by Amy Sumida
We hurried down the hallway, throwing open doors as we went. I scowled as room after room was revealed to be empty. We made it to the end of the hall and entered the final door. It opened on yet another empty room, but this one had a wall made entirely of glass. Coral curved out from the other side of the glass, and brightly colored fish swam through the colorful branches and darkened tunnels, darting into the shafts of light that were cast into the water through the window.
It was an underwater grotto, and the glass made it into a natural aquarium. So very peaceful, but not enough to sway me into wasting time with gazing at it. I was about to suggest that we turn around and head back in the direction we'd come from when I was grabbed roughly from behind. Someone pulled me into darkness, my view of the room dwindling down into a rectangle of light filled with horrified faces. Then a door shut on that rectangle, and I was sealed in the dark with my abductor.
My eyes quickly adjusted to the soft glow coming in through the glass on my left. I was in a secret room attached to the one I'd just been in, and the light was being filtered from that larger room, out to the sea, and then back into this one. Before I could fully process it, I was turned around and yanked against a solid chest. I looked up into Eros' face in shock, seeing the smug satisfaction in his glowing green eyes a moment before his mouth covered mine.
My Lust magic started to rise as his called to it, and my mind shouted in denial. I heard my friends and lovers reacting with anger and fear, pounding on the solid rock separating us, but it was all a hollow background to the roars of my beasts. I pushed ineffectually against Eros; my body weakened with wanting. Lust was quickly overtaking my reason, pooling low in my pelvis and getting ready to burst through my skin.
If I let Lust free, everyone in the adjoining room, and possibly everyone in the fortress, would be lost to it. Images of what Aphrodite had done with the magic in the past, came to me. Hundreds of people falling upon each other voraciously, uncaring as to who they copulated with, as long as they got their pleasure. That's what would happen here in mere moments.
Eros' hands roamed my body, urging my Lust to the surface, amping up my desire to a nearly unbearable level. My heart stuttered with the pain of what was to come while my body tingled with ecstasy. My mind—the last bastion of strength within me—was already giving up. We had lost. Eros would be consumed with us, but while my friends and I fed upon the lust magic, we'd be easy pickings for Unk and Gnas. Even if the Lakota somehow avoided the wave of desire and won the fight against Unk and Gnas, they would find us here, and then fall prey to the call of Sex. It could continue for hours, giving Eros a chance to escape. My hips rocked forward against Eros, his erection both enticing and disgusting me, and I knew I was about to fail my friends and family in the most horrifying way.
I screamed internally, and the anger inside me resonated through my body with psychic sound waves. Like a struck wire, I thrummed with determination and fury. I would not let this hurt my people. Even if we survived Eros' attack, I wouldn't be able to live with myself afterward. I simply could not allow it to happen. Eros may know the ways to work my magic, but it was still my magic and my body. I was in control of both. And that intention—that conviction—was all I needed to break Eros' hold.
As the butterflies of Love started to rise, combining with the red haze of Lust, my star responded to my command and burst into blinding light. The butterflies calmed under the sparkling illumination, and fire burned through my body, incinerating the false desire I felt. I took a deep breath, shuddering with shock at the sudden freedom, and my conviction hardened into confidence. But as soon as I was free, Lust started to seep through the star's glow. I knew it wasn't going to hold; Eros' sex magic was a tenacious thing, and it would keep striking at my lust until I broke. I had mere moments to act.
I continued to kiss that evil son of a bitch as I slid my hands up over his shoulders and leaned into him with a moan. Eros chuckled low in his throat, thinking he'd won, and I trailed my hands further up. With one swift movement, I shifted my fingers into claws and sliced through Eros' throat. He jerked back, his hands going to the gush of blood at his neck as his eyes widened in horror.
“Say hello to Afro for me,” I snarled as I slashed my dragon talons through his neck again, severing bone, muscles, tendons, and some of Eros' fingers.
