DAEMONEUM

by Laney McMann

  “I wanted to wait until the three of us were together before I started.” Plumb walked behind her desk. “Unfortunately, no, everything isn’t okay.” There were dark circles under her eyes, Kade realized, and her hair, usually neat in one of her turbans or headbands, was loose and ragged over her shoulders.

  “What’s going on?” Cole’s posture went stiff.

  Plumb sat down. “I was contacted by the Eldership a little while ago.”

  “What?” Cole advanced on her desk. “Why?”

  Kade took a step forward, standing beside Cole. “Who’s the Eldership?”

  Plumb let out a breath. “The Eldership is the body that governs all Primordial, including the Ward, as well as Warden Caelius. They inhabit the Celestial Plane, our true home, and they only step in when, and if, they deem it necessary. Or if there is a problem.”

  Kade glanced at Cole. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was staring at Plumb. “Go on.”

  “It seems that Warden Caelius is under investigation for withholding certain information,” she said.

  Cole was rigid. “They know about Kade.” It wasn’t a question.

  Plumb bowed her head. “They know about Kade.”

  Cole let out a breath as if he’d been punched in the stomach and rested his hands against the desk, head bowed, gaze toward the floor.

  “Wait,” Kade took a step, “and? What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Plumb went on, “that Warden Caelius is under investigation for withholding information that an Anamolia exists and not handing you over to the Eldership.”

  “But—“

  Plumb held up a hand. “It means that Warden Caelius has no say, from this point on, about your guardianship, nor do I.”

  “But …” Kade thought she might vomit. She’d seen the Warden an hour ago.

  “With your father, or uncle, now being deceased,” Plumb said, “and considering the state of what you are, the Eldership has taken control of your person from here on. You have been summoned to the Celestial Plane, to Stella Urbem, the Star City.” She drew a staggered breath as if she couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. “And Warden Caelius will be going on trial for aiding and abetting a minor of foreign origin.”

  “What?” Cole shouted. “Are you serious?”

  Kade’s knees went weak. Foreign origin?

  “You know I would never joke about something like this,” Plumb said. “The Eldership has taken control of the Ward until further notice.”

  Cole stood motionless for a second and then started to pace like a caged animal. “Can I see him? The Warden?”

  She blanched. “I’m … I don’t know. I’m not sure when he has to report to Stella Urbem. He might have left already. Why? There’s nothing you can say to change the Eldership’s mind, you know that. And Warden Caelius is a smart man. He’ll do what needs to be done; I’m sure of that. I am also sure he would want all of the kids in the Brotherhood and Kinship, as well as all the other common houses around the globe, to attend to their normal duties. We have Daemoneum to locate. A trial doesn’t happen often, Cole, but it does happen. The Warden will see this through.”

  In that instant, Kade realized Plumb didn’t know Warden Caelius was Cole’s grandfather.

  Cole eyed Plumb like he was about to blow her office apart. “What about Kade?” he seethed. “We’re supposed to turn her over to the Eldership? Take her to Stella Urbem?” He stood in front of her desk, fists clenched, knuckles white. “You know damn well that’s not happening.”

  “Cole, I understand you’re upset, but we need to think about this rationally. This is normal protocol. Kadence is a rare case. I don’t believe they want to harm her in anyway—they’re just curious, and so they should be. We’ve never known an Anamolia to exist before now. Once they see she’s harmless, I’m sure all will be resolved.” She gave Kade a small smile, but Kade couldn’t make her mouth move to return the gesture.

  “They’ll want to run tests, Plumb.” Cole rubbed his forehead, sweaty now, and he didn’t seem able to stay still. “They believe Anamolia are the devil’s offspring, and they’ll want to prove they’re right, now that they’ve found one that exists.”

  Kade glanced up at him. Tests. Cole kept saying that, had said it to Danny when he’d learned Kade was an Anamolia. She wouldn’t like it, he’d told her.

  “Cole … I’m sorry,” Plumb said. “We knew letting her stay here was a risk—that all of this, hiding her—everything was a risk, and … what do you want me to do? My hands are tied.”

  “How do we get to the Celestial Plane, or the Star City?” Kade asked. “That’s where I have to go?”

  Cole glanced at her for the first time since Plumb started talking. His darkened eyes were so full of raw panic Kade had to look away from him. “Through the Leygate,” he answered. “With permission. No one has access to Stella Urbem except the Elders and Warden Caelius.”

