by Lucy Lyons
I went to the rat-king and turned his face so I could see where I’d struck him. The bruise had already turned black from pooling blood, and I realized that my fingers weren’t the only things I’d broken.
“Jeremy can’t speak because I shattered his jaw, Nick. Maybe for a first offense, that’s enough punishment.” Dominique, Clay, and Fin all took turns looking at his quickly swelling jaw.
“Puts a new spin on ‘hits like a girl’,” Clay quipped. “Never fear, we’ll have you right as rain and brave as Caroline before the solstice. C’mon.” he led the way up the stairs, and Fin brought up the rear behind his king, holding out his hands in supplication.
“Don’t worry, Fin. We’ll get things straight,” I assured him. But we were short on time, and too few in numbers to be able to afford dissent in the ranks. I’d relied on Nick to make nice with the rats because I still hadn’t forgiven them for their part in the first betrayal against Nick, or the attack on Clay. Neither was Jeremy’s fault, but I needed to get right with the rats so they could follow me into battle. So far, the best I’d been able to do, was send them away when the fighting started. How was Jeremy supposed to know I respected him as a soldier when I’d never let him fight?
A sick feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. I’d broken my fingers, and on top of that, I had to apologize for doing it. I sighed, a heavy sound pregnant with self-pity and irritation.
“I should’ve just punched Ashlynn,” I grumbled. “At least then I wouldn’t feel the need to apologize for it.” I found Anya guarding the door, and she glared at me and blocked my way when I tried to pass her.
“Anya, you really don’t want to push my buttons today,” I sighed, cutting myself off as I realized I’d done it again. “I need to speak to Jeremy, and you don’t want me to punch you in the face. My right hand hardly hurts anymore, and my left hand works perfectly.” I smiled benignly as her face paled and I thanked her when she stepped out of my way.
Inside the room, Jeremy sat in a window seat and watched the road where Eos had caught up to us. Clay had left, and Fin sat on the floor with his back against the wall.
“Sup, Caroline?” Fin asked, and I shrugged.
“Can I talk to Jeremy alone, please?” I needed to make peace fast, but not so much that I wanted an audience. Fin hesitated, and I let the smile fall away from my face. “I’m not going to hit him, Fin. Just give us a minute.” He clambered to his feet and slipped out of the room, and I took his spot on the floor at Jeremy’s feet.
“I owe you an apology, Jer. I’m sorry. I get that I sent you mixed signals about fighting, and I can’t very well have expectations when you don’t know what they are.”
Jeremy shifted in his seat but didn’t look at me. “I know you don’t prefer us at your side because we’re vermin, but if you wanted us to fight, you just had to say so.”
“That’s not it Jeremy. I have trouble letting things go, sometimes. We met under less than optimal circumstances, then when Clay was attacked…” I sighed. It wasn’t you, but I held you responsible for the actions of your people. It isn’t rats I don’t trust, it’s you as their leader, and it isn’t fair.” I glanced up and his eyes met mine. “I trust Fin with my life, and Anya to help me keep myself alive. I just need to trust you too.” I stood and brushed off my jeans. “Anyway, sorry about your face, if you have to shift to heal it, go ahead, I’ll give you your privacy and send Fin into town for vittles.” I left without waiting for an answer, and paused outside the door.
“You good?” Fin asked, and I shrugged.
“I’ll be good when the bad vampires are dead, Nick is no longer thinking my thoughts, and I’m on my honeymoon. This internal politics gig is above my paygrade.”
Nick stuck his head out from our room down the hall and gestured me to him.
“We need everyone to join us in the room. Colette found something she missed before.” I rolled my eyes, pointed at Fin and motioned towards Nick, and Fin bobbed his head and knocked on Jeremy’s door.
I didn’t bother to check with Anya, but knocked on Clay’s door and repeated Nick’s instructions, then did the same with Dom.” By the time I returned to my room, the only space left was on the bed, so I sat cross-legged and hugged a pillow in my lap.
Colette outlined the ritual she’d found, hidden in the text itself. By her estimation, it would alert every vampire in the area to the release of the dormant power. But, by capturing it, the wielder (singular) could lay their enemies flat with a thought, and destroy them with a word.
“Destroy them with a word… So, the Night Mother will give something a little extra with that power, but is it incentive enough for someone to free her? I was shielding as hard as I could, but her power still brushed up against me like a living thing.
“Who gets to decide who the receiver is?” Dom asked a little too casually, and I glowered at her.
“Good question, better question, why do you care?” Clay broke in, and I thanked him under my breath.
“We don’t have time to fight with each other. There’s a vampire out there that can walk in the sunlight, and no one seems particularly worried, which they should be,” Nick sputtered. “Caroline gets the power unless the Night Mother decides otherwise,” he added. “If Eos is here, her brothers will be too.”
“Oh yay. One big family reunion. Awesome.” I grumbled. “Okay, what do we do? Because after casting the spell, I still want to get married. I can’t do that with vampire guts on the ground all around us.”
“Cast tonight, celebrate tomorrow, Love,” Nick said gently. “I know you and Dom can get the spell working. I’ll cast a glamor on the stones so humans don’t bother us, and we will be gone before the council comes to a decision as to how we should be dealt with.”
