For sure.”
I sighed. I’d seen this coming, but there was no going back. “We’re going in.”
No one argued or called me crazy. They knew our options were limited.
“Barton . . .” Phae whispered. If the Owls knew about us, then they may have gotten to them first.
“Natti, with me. Phae, head to the Pool. As fast as you can. We’re going up.”
In my peripheral vision, I caught her nod and, without further comment, we walked in.
The security desk was empty. All the lights were up, as if they were prepping for a gala. The silence was full and alive and treacherous. My heart slammed in my throat.
I signalled to Phae and she slunk off to the left, under the arch. I prayed the others were all right, but the sensible part of me knew better than to hope. Natti took my right, legs spread almost in a boxing stance.
We waited. Silence. I was finally fed up.
“I’m done playing!” I shouted, my words echoing until, by the time they got back to me, the conviction was dead. “Proper hosts would show themselves when a guest arrives!”
Natti inhaled sharply, and I reflexively danced aside from the Owl that had appeared beside me. He stumbled in his strike, and I had my chance to spin, light up an arm, and slam him to the ground with it.
And then the real onslaught started.
A horrible bird-scream clanged like an angry bell in our heads, a sonic wave of rage. Owls peeled from balcony shadows into the light. Figures we’d thought were just other statues melted into men and women. We were surrounded, naturally. Home team advantage.
I grinned. My heart had moved back into its rightful place, and this time it hummed with animal lust for a fight. I was warming up. Good. “Well, we’re all here,” I said to the assemblage of assassins, all young, all spoiling. “Might as well do the thing.”
A horrible torrent of wind came rushing down on us. I blocked my face and tried to stop myself from getting flattened against the marble tile. I looked up; a clutch of Owls was casting a hurricane, it seemed, more coming in and adding to the surge.
But we could use it to our advantage.
“Natti!” I screamed over the gale.
Despite how loud it was, I could still hear her cynical grunt as she planked hard against the wind. “I can’t do anything — not enough . . . moisture.”
I raised my head enough to check out the high ceiling. Buried in the beautiful gilded stonework, sprinklers.
“One sec,” I shouted, getting into a crouch to face an oncoming Owl skipping in and out of focus from the tornado she was beating with her long, graceful arms. My arms lit up like powder kegs, flames flickering in the gusts but strong enough to overcome them. I eased forward, and found the eye of the storm.
The fire awoke inside; I felt it behind my eyes. I focused it upwards in a pillar, and it caught the turn of the wind. My personal firenado rocketed into the ceiling, and the sprinkler system went off.
The Owls fell back against the blast and the blaze, and I pulled the heat back into me just as Natti launched a tidal fist that knocked them aside.
I shook myself loose. Had to keep moving. With the first wave of Owls broken back, I made for the stairs. The second wave came after us like human bullets, hurling themselves from the balconies around us. I scrambled out of the way, grabbing an offending fist and flame-launching its owner into a bronze bison.
Natti fared better; the sprinklers were still going full force, and she commanded the downpour as though she had made it with her bare hands. Right now she was gathering straggling Owls in a dripping hydrosphere, keeping their heads above water as they struggled. At least she was being gentle.
She caught me half grinning as she pulled a wiry, protesting twenty-something into her baddie bubble. “Don’t look at me, get up there!” she grunted. Keeping them contained was obviously putting a strain on her, and who knew how long a window we’d get before the Owls’ backup arrived. I snapped to and jogged up the stairs, two at a time.
Inside the rotunda, I stumbled towards the banister and the opening that hovered above the Star we desperately needed.
“Phae!” I threw my head over, searching. There was no one down there that I could see.
But there they were, pushed suddenly into view. Back to back, standing over the Star, and looking up at me. They, too, were surrounded. Barton’s wheelchair was overturned, and Arnas was holding his head. Phae was unharmed, but her hands were pinned. They looked done.
Another sonic screech threw me aside; it had come from the entrance. I heard an enormous splash and startled cries. Down went Natti. The stairs and the balconies filled with soaked, beaten Owls, glares fixed on me as they assembled, blocking all exits. Just me, now.
I caught movement above and looked up. Not alone, after all.
Eli Rathgar’s charred-black bulk plummeted down from the vaulted dome above, body whistling through something shimmering — a force field, maybe? — and landing heavily on the marble opposite me. He drew up from a crouch to his full height — he wasn’t in full Owl-regalia, but some in-between that made him look like a fallen angel after the spin cycle. And I saw his face. Rage didn’t begin to describe it.
It was quiet again as we surveyed each other. He drew his wings into his broad shoulders, and I straightened my spine, squaring my feet. His sneer was too deep to even favour any of his redeemable features.
What better time to prod the bastard?
“Sorry I’m late.” I turned my palms up. “Thought I’d pop by, seeing as we had such a good time when we saw each other in Osborne. I see you kept my parting gift, though.” I gestured at the scar slashed across his forehead under his messy dark fringe, and I saw his fingers twitch, as if he was going to raise his hand and cover it up. His cool façade was slipping.
He moved around the circle slowly, and I followed. A measured, tense dance.
“You know, the last time we met, there wasn’t much time for intros, but since then I�
�ve heard a lot about you, Eli.” I figured I could buy us some time. “I’m Roan. Harken. You know my uncle.” I motioned down the hole with my head. “You guys hung out recently, I hear. Wasn’t a social call though, from my understanding.” My chest burned. “I dunno what kind of coward it takes to hurt innocent people to get to one girl, even after you’d already killed me. But being smarter than everyone else must bore the hell out of you, so I get that possessing my uncle and trying to kill my aunt was probably just recreational.”
Eli scoffed. “Spare me the rhetoric.” He slid his hand along the balustrade, glancing down into it like a cat over a koi pond. “Rebels have loved ones. They’re useful, and they yield results. But your friends are more powerful than we first thought.” His fist tensed and then relaxed, nails turning black and flashing into talons. “Tell me who it was who uncursed your snivelling Rabbit uncle. Call me curious.”
I knew he meant Sil, but I wouldn’t give her more than a flash of a thought. I wiped my mind clean and laughed. “You think I’m that easy? C’mon. Thought you were tired of the rhetoric. If you’re here to kill me, get it over with.”
Eli wanted my blood there and then, but he rearranged his face, forcing a sadistic smile as he looked down into the Pool of the Black Star. “Why expend the energy? You’re going to do that for me.”
I stopped and followed his glare. My cool was wavering, breaking. I feigned indifference. “Oh, what, you’re going to kill my friends, then, if I don’t do what you want? Man, that’s getting as old as your vendetta. Either do the job right or don’t do it at all.”
He chuckled and shook his head as though I’d told a good-natured joke over cocktails. “Me? You want to heap the blame on me? You bring harm to anyone who rallies around you. You lie to them, promising you’ll save them. Speaking of, after all he did for you, you haven’t even asked about Seneca. I can see how much loyalty really means to you.”