  Kade stared at Plumb. “Okay. Who’s taking me?”

  “No one is taking you!” Cole yelled, startling her. “You’re not going!”

  “Cole—“ Plumb stood up.

  “No. She’s not going there. Don’t push me, Plumb. They already have the Warden, they are NOT taking Kade!”

  Plumb paled, staring at him as if he was someone she didn’t know. “I see you are too upset to think clearly. So, let’s take a breath and think this through.”

  “There’s nothing to think through. I won’t bend on this.” His entire body was like a steel cable.

  “You don’t have a choice, Cole. You have no jurisdiction. You’re a child in the Eldership’s mind, an upset boyfriend—if they’ve figured that part out, too. Think about what you’re saying!” She drew in a breath. “The punishment for intermingling with someone who isn’t one of your own is extreme, but,” she eyed Kade, “someone who is a Devil God …? The daughter of Dracon?”

  Kade knew Plumb thought of Cole as a son, and she was only trying to protect him, but she might as well have slapped Kade with those words.

  “We can’t shield this without Warden Caelius,” Plumb continued, “and we don’t have him. I will not have you taken to Stella Urbem and questioned as well, if I can help it. I won’t. Let them see her, Cole. Let Kadence prove to them she’s harmless. Otherwise we are all on the line. Do you understand what I’m saying? Danny? Giselle? They know what Kadence is, too. You have to let the Eldership call the shots. There is no other way to do this.”

  “Okay.” Kade took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

  Cole turned around, staring at her with so much pain in his gray-blue gaze she could barely keep eye contact. “Kade, no.”

  After all the times she’d thought he had seemed like one of those guys who’d always gotten whatever he’d wanted, whoever, whenever, now she wondered if it was the complete opposite. Maybe he never had. “I have to go,” she said, staring at him. “I’m not … Cole, I’m not letting you—any of you—take a hit because of me. You mean too much to me. I can handle this, and I’m not a threat to the Primordial race. Let me tell them that. I’ve faced worse than the Eldership.”

  Cole glanced at the floor, jaw working. “Don’t bet on it.”

  “We have an appointment,” Plumb said. “The Eldership runs on their schedule, not ours. Thankfully, they don’t view you as a flight risk or you would already be gone. We will be leaving tomorrow evening. Formal attire. And this is classified information—it stays within these walls.”

  Kade nodded, and Cole turned away, stalked out of Plumb’s office, and slammed the door behind him.

  “I’m sorry for all of this, Kade, really. It will all work out—we just have to follow the rules. The Eldership will see you’re not a threat to us once they meet you.”

  Kade knew all about rules—her life of lies had been built on them. She walked toward the bookcase as it slid to the side, past Plumb, and went down the hall toward the bunker apartment. Every bone in her body wanted to follow Cole, make him understand, but
that wasn’t an option. She couldn’t be seen in the halls of the Brotherhood.

  Reaching her door, she pushed it open. Cole had put everything on the line for her since day one, before he even really knew her, and no matter how upset he got, she’d be doing the same for him.

  Chapter 9

  The elder man sat in his office, his ornate wooden desktop covered in a mess of disheveled papers and old leather-bound books. Behind him on the wall was the Ward’s motto, painted so many centuries ago in now faded red paint:

  Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

  The fates lead the willing, and drag the unwilling.

  It wasn’t a saying Warden Caelius would have chosen himself. Perhaps in the earlier years of Primordial rule, they needed such a sentiment, but not anymore. More modern times called for more modern thinking. He chuckled at such an ironic thought, searching through the pages of a book for the ancient text he needed. Nothing about the way of Primordial life was modern, likely never would be.

  The old books strewn haphazardly across his desk proved that to be so. Traditions had been ingrained so many years ago, right along with hatred. Perhaps he was being silly even toying with the notion of changing anything, and anyway; there were much more pressing issues at hand than whether the motto still held true to the Warden’s current ideas and views. Still, his grandson, Cole, had always made him see things in a new, and perhaps better, light.

  Warden Caelius shook his head, graying hair falling across his forehead. With all of the Daemoneum, the Devil’s Children and Nefarius alike, having seemed to disappear like vapor in a matter of days following Dracon’s death, his mind needed to stay focused on more important topics.

