Ruled by Tainted Blood

by Michael J Allen

  I changed back as I landed, skidding to a stop only a few paces from the woman and child. My gaze shot up toward Ignis. His flaming blade sizzled a channel in the humongous water hand.

  I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  At the last moment, tendrils snapped out from both water hemispheres, seized each other and slammed the sphere of water together around Ignis.

  Lightning hit the sphere. The sky fire slammed Ignis’s cage once, twice and again.

  I launched myself airborne, reaching for the water encasing and potentially drowning Ignis. Taint filled me and nausea filled my stomach with barb maggots. I flew as hard as I could, reaching out to the water like I would my essence.

  Foul water left sitting too long in the lines resisted my grip, but I refused to give up. None of us knew where the nests had gone. We had no idea if the nests still contained essence and even less idea whether or not the eggs remained to catch Ignis’s spirit.

  I’d left Terrance to Vitae, but someone had to help Ignis.

  My grip solidified.

  I wrenched the water away from him, drawing it—foul and tainted—into myself.

  Another lightning strike thundered through the confined space. Without the watery sphere in its path, the bolt struck Ignis head on.

  Ignis!

  A kudzu fist met me midair. I hit the ground, bones shattering. Consciousness wavered, held back only by excruciating pain. I claimed the pain, and bent it to my will.

  Pain is life.

  I focused on my essence, forcing it into a star blazing at my core as brightly as the agony burned in my body and the sorrow that pierced my heart.

  I transmogrified, climbed to my feet and faced the plant monster with trashcan-sized spheres of foul water at either hand.

  “See to the injured wafer,” Vitae said. “I can handle this beast.”

  “You take care of Ignis and Terrance,” I ground my teeth. “This fucking thing is mine.”

  Will turned the globes into floating whirlpools. They flattened and distended, both forming into two larger serrated versions of the s-shaped blades joined into a free spinning X.

  Vitae’s Seelie blade slammed into the side of my face hilt first. “I gave you an order, Aquaylae!”

  I wiped blood from my cheek. I wanted very few things as much as to turn and slam a fist into Vitae’s guts, but destroying the kudzu elemental trumped even that not so small satisfaction.

  I turned my attention back to reforming my blades. A kudzu foot came down to stomp me.

  The spinning food processor blades split from two to four and flashed a crisscross that shredded the leg as it came down.

  “Do as you’re told.” Vitae struck me with the pummel of his Unseelie blade. Energy washed out of me into the sword.

  I whipped around, catching his blade with my karambit. I drew in essence from every direction, summoning the little motes I seeded throughout downtown. I absorbed strength from every seed I could reach. Bladed cross guards grew out of my hilt’s ring, protecting my hands with its razor edge.

  The snarl tore its way from my throat. “Help Ignis and Terrance!”

  “You will see to the wafers. They’re what you really care about. I will defeat this beast alone and then see to Atlanta’s real shields.”

  I could kill Vitae in half a beat of my hammering heart. The four blades awaiting my command needed their current mass to deal with the kudzu creature, but they had more than enough mass to become eight and mulch the arrogant jackass giving me orders.

  Terrance is right. Like as not, we’re family and now is not the time.

  I turned my back on Vitae and threw my hands forward toward the quickly recovering monster.

  The hair along the base of my neck prickled.

  “You will obey your betters!”

  I spun, jerking to a sudden sideways halt as Vitae’s two glowing swords thrust where my back had been only moments before.

  My huge whirling blades quartered Vitae with a thought. The two Champion blades resisted a few strikes before the repeated impact sent them flying. I let Vitae fall where he may and turned my blood-covered blades on the monster.

  Every pass through the creature added to the blades’ weight. They flashed in and out of the foliage like they were dancing in a strobe light. Leaves and vines rained down around the atrium like the Creator had rang a gong sounding sudden fall.

  I stood in the leafy rain, pulse still roaring rapids in my ears and every instinct tingling. I needed to check Ignis and Terrance. I needed to see to the injured mortals, but I didn’t dare lower my guard until I knew we were safe.