“God bless bureaucracy,” I muttered, and heard a couple of ‘here, heres’ in return. We had a plan, we had a deadline, and of course, we had an unseen enemy ready to kill us. What could go wrong?
I paced the floor as the shifters all gathered for their “pre-shift” protein load. Not only did their bodies metabolize exponentially faster when they were in their animal form, some wise werewolf had realized that eating before the change helped prevent the hunting and ingestion of their fellow human beings. I for one, appreciated the gesture.
The sun had never set so slowly, and I had nearly worn a hole in the hardwood when Nick closed his book and approached the window.
“Clouds are rolling in. We ought to get an early start.” I perked up and looked out the window too.
“I’ll gather everyone, we can walk to the stones.” I informed everyone that we were leaving, and raced out the front door, nearly crashing into the lady who had driven us to the hotel. “Sorry Shelly,” I blurted as she grabbed my arm.
“Eos has roamed this land for hundreds of years. If you want to best her, you’ll need the blessing of the goddess under the stones.” I managed not to show my surprise, but her words gave me hope that we could win the day.
“We have asked for her blessing Shelly, now pray for us that she heard us, because Eos has two brothers left who we haven’t slain, and I can’t imagine they won’t come for us eventually.”
She released my arm and I ran out and down the steps, feeling the earth for the living and the dead that we could use to defend ourselves. The clouds grew in density and more menacing in appearance, and I thanked the powers that be for the heavy curtain over the sky, while asking for the rain to be stayed until we were done.
The door slammed shut behind me and I glanced back at Jeremy, whose face was already noticeably less swollen and the bruises faded. He bowed at the hip, and I returned it with a nod, then continued scanning around the hotel and gardens for Eos or any other interloper. I presumed that Eos was solitary, since she had no need for a human servant to tend to her during the daylight hours, but I knew better than to base our plans on guesses that left us open to other attacks.
Nothing was watching us from within a mile of the hotel, but I felt the power t
ugging at me from the stones a few miles away. There was an insistence to the call from the stones, as though even the Night Mother knew we had very little time to complete our task, and was hurrying us along.
I carried a silver bowl big enough that I could barely reach my arms all the way around it, and my athame in the shaft of my boot on top of my other weapons. To do this right, I was going to need blood, my own, and if I was lucky, the blood of a vampire. I glanced over at Germain and he scowled at me. It didn’t look like I was going to get lucky.
Clay took my bowl from me and wrapped his shirt around it, slinging the arms over his shoulder like a satchel. I grinned at him and he matched it, then with a wink, he took off running over the field towards the sacred stones. I took off behind him, not trying to catch him, just reveling in the wind on my face and the tall grass parting to let me through. I felt a breeze brush my cheek, and suddenly, Nick’s dark hair was ahead of me.
With a laugh, I kicked harder and started to close the distance between us, when a malevolence rushed between us like a hot wind, throwing me onto my back.
“Well, hell,” I hissed as I got up to a crouch. The grass was tall enough that by staying low I was hidden, but vampires didn’t need to see you, to hunt you. I started to move forward in the direction Nick had gone, carefully feeling for the power signature of the enemy before moving ahead.
Are you there, Caroline? I can’t feel you, I felt Nick’s panic and I lowered my shielding to let him see where I was, then shut myself off again. I hadn’t taken four more creeping steps, before he showed up and helped me to my feet.
“She’s gone?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“I don’t know, but we’re all together now, which makes for a much more difficult target. I let him hold my hand until we reached the stones, justifying it by reminding myself that we’d come as much for the romance, as the spell, and holding hands didn’t have to mean I was scared.
We walked the stones and found the point of convergence, where the magic was strongest and the bonds that held it back the weakest.
“Now, we can’t set her free just by doing the spell, right?” I asked one last time. Colette and Rachel nodded, but Dominique stood quietly, her fingers twisted together in front of her. “How long has it been since you drew wild magic, Dom?” She flicked one hand and shrugged.
“Too long to remember, honestly,” she sighed. “Please hurry. I don’t like being exposed.”
Clay set the bowl out in the center of the stones and I glanced at Nick to make sure he had cast his glamor over the clearing to ensure at least there would be no human visitors.
“Go ahead, Caroline. It’s your show, now.” I gulped and nodded, my heart thrashing about in my chest.
“It’s times like this, I wish I were a better showman,” I joked, and breathed in the power around me. One way or another, tonight we were changing the reality of our world, and in a moment, there would be no turning back.
Chapter 13
I shucked off my duster and set it outside where my circle of protection needed to be. Undoing my wrist sheath, I handed it to Clay, and removed my athame from my boot. Cursing under my breath, I cut my arm from elbow to nearly wrist.
The swift searing pain told me I’d cut deeper than I wanted, which I knew meant it was exactly as deep as I’d need to make it around the circle before it healed. I dipped the tip of the dagger in the blood welling up through my wound and flicked it out, walking around the circle backwards as I went so there were no gaps.