Eros' head flew free of his body, to thump into the wall of glass beside me. It left an ugly splat of blood on the window and made a horrible cracking sound when it hit the stone floor. Eros' beautiful eyes stared up at me, still round with shock. I bared my teeth at his dead stare and bent over his crumpled body. With a swift wrench and a slash of my claws, I tore off Eros' arm and began to beat his corpse with it.
“Holy fucking hounds of Hades!” Pan shouted. “What the fuck are you doing, Vervain?”
I hadn't realized it, but as I'd broken free of Eros, the God Squad had managed to blast through the door to the hidden chamber, and they had witnessed Eros' last moments... and my subsequent defiling of his corpse.
I threw the arm at Eros' head, his own hand smacking him in the face, and turned to face the Squad.
“It was a promise I made to myself,” I growled as I looked back at Eros. “That was for my children, you perverted bastard.”
“Fair enough,” Odin said as he moved toward me.
The rest of my men nodded in approval.
“Well done, Fire Queen.” Craigor applauded as he smiled smugly. “I haven't seen a good corpse beating in centuries.”
“Fucking faeries.” Pan shook his head.
Craigor merely smiled wider.
“One down,” I flicked the blood from my claws and shifted them back into fingers. “Three to go.”
I strode back into the main room, giving my lovers reassuring nods as I passed them. But Toby grabbed my hand and squeezed it before I could make it by.
“You conquered it,” he whispered. “You controlled your magic.”
“I did.” I smiled at him. “I just needed to find the right motivation.”
“One you couldn't find when you were with me?” Toby lifted a brow.
I blinked in surprise. That hadn't even occurred to me, and it was a bit too heavy for me to process right then. Toby saw that and knew enough to let it go, along with my hand.
All of us ran back into the hallway and used the echoes of battle to hone in on the other teams. The place was massive and luxurious, but as far as I knew, only Unk and her sons had lived there. It seemed a huge waste of space.
We passed several large rooms, expansive enough to entertain my entire fire court in, before we finally approached the battle scene. It was just thirty feet or so ahead of us, through an arching entryway. I could see flashes of magic and bodies flying through the air. We began running at top speed once our goal was in sight; which made it even more of a problem when I stopped suddenly.
I was hit by everyone behind me, and those before me came to squeaking halts to stare back at us in confusion. I groaned my way up through the football pile up and pulled Cian's charm out of my bodice. Craigor, who had been one of the lucky ones in front, strode back to stare at the shivering, glowing pendant.
“The High Prince is near,” Craigor intoned.
“Thank you, Obvious-Moth.” I rolled my eyes and lifted the pendant.
The teardrop jerked to the right and went horizontal in the air like a divining rod. I eased past Craigor and let the charm lead me. Once I gave in to it, it pulled me along like a dog on a leash. I started to run, and it pulled harder. It took us straight down another corridor, far from the fighting, before it jerked to the right suddenly. I had to do an about-face; my momentum had carried me past where I needed to go. I went back to a wooden door, and the pendant clicked softly as it hit the surface. Then the teardrop fell to my chest as if it were exhausted, and the glow faded away. I tried the door handle and found it locked. I know it seems obvious, but I knew that the one time I don't try the handle would be the one time when the door is open.
>
“Queen Vervain, if I may?” Craigor asked.
I waved him ahead and everyone else back. Craigor lifted a hand and blasted the door with air magic. The wood was no match for a faerie's elemental power, and it burst apart as it flew into the room beyond. Craigor barely hesitated, he was walking through the debris before it settled. Having been blasted by flying wood recently, I waited a moment longer before I followed. But it didn't matter.
Fand was expecting us. She had Lugh bound with magic-dampening cuffs and tied securely to a chair while she held a wicked looking blade to his neck. Craigor was rigid with impotent anxiety and anger, standing with shivering wings before his high prince. Lugh's expression was one of calm fury; his cheek moving in a steady tick as he clenched his teeth. One mistake, and Lugh was going to kill his old foster mother, but he knew better than to waste his energy on fighting uselessly. He would bide his time. As would Craigor.
I strode forward and stopped directly before Fand.
“Hello, Fand,” I said sweetly.
