“State your name, wanderer,” the male voice hissed, seemingly coming from first the tree and then on the opposite side of the room entirely—as if it had just Shadow Walked mid-sentence. Except I had felt no magic.
“State your name, creep,” I snapped back, glancing back and forth for any signs of movement. But I saw nothing. “And stop hisspering at me.” Silence ensued. Then…
A deep, rumbling chuckle rolled out from behind a dresser, but by the time I turned to look, the laughter was on the opposite side of the room again, near one of the trees.
“My name…” it mused. “I haven’t heard my own name in,” another chuckle, “many moons. But we are not here to speak of my name, wanderer. There are rules, you see…”
I narrowed my eyes. “Rules to what?”
“To conversation, to answers, to enlightenment.” Each statement came from a different point of the room as he hopped about, making my skin crawl. “To reach those lofty heights, I must have your name, wanderer. I’ve been waiting so, so long to hear you say it, after all.”
I rolled my shoulders, feeling like a finger had brushed the back of my neck at his words. I thought about his request very carefully. I had broken into his home. It was the least I could do. “Callie,” I breathed respectfully. “Callie Penrose. Look, I’m really sorr—”
“Your full name,” he hissed in a slow, gentle drawl, seeming suddenly much closer. How was he moving about so quickly without me sensing anything?
I frowned, momentarily confused by his question. Then it hit me. Solomon was part of my name. I had used the Seal of Solomon to get here—wherever here was—so it was likely safe information to share. And if he had really wanted to kill me, I was pretty sure I would already be bleeding out. I hadn’t even caught a glimpse of him yet. “Um. Callie Solomon Penrose,” I said, not sure which order to list my names in. Any other time, I might have given serious thought to how this stranger knew I hadn’t shared the whole truth, but I was talking to a teleporting, invisible, hissing creature—and somehow, I knew it was a creature, not a person—in a dark magic laboratory where they studied the language of the end.
Certain questions simply didn’t manifest at this level of insanity.
“Your first name. Your given name,” he urged, almost hungrily, as if licking his lips.
I shuddered anxiously, wondering who exactly I was talking to. He was obviously powerful yet remained hidden rather than attacking. Almost…like he was frightened of me. But the way he had phrased his question this time…almost like—
I flinched at a sound behind me, spinning to find a wooden crib on the floor not ten paces away, rocking back and forth with a steady creaking sound.
I caught a flash of a blue tail with fins sprouting from the sides—almost like those on a Koi fish—disappearing around the corner of a table beyond the crib, fleeing on silent feet after his freaky fast delivery.
I stared at the crib, my pulse suddenly thumping loudly in my ears. The crib itself wasn’t familiar—made hastily from loose vines and branches—but it was a very meaningful, very secret, symbol that held special significance to me. The old crib that I’d once found in Terry Penrose’s garage as a young teenager. Inside that crib, I’d found a hidden carved message…
And paired with this creature’s question…
I realized I was panting, eyes darting from the crib to where I had seen the tail vanish.
My Xuanwu After Dark conversation suddenly began to take on yet another epiphany, like washing a filthy window to let the light through. His comments hit my mind now like fastballs striking a catcher’s mitt—slap, slap, slap.
We all have our crosses to bear, our swords to carry…
Your blood is a sword. Your voice is a sword. Your name is a sword. We are all swords. Some just take better care of them than others before passing them on…
We take names, borrow them and their baggage, own them for a short time…but in the end they are simply cherry blossoms on the wind, floating to the next person—and the next, and the next…
But most impacting of all Xuanwu’s comments was when I thought we had been discussing the Sanguine Council and their clever trick of hiding a name.
…Well-known schemers, perhaps even choosing to call a thing something that it is not. That would be extremely clever, wouldn’t it, Callie? Hidden in plain sight, as it were…
But…how had Xuanwu known my secret, and why hadn’t he simply spoken clearly?
And this creature also seemed to know my secret, knowing that placing a crib before me would be significant—the answer to his question. This stranger wasn’t asking because he didn’t know. He was asking whether or not I knew. He’d said he’d been waiting so long to hear me say it…
Which meant he probably knew other things…
I took a deep breath. Like prying my fingers from a boulder that I had carried for decades, my lips began to move, releasing the burden—the question—I had carried for so, so long.
“Ex…” I began, cutting off to lick my lips. “Excalibur…” I finally whispered, voicing the crude message I’d found carved into the base of my crib that day long ago.
Ex. Callie. Bur.
A name hidden in plain sight. I’d always thought it an explanation for where my name had been derived.
The weight of my secret vanished, and I briefly felt as if I would float up into the air—nothing magical or anything like that. Just the relief of unburdening a secret. The soothing serenity of knowing I no longer had to lie or omit—
Then the magical part happened, shattering my soothing serenity like a bull in a china shop. An unseen, metaphysical claw abruptly clenched my soul in a godly fist—taking my breath away as it squeezed—and then tore away the name I had spoken. I gasped, my knees buckling at the strangely horrifying sensation—at the hollow it left within me.
But…I realized it wasn’t necessarily pain. It was more like a ravenous hunger that had left a hole in my stomach—a vacuum. Then, like nature does, it began abhorring the bejeezus out of the vacuum, slowly redistributing the contents of my soul to more efficiently capitalize on the new vacant real estate. This happened in a gurgling, bubbling, liquid sensation, like filling up a king’s chalice—a grail.
The pieces of black leather at the far end of the table abruptly snapped together with a metallic clang—which was startling on the principle that it had moved by itself so suddenly, but also because leather didn’t clang—making me jump with a startled squeak.
The leather sword shape—now one solid piece—disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Or…mist.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked no one in particular.
A hissing, gleeful laugh was the only response, coming from several points around the room—here one second, over there the next—making me dizzier than I already felt from the soul mugging I’d just survived.
Chapter 31
I suddenly had an image of Ariel in The Little Mermaid having her voice taken from her, and only realizing too late that the bargain with octo-twat Ursula had been inadvisable.
Part of me wanted the name back. Right. Now. Although, I didn’t actually feel like anything had really been taken from me. I hadn’t actually lost anything. I’d never used the name, so nothing had changed. Xuanwu’s riddled words echoed in my mind again, pounded at me, like an aggressive mantra trying to calm me down in a stern dad voice.
Your blood is a sword. Your voice is a sword. Your name is a sword. We are all swords. Some just take better care of them than others before passing them on…
We take names, borrow them and their baggage, own them for a short time…But in the end they are simply cherry blossoms on the wind, floating to the next person—and the next, and the next…
I had just carried it for a time, not truly owning it. But how had he known about it?
Xuanwu had very purposefully guided our conversation, telling me he had already considered every possible outcome of our talk. As upset as I was with him f
or speaking in riddles, he had given me true answers—especially about Dracula. He’d helped me.
Maybe.
Because I was sure he had his own motivations as well. He had mentioned a party—a war—coming to the world, and that everyone would need to pick a side. I didn’t know him well enough to stake my life on which side he would pick.
I let my conversation with Xuanwu replay at half-speed in the background of my mind.
Like…a plodding tortoise as opposed to a hare.
I wasn’t a fan of being used, and with Nate off battling Mordred—King Arthur’s son—I was beginning to realize this Excalibur situation—whatever it was—may have driven a wedge between us. That Nate would think I had hidden this knowledge from him.
Because in my wildest fantasies, I had never considered that I might be the actual fucking sword. I had simply thought I’d been named after it.
Yet another reason to go visit Nate—maybe a slightly lower priority than the murder bit.
“Oh, Callie…” the voice chuckled, snapping me out of my reverie. I had almost forgotten he was still lurking about somewhere. “I am delighted to finally make your acquaintance.”
And I gasped to see a surprisingly long, serpentine dragon suddenly crawling head-first down the tree nearest me, his body hugging the surface like a Komodo dragon on the beach. His long, muscular legs were bent more than ninety degrees at the elbow, making me think he could have stood upright on his back two legs if he so chose. He reached the tile and made his way towards me, his body easily transitioning between the vertical descent and horizontal walk as if he was a snake. His scales glistened from green to blue and back again, seemingly of their own accord since there was no direct light to cause a change like that.
Down his back was a ridged fin that moved like a rippling flag as he sashayed my way. Despite his long, narrow body, his head was a short, wide, bearded affair, reminding me of a Pug’s squashed, flat face. Two smooth pointed bone horns arced back from his temples, protecting the back of his neck, and two long whiskers—similar to a catfish—draped down either side of his jaws to hang below his chin like an exaggerated flesh mustache. He was about eight feet long from snout to rump, not counting the long tail, and as he drew nearer and I got a closer look at his thick, muscular legs, I was even more confident that he could stand upright.
He paused a respectful distance from me and snorted out a puff of steam, rearing his head up on his snake-like neck until it was level with mine. Then he calmly lifted one leg and slammed his clawed foot down upon the crib, shattering it to pieces. “It served its purpose.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who the hell are you?” I demanded.
Like a cobra slowly rearing up to strike—and with apparently as much expended effort—his front legs and torso rose off the ground, bending at the belly where his thick back legs flexed to support the shift in weight. I stared incredulously. He wasn’t a shifter dragon—he was an actual dragon. He was a smaller version of those Chinese dragon puppets you see in festivals and parades with about five guys underneath using wooden poles to make the puppet appear to writhe and bob as they moved—like a snake with legs. He didn’t have wings and I was curious what other differences he may have from the shifter dragons I knew. He’d snorted steam, so I was betting he had some kind of spitting magic. Fire?
He studied me, now standing fully upright, flicking his tongue out to taste the air.
“I, the hell, am a messenger,” he replied in his basso hissing whisper, sounding amused.
I frowned. “Look,” I said. “I already asked you to stop hisspering. I feel like I shouldn’t have to ask again, you know? Just talk normal. It will be easier for me to understand you.”
He let out a great, big, booming laugh, his flesh-stache bouncing and whipping wildly about. “How refreshing,” he finally said—without the creepy hissing factor—after his laughter had died down. “One who speaks her mind.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, realizing I was feeling a sort of kindred spirit vibe from the dragon. Although I knew he was dangerous, something about his aura just seemed in harmony with mine. But I’d been wrong before. “I didn’t ask for your occupation. I asked who you are.”
He nodded. “My name is Qinglong, the Azure Dragon. You may know my brother, Xuanwu,” he rumbled, sounding amused.
My mouth fell open and I stared at him dumbly. “You…you’re the dragon of the East,” I whispered, recalling the carving on Xuanwu’s door. “You represent the Spring season and wood, right?” I asked.
He nodded, pointedly glancing at the trees in the room. “Quite.”
Of course. Wood. Budding trees. I shook my head, not entirely sure which of my dozen questions to focus on first. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and relaxed, still feeling punchy from the soul mugging. I finally opened them again, feeling less anxious, and smiled at him. “It’s a pleasure.”
He smiled in response. Or maybe he had curled his lips at me to reveal his fangs. I wasn’t entirely sure.
My eyes drifted to where the leather sword-shape had been, and I found myself frowning again. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have answers. And you knew about the crib,” I said, jerking my chin at the pile of now broken sticks. He nodded calmly. “I thought they carved Excalibur into my crib to let me know what had inspired the name they chose for me, but whatever just happened tells me I was a bit naïve.”
He had followed my gaze, glancing over at where the leather had been on the table.
“Why was Excalibur hidden within me and then taken away?” I pressed. Because it was obvious that something had just been taken from me. Not an actual sword, but…a piece of one, like Xuanwu had hinted.
I am more than just a name. I am all. And I am nothing. Just a piece of this world, riding out my part to play in life like any other, Xuanwu’s voice murmured in my mind.
Qinglong nodded, approving of the way I’d chosen to ask the question.
“Excalibur was too powerful to leave out where anyone could scoop it up. It was decided that the sword needed to be dismantled, and the pieces safely hidden until it was the right time to reunite them again. Knowing how powerful your blood mix was—Nephilim and dark wizard and Solomon—your parents knew you would be strong enough to keep the Name safe. The sheathe, as you saw, was not strong enough for any extended period.”
I sat back, shaking my head. This was just ridiculous.
Qinglong continued. “When you came here and spoke the Name, you transferred it back into the sheathe—it’s vessel. Since it immediately disappeared, I’m guessing it thought it was time to reunite with the other pieces. Otherwise it would have remained here.”
I found that I wasn’t particularly concerned where it had gone. I’d done my part. The hatchling had left the nest, for better or for worse.
Not my sword, not my problem. That’s what I say.
“Part of me was just sucked out of my body. I’m pretty sure that kind of thing has consequences.”
He shook his head, his flesh-stache whipping about wildly. “There are no lasting effects, just a…mild readjustment period. A few days, at most.”
I narrowed my eyes, even though I could sense he was right. I already felt my soul knitting itself back together, and there was no longer a noticeable hollow pit within me.
“I…was a drug mule used to smuggle a piece of Excalibur?” I asked, gritting my teeth.
Qinglong thought about it for a few moments. “There are a few additional details that we need to discuss…”
Chapter 32
He held out his claws, gesturing at the room around us. “I have waited here a long time to meet you, Callie. This space has waited a long time for you to discover her secrets. Your mother’s secrets.”
My pulse quickened and I licked my lips. “My…mother?”
“Yes. She requested my assistance…in the event she couldn’t be here,” he said empathetically. “When she passed, I came to fulfill my promise and wait for you. To help you, in a
small way.”
I suddenly felt very numb. “With Excalibur’s Name.”
He nodded. “Yes. Among other things.” His gaze settled on the journal I had been perusing, and I felt my face flush. “I’ll admit, I had my doubts about her and your father’s plan. About you. About all of it. But…when I saw you decipher the omegabet…” he trailed off, shaking his head slowly. “That was both terrifying and inspiring.”
I blushed. “It just kind of happened,” I admitted. “I can’t read it or anything.”
He gave me a very intense look, locking eyes with me. “Most wouldn’t have spared it a second glance, but you discovered the name in minutes. That kind of skill is not typical. Even back in the age of the greatest wizards the world has ever known.”
I scoffed. “I’m definitely not one of the greatest wizards. Not even close.”
He regarded me thoughtfully. “Not yet. But even they had to start somewhere. You might surprise yourself. I know you are already surprising me.”
His eyes flickered to my forehead for the briefest of moments. Of course. It had been the first thing he’d said to me. Instead of letting the moment slip, I pounced, pointing at the hidden symbol marking my forehead, and leaned closer. “Mind telling me about this?”
He shook his head. “Your parents didn’t know. They searched and searched, but never found any answers.”
I sighed angrily. Archangel Michael hadn’t known either, so the answer was plausible.
“But you do?”
He shook his head. “I can read it, but it means nothing to me.”
I let out a breath. “I need to sit down. That Excalibur thing left my legs wobbly, and it would be embarrassing if one of the world’s greatest wizards fell off her own two feet.”
He chuckled, motioning me towards a long couch. I sat, letting out a breath of relief, and Qinglong merely squatted on his hind legs on the floor, still much taller than me. I scanned the room, shaking my head. My eyes settled on the dark ritual altar and I grimaced.
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