  Above, countless cameras watched my gleaming blades and feats of aquakinesis. Phones and their wielders had witnessed us at our best and our worst. The ramifications of our exposure, of the carnage and death, loomed like a Sword of Damocles that I didn’t have time to fear.

  When nothing moved for several moments, I looked for Ignis. I didn’t immediately see him. I checked for Terrance. A pile of dark soil sloughed up against the remainder of the bloody, furniture barricade.

  He died to protect me.

  Tears brimmed my eyes.

  I blinked them away and rushed toward the railing overlooking a lower floor near where I’d last seen Ignis. His hilt lay a level below, rolled into a seat crack of a chair next to a table covered in ashes.

  I drew the silvered feather from my bodice and marched toward the woman and child. “Ani, please tell me you can sense the others.”

  “I saw them fall, but there is no sense of them,” Anima said.

  I bent next to the cowering woman. I checked the child first, finding no pulse in his neck.

  If I’d been faster, I might’ve been in time to save him.

  I cursed, easing around the child to check the woman’s neck. Her strong pulse allowed me a relieved sigh. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman said.

  “Let me move the boy and check you, all right?”

  The woman’s arm around the boy tightened.

  “I’m sorry. He’s gone.” I lowered my voice. “Ani, can putti rewrite memories like they can buildings?”

  “They cannot. I’ve contacted the Isaac, perhaps he can reach someone who can help contain this.”

  Loud, slow claps echoed behind me. I lifted my head to find Dunham standing in the middle of the atrium. He wasn’t dressed in a business suit like I’d have expected. Instead, he was garbed in knee-length trousers, a long vest and a bandolier of colorful vials out of some medieval reenactment. Celtic markings covered almost all of his skin, the runes pulsing with a steady glow.

  “You are truly impressive, Quayla,” Dunham stopped well out of reach, lowering his hands to his sides. “Not that you beat my elemental. There just wasn’t any point continuing when I’d already met all my goals. If I were honest, I’d have to admit that I expected you to run...that’s what cowards do after all.”

  “You’re behind all this? You work for the Lady?”

  Dunham’s smile grew wider. “Well, they say the faerie are treacherous in all their dealings. It seems that truism covers their most as well as their least. I’ll deal with that later, but first I must thank you.”

  I tensed, pushing essence into my karambit in preparation to whip the blade toward him. “Why thank me?”

  “It’s a long list, but I think I’ll start with your killing the Vitae. I’ve never heard of a phoenix with such powers. He was about to foil this whole trap.”

  “I don’t know what powers you traded for your soul, but there’s still a phoenix alive on this battlefield,” I scanned the glowing marks and other tattoos, “druid.”

  He showed his teeth. “True, a water phoenix, a bleeding heart disgraced by her own cowardice and therefore moved to compensate by helping mortals.”

  “I’m a shield of the Undying Light,” I said. “I care for all Creation. That doesn’t make me a bleeding heart.”

  “This does,” the injured woma
n jerked a knife out from under the dead boy and shoved it into my chest.

  21: Painfully Desperate

  Quayla

  My body reformed with agonizing slowness. Killing myself to protect the Shield Sanctum when I hadn’t been sure enough essence remained for rebirth had been hard. The struggle vexing my body as it tried to form felt a thousand times worse.

  My essence stabilized.

  I opened my eyes to find myself in a cramped glass container of some kind. Another similar container loomed to my left. A viscus liquid swirled between the thick outer layer and a dark inner layer of unknown thickness. An odd birdcage-shaped beaded curtain stood to my right and beyond it a glass bell jar containing a shapely blond woman. Instinct told me the unknown woman had to be Caelum.

  “Caelum?”

  The woman didn’t respond.

  I pounded on the glass. “Caelum?”

  The cage around me was too short to afford me jumping up and down room, so I waved large, manly hands back and forth. A glance confirmed my chest covered by fine auburn curls rather than breasts and a matching collection of hair around my penis.