I was about to launch into a witty speech about how I'd figured out she was behind this, and how I should have known that a water-sidhe would hook up with a water goddess, blah-blah-blah, when Toby interrupted me.
“Fand?” He asked in disbelief.
We all watched Toby with confusion as he walked up beside me in dazed amazement. Everyone around us was baffled, and so was I, but Fand was only minutely surprised and majorly annoyed by Toby's appearance. She sighed deeply and then grimaced at Toby.
“What are you doing here?” Fand huffed at him.
“What am I doing here?” Toby gaped at her. “What are you doing here? Are you... damn you! You're the faerie Vervain was talking about? You're the woman who abducted Lugh?”
“You're not too bright, are you?” Fand said scathingly.
“Hey!” I shouted at her. “You wanna call someone stupid, you say it to me, not him.” I blinked. “I mean; shut the fuck up, you bitch!” Then it all became clear, and I realized why Toby was so shocked. I turned to him in horror. “Is this the woman you were seeing? Your new girlfriend?”
“Yes,” Toby whispered. “It looks like I don't have to worry about hurting her feelings when I break up with her.”
“You gods are so gullible,” Fand hissed. “First Ethniu believed I would take her precious son to Faerie, then the Tuatha believed that Ethniu gave Lugh up, then they believed that Cian wouldn't want him, and now this.” She waved her free hand at us. “You never once thought of your enemies joining forces, did you, Godhunter?” She sneered. “It never occurred to you that a faerie might seek vengeance for you destroying her life, by allying with gods.”
“She didn't destroy your life,” Lugh growled. “You did that to yourself, and to me. If anyone should be seeking revenge, it is I against you, Fand.”
“Be quiet now, child,” Fand gentled her tone.
My eyes widened. I knew that voice; it was the voice I used to speak to my children. Fand may be using Lugh to manipulate things, but she still loved him. She still thought of him as her son. More parts of the puzzle clicked into place, and I realized that Fand would not only get vengeance upon me when Faerie was cut away from the Aether, she would also have her son back. Lugh would be trapped in the God Realm, and I was fairly certain that Fand would keep him a prisoner as well. Maybe she thought that he'd eventually forgive her. A mother's hope never dies.
Which meant that I had been right; Fand wasn't going to hurt Lugh.
I didn't waste any more time thinking things through. I shifted my hands into talons once more. But Toby wasn't done surprising me. He must have reached the same conclusion that I had, but he'd done so one second faster than me. Before I could move an inch in Fand's direction, Toby shot forward and stabbed her in the heart.
A flash caught my eye, and I looked down. The black feather at the end of Toby's braid was glowing darkly, and I knew then that he hadn't come to the same conclusion as I had. Toby had simply seen a chance and taken it. His feather possessed the magic to subdue his enemies, which translated into freezing Fand in place. While she was paralyzed, he struck.
“I loved you,” Toby hissed into Fand's shocked face as he took the knife out of her hand.
Fand gasped, her eyes angling down to the horn hilt of Toby's dagger sticking out of her chest. Any element that wasn't the one a faerie was born with could kill that faerie. For Fand, it was any element but water. Metal—connected to Earth—worked just fine. Clear liquid trickled out of Fand's lips, and as Toby's feather released her, she shivered in pain.
“Your love was a lie,” Fand gurgled on her watery blood. “I connected to your water magic and twisted your heart.”
Toby's eyes began to glow with fury.
“And when I did, I washed away the curse you had placed upon yourself,” Fand spat. “I was the one who opened your heart to her again, and I was the one who taught Eros how to do the same thing to Vervain. But your love couldn't truly return until you touched her. And you did, didn't you, Toby? You held her, even after you swore to me that she was only a friend!”
Fand dropped to her knees as we all stared in open-mouthed shock. Eros had done his part on my end, and Fand had hit Toby. That was how his soul had been affected. It hadn't been my fault after all. Was it wrong to feel relieved about that?
“Why?” Toby asked her, his eyes full of pain. “What have I ever done to you?”