  Finding the passage he was searching for, written in Latin as all old Primordial texts were, the words and image seemed to stare back at him. His aged hand held the thick, yellowed paper between his fingertips. The depiction, drawn in fine black ink, had smudged in places and faded, too, over time, but it was a sketch the Warden could have drawn in detail from memory. Underneath the image of the serpent coiling the egg, the words Et mortali spiram were written.

  The Mortal Coil.

  Cole had been the one to find the symbol, several times as it were, over the past few weeks in various places around the U.S. In the bottom right margin of the page, the image Warden Caelius had been searching for was embossed in gold. In spiris anulum. The coiled ring.

  It had been a very long time since he’d last laid eyes on an image of the ring. He drew the book closer to his face to scrutinize it. The band was a series of intricately woven strands of pure silver, much like a helix. The signet of the ring had the infernal symbol: a small onyx serpent entwined around a moonstone egg.

  A hard rap on his office door drew his attention, and he lowered the book to his desk with a deep breath, closing the time-worn leather cover. “Enter.”

  The Warden’s light gray-blue eyes brightened as Cole walked in the office, closing the door behind him. “You’ve been summoned to Stella Urbem?”

  “I have.” The Warden folded his aged hands together. “I knew it was only a matter of time before they would summon me—I simply have not been fast enough in procuring the information I need to put all of Kadence’s affairs in order and assure the Eldership she is not a threat to us. As I said, Kadence is a rare case. It is not the summons that concerns me.”

  “Grandfather—“ Cole sat in front of the large wooden desk, facing him, and eyed the disarray of papers and books. “They summoned Kade.”

  “Yes. We will get to that in a moment.”

  “Something else is wrong—”

  “I lost something,” the Warden said, holding up a weathered finger to interrupt Cole, “but I have recovered it—well, partially anyway. It is, I believe, one of, if not the, key element to getting closer to finding what we are searching for—which is to say, the Daemoneum.” The Warden opened the book in front of him to the same page he’d been pursuing and turned it to face Cole. “What do you see?”

  Cole leaned forward and glanced at the aged paper. “Et mortali spiram.”

  “Yes. Where?”

  Cole’s brow crunched, and he glanced down. His fingers traced the small ring in the bottom right margin of the page. “Why is this in here?”

  “I am confused—why is what in where?”

  “This ring.” Cole checked the spine of the book. It had to have been a few thousand years old. Maybe older—likely older. “Why is this ring drawn in this book?” He lifted his head and stared at his grandfather.

  Warden Caelius steepled his hands underneath his chin and appraised his grandson. He was constantly amazed by the boy, had been since he was born. Cole was far smarter than any of his age. Stronger, too. “You know of this ring.” He gestured to it. “I should be surprised by that, but I find, once again, I am not. How do you know of it?”

  “Kade told me about it. Dracon wore a ring with the Et mortali spiram on it. It has to be the same one.”

  The Warden sat at his desk. “Did he? Well, I suppose that makes our investigation a bit simpler and a bit more difficult. What did she say about the ring?”

  “She told me she asked him what it meant once and he told her: life ends in death.”

  “And indeed it does.” He sat back in his leather chair. “Shakespeare, you know.”

  “Yes.” Cole grinned. “That’s what I told Kade, too.”

  “I am sure you did.” He smiled. “He was an interesting man, Shakespeare. A very mysterious man, as you also know. Some say he never existed at all—that his plays and sonnets were written by a man of a different name. Others say he was Italian not English. How else could he possibly have known such details of the Italian landscape? And why, for example, would the settings of such famous plays be set in Italy if he had never been there? Traveling during that time in history wasn’t as easy for humans as it is today.”

  The man stood from his desk and walked to the window, staring out of his office and onto the sprawling grounds of the basilica. The fountains with their water splashing off old stone were a calming sight. He would miss the view when he went to the Star City. “This is the coiled ring.” He pointed to the drawing in the book. “It is an ancient relic, far, far before my time, and it is believed to hold untold power. The Et mortali spiram symbol is ancient as well. World power, world order, universal control—the end goal is always the same. Only one person is said to be able to wear the ring. The Patriarchae.”

  “What?” Cole leaned forward in his seat.

  “I remembered reading the word in the report you’d given Plumb after the attack in Crystalline a couple weeks