  I crouched to examine the basin beneath my feet. A small rubber diaphragm capped the bottom of a squared, stone funnel. Runes glowed around me and my cage, emanating the same feel as the magic that had electrocuted Ignis.

  Knowing Dunham had prepared the trap, it took me only a moment to recognize the standing stones I’d ogled in his office. A center stone had been placed between them on the opposite side of the standing stones from the basin beneath my feet.

  A glowing pentagram of scintillating energy crisscrossed the center stone, points of its star at the back of each standing stone.

  Essence?

  I placed a hand near the diaphragm and extended my senses. Essence—my essence—lurked just beneath my feet.

  Then why was rebirth so difficult?

  The diaphragm seemed the obvious culprit. I glanced at Caelum to see if he’d noticed me yet, noting a small jar. A quick check confirmed my cage included one as well, though mine had a funnel attachment while Caelum’s had some kind of valve.

  Dunham’s going to milk us for our essence?

  I scanned the room beyond my glass enclosure. Mechanical arms served the obvious purpose of lifting my cage upward and probably the cages of the others. Markings surrounded the arrangement of stones, probably what blocked Anima from sensing Caelum and our nests.

  I noted another stone not far away that matched the center stone. Glass beakers filled with glowing essence stood at the five corners of its pentagram, light brighter beneath them than anywhere else.

  Druid magic too?

  I turned back to face the center stone

  If he’s feeding that pentagram with essence, then these basins are somehow feeding the stone our essence while also allowing us to be reborn.

  I looked up to find Caelum watching me. The air phoenix’s mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear him. I pointed at my ear and shook my head.

  Caelum deflated.

  An idea played across his face. He squatted, holding a pantomime newspaper then rose, turned and depressed something. One hand twirled a finger in a wide spiral.

  Ask to go to the bathroom?

  Disgust wrinkled my face.

  He wants me to pee?

  Caelum hit a fist against his cage, not that I could hear the impact. He pointed at me and made a fist, then changed the fist to a horizontal hand making wave gestures before reorienting it vertical and making more rapid wave motions.

  Rock, paper, fish? Fist, waves, wiggles?

  Caelum seemed to recognize my confusion. He made the fist sign once more, then repositioned his body to look bulky. He followed by making waves, pointing to me, making squiggles and pointing to himself.

  Earth, Water, and Air?

  It hit me all at once. Caelum’s charades represented the states of matter. When my expression cleared, he nodded and pointed down.

  He wants me to turn into true liquid and go down the drain? If that would allow us escape, why hasn’t he turned into gas and escaped already?

  Caelum scanned the room before turning into a human built of essence like I had descending into the Lady’s grotto. He bent, fingers trying to pry up something at the bottom of his basin. After a minute, he shrugged.

  I frowned.

  Why wouldn’t he be able to open his diaphragm?

  My eyes flashed to the valve I’d noticed on his small bottle.

  Unless he has something different keeping him in.

  I had turned my human body into water to help me underwater and to limit damage from bullet impacts. Outside deforming my hands to escape Foxner’s cuffs though, I’d never tried to be anything other than human or phoenix. Caelum was suggesting I somehow release all shape, become amorphous and escape down the drain.

  Another idea occurred to me.

  I transmogrified into water and formed a ribbon of water around me. With an effort of will, I rotated the ribbon faster and faster before pressing it against the glass of my cage.

  I grinned and checked Caelum.

  He rolled his eyes, head shaking back and forth as he held up his hands like they were pressed together in prayer. He parted them and sucked in a breath between them.

  I frowned.

  I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me, but Caelum didn’t seem to think I’d be able to cut my way free. I examined the basin.

  I suppose it’s possible.

  Dunham had been downtown, but I had no way to tell when he would return.

  Unless I ask Anima. I was reborn here, so this is my nest or at the very least my nest is under this basin.