When I reached the end of the circle, the wound had sealed itself and I wiped the blade clean on the grass to close the circle so I wouldn’t have to cut myself again. As soon as the circle was completed, there was an audible ‘snap’ as the protections sprang into place and the circle flashed with light as it sealed.
“Okay guys, nothing in, nothing out, or it’s going to sting,” I reminded those who weren’t practitioners.
Germain took up a guard position behind Nick so he could help me to focus, and Clay did the same for Dominique. Fin took up his position with Jeremy, and Ashlynn watched with obvious displeasure at being left out.
“Anya, I need you to protect Ashlynn. As the alpha of the wolf pack, her power can be added to ours, but it will leave her open to attack.” Anya nodded and took her place without a word, and I saw the alpha relax as she nodded her thanks to the wererat.
Dominique knelt at the edge of the circle and murmured something too softly for me to hear, but I saw Clay’s shoulders stiffen. She placed a hand just outside the circle, and I realized she was praying to the Night Mother, the same way I’d once watched her pray to Gaia, when the priests couldn’t see her. Dominique predated Christianity. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that what she had longed for, was a new goddess who would answer her.
“Dominique, do you plan to release the Night Mother, because I need to get this spell cast first if you do.”
“The Night Mother has promised to bind me to her when she is released. I’ve waited hundreds of years for my other half to be freed again. I would never ruin this for you just to rush the last minutes.”
Nick, that means the kids will be coming. Eos probably knew that someone intended to free the queen, and she’s guarded this place against that since the beginning.
Nick didn’t respond to me, but at a jerk of his chin, Rachel replaced Germain at Nick’s back and he and Michael began to patrol.
I poured a little water from a bottle into the basin, and activated the connections I had with each of the people at the edge of the circle. Wolf, vampire, wererat, witch, all their power was shared flowing into the circle in individual threads, then I pushed that power into the earth and gathered it together, before sharing it in one braid that connected them to me in turn. The magic from the stones themselves increased, and I looked around me at the ancient structure that had once been a holy place.
Many had fallen and those that remained were pitted and damaged by time and the elements, but kneeling in the center of the inner circle still brought tears to my eyes. I felt the Night Mother for the first time, outside of her power, a sentient being who waited for her revenge.
I felt her desire for freedom, and her longing for her animals to call, and the touch of the night breeze on her skin. She’d walked in the sun once too, but it was moonlight she missed, and falling stars, just like Nick and I would watch. But in her time, the satellites that fell were meteors, not man-made.
In an instant, I saw all the likenesses in us, and all the differences. Her rage at her children wouldn’t be tempered by forgiveness. She didn’t want a clan, just her animals, her lost servant, and her freedom. We weren’t a threat to her, unless we stopped her from becoming freed.
I tried to call out to Nick, but the queen’s power overwhelmed ours and she forced me to stay silent.
Make your choice, necromancer, but know your world is safer with me in it. Her voice was a bell in my head, pushing me toward her desires.
But we killed Caius on American soil. We can’t get all your children here to free you. I managed to reply to her, forcing her to hear me over the might of her power.
Not all my children, came the reply, then nothing else. I knew what she wanted. Her guardian put down for betraying her, and freedom, in return for Nick and I maintaining our own personalities.
I tipped the bowl of water out and walked to the edge of the circle. I kicked dirt over the blood to break the circle and set the bowl on the ground between us, then reached through the space for Nick’s hand.
“The Night Queen has requested an audience, Nicholas. To get that, she needs the blood of one of her descendants, freely given, not ‘wholly given’, like we assumed. She doesn’t want to bleed you dry, it just needs to be you. Only Colette is old enough otherwise, and I can’t ask her to give blood to my necromancy. I promised her I would never use her for magic again.”
Nick blew out a breath and closed his eyes, his hands still at his side.
“Do we want her f
reed?”
“I don’t, she scares me. But she’s promised to make life a lot harder for me if I don’t, than if I do.” A shadow of concern flitted over his face. “Dom played us, Nick. This is the master she wanted. They’ve been waiting for each other, and she led us here, in spite of our best efforts.”
I could kill Dominique, he slid into my thoughts, and I smacked him on the arm.
“No. Just, no. It’ll be okay, I just need a few drops, and I’ll do the rest,” I tried to reassure him. Instead of giving me his hand, he stepped inside the circle with me.
“Join us, Dominique?” he offered, and she jumped to her feet and crossed over to us, clutching my hands in hers. Her eyes were wild and her fingers like ice, and I remembered what it was like when I first met Nick, the excitement and self-doubt.
“If she hurts my people, I’ll kill you, slowly and painfully, m’kay, sweetie?” I smiled at her, and she swallowed hard and nodded. I let Nick take her shaking hands and swore as I sliced open my arm again to reclose the circle.
The three of us knelt in the center of the circle, and Nick held his hand out, palm up. I pierced his hand and drew a line across his palm, letting the blood flow out of the wound and into the ground.
“This is it, Nick. Do we free her, or leave her here?” He shook his head and squeezed his hand into a fist and released it, letting more blood flow from the wound.
“She’s the mother of all, and she was betrayed. I’m afraid that her hate will be the fire that burns us all, but I understand why you asked me to help you release her. We can’t leave one of our own behind.”