“It was never about you, you arrogant fool. It was about her. The Godhunter took my family”—Fand gasped in pain—“and so I took hers.”
Fand fell forward and melted into a puddle, just like the Wicked Witch.
“Well, shit,” I huffed. “There goes Arach's foot. Maybe I could bring him a water balloon.”
Chapter Fifty-One
It wasn't over yet. We freed Lugh and hurried back to the fight we'd been heading to before. Unk and Gnas were making their stand against the Lakota gods. It was impressive that they had lasted so long, but that was mainly due to where they were. Unk had the power of the ocean backing her, and it may not have been enough to give her victory, but it was enough to protect her and her son.
The water goddess was up against a rock wall, her hands spread out before her, manifesting a barricade of water so thick that I could barely make out her and Gnas' bodies behind it. The Wakan Tanka, along with the Archangels, launched attack after attack against the water, but they were all absorbed and washed away. Little divots in the surface of Unk's shield showed where her assailants were succeeding, and it was obvious that they would eventually reach her, but it may be awhile before that happened. From what I could make out of the two bodies behind the water, Unk's grandson/son seemed to be holding her, adding his strength to hers. And they were desperate. Desperate people are the most dangerous.
I walked up to Inyan and laid my hand on his bicep. He was so intent on focusing his magic that I startled him, and a zap of creator energy manifested a bicycle. The bike got absorbed into the water and floated away to clang against the rock wall. Inyan turned his annoyed gaze to me, and I chuckled.
“A bicycle?” I asked. “Really?”
“I'm a little busy at the moment, Godhunter,” Inyan growled. “Perhaps we can speak of the ways my magic takes form after I've captured Unk and Gnas.”
“Tell your people to stand down, and let me have a shot,” I said calmly.
“A shot?” He lifted a curious brow. “What shall you do with your shot?”
“Just talk to them.” I shrugged.
Inyan laughed, and the other gods glanced at him in confusion. He turned to them and announced, “The Godhunter would like to talk to Unk. Let's hold off a moment, and give her the chance to speak. Perhaps she can do with wit what we cannot with might.”
The magic petered out slowly, most of the gods unsure whether Inyan was serious or not, while the angels were unsure if it was worth wasting time on me.
“I have faith in her,” Michael said with a wink at me.
“Oh, what
will it hurt?” Samael huffed and lowered his hands. “Let's see what she can do.”
The other archangels stood down, and the attacks ceased. I stepped through the crowd, my friends and lovers with me, and walked up to the water ward. The Wakan Tanka and Archangels watched with interest.
“Unk!” I called out. “Can you hear me in there?” I knocked on the water, little splashes wetting my cheek.
A tunnel emerged in the wall, right in front of my face. It was only about the diameter of a quarter, but it was enough for me to speak through.
“Eros and Fand are dead,” I said immediately.
Unk brought her face closer and glared at me through the hole. “You lie!”
“I killed Eros myself.” I met her gaze steadily. “His headless body lies in that secret room attached to the one with the glass wall in it. You know; the one that's like a giant aquarium.”
“And I killed Fand,” Toby added. “I stabbed her in the heart with my dagger after she bragged about the way she returned my love for Vervain.”
Unk took one look at Toby and knew it was true. Tears gathered in her eyes, and I wondered which of the gods they were for. It was cleared up a second later.
“Fand only gave you back the love that belonged to you,” she hissed at Toby. “It wasn't going to harm you!”
“It wasn't going to harm me?” Toby snarled. “All of you intended for Vervain to be destroyed by this. So, how would I not be harmed by the woman I love being hurt?”
“And what about me?” Lugh added. “Did Fand not mean to hurt me either? She took me from Faerie, and tried to separate me from my family forever.”
“She loved you!” Unk cried. “You are her son. No matter who bore you, you were hers. And I loved her. She was a good woman; fierce, and beautiful, and passionate. And now she's dead because of you, Godhunter! One more god on your list of victims,” her voice rose in a screech. “First Iktomi, then Iya, and now my Fand! All because of you.”