  I grabbed for the silvered feather, but it was gone. I tried the summoning chant, but the amulet didn’t appear. I lowered myself to the basin, easing up the rubber diaphragm. “Anima?

  No answer.

  I glanced at Caelum.

  He gestured for me to hurry.

  I took in a deep breath and tried to relax. Being imprisoned after fighting for your life, killing your Vitae and being murdered proved a poor starting state for relaxation.

  I need to loosen my hold on my shape like when I change between forms then move like an inch worm where I can’t just flow naturally.

  I tried over and over, every moment ratchetting my tension that Dunham would return. He lived in the room where he’d caged us. Once he came home, there’d be no chance to escape until he left again.

  The magic in the stone feels latent, like it’s not active yet.

  I compared the glow of my basin runes to Caelum’s.

  Definite difference.

  I tried and failed again.

  Maybe forget relaxing. I need to shape myself kind of like those creatures in that movie Dylan showed me—Abyss?

  It took a few minutes of staring at my liquid finger to stretch it. A few minutes more and my index finger had become a sparkling licorice rope. I lifted the diaphragm with one hand and pushed my finger down into the basin. It encountered other essence almost immediately, but nowhere near as much as had been in my original nest.

  Doesn’t feel like enough for another rebirth either.

  My finger felt its way through the mostly empty basin, eventually feeling its way to another small passage. The new passage felt rough against my—well, not skin, but skin. Rough stone scraped at my finger like jagged sandpaper as I pushed.

  The tip stopped hurting, the scraping sensation falling away from more and more of my finger until the blue pseudopod appeared inside the circle of the center stone.

  I glanced over to find Caelum’s breasts bouncing up and down to his cheers. A kind of hybrid tingle and itch grew noticeable between my legs. I growled and forced my attention away, pushing more and more of my essence into the drain.

  Damn new bodies and male wiring.

  Pushing my essence through the rough passage was a long, torturous agony I’d have done anything but rewritten Dylan again to avoid. When all of me that had not been scra
ped away in the process stood inside the center stone, I mustered a tiny cheer and face planted against a magical barrier.

  The sudden resistance knocked me onto my ass. All the effort, all the pain and I was still trapped. I wanted to cry, not overly concerned that people seeing my new body cry in public wouldn’t approve.

  Screw them.

  I examined the center stone. Mismatched sections suggested concrete or similar had been poured into a mold of pieces that didn’t quite match. I got as close as I could to the stone. It took forever to scrutinize every inch, but at last I found what water had sought down through the ages—a crack through which to flow.

  Damn, this is going to hurt.

  Hurt proved far too small a word.

  Magic prevented me from opening Caelum’s cage. Mechanical arms held Ignis’s and Terrance’s cages in place. I tried to access a console that seemed to control them, but couldn’t bypass its security.

  Every moment I remained increased the chances of being recaptured. My Shield needed me to rescue them.

  Maybe Terrance will have an idea.

  I circled the standing stones until I could see the face of a dark-skinned woman through a small transparent window in the swirling muck. The new Terrance smiled sadly, lifted his hands into my view, hooked his thumbs and flapped his fingers.

  Fly away.

  I cursed myself and fled.

  Dunham

  Dunham pushed through the doors to his office. Cleaning up the Atlanta Marriott Marquis and wafer memories had taken an eternity even with the army of faeries invested in the task. He’d been forced to trust some of the verification to Knight Dolumii and Knight Gherrian. Viviane assured him employing both on any task ensured success.

  Their honor and their rivalry will force thoroughness.

  A team of hackers in an Indian Circlestone office had purged the uploaded pictures and movies as they tried to go live. Having such a large staff waiting had been supremely expensive, but not as costly as paying out life insurance claims to the dependents of those same hackers that’d blown up with the building directly after.

  Better to insure it all myself then have an insurance company I don’t control running the investigation.

  After so many decades waiting and sacrificing, planning and preparing, he’d done it. He’d made a Shield his own. Everything he’d strived for had finally fallen within arm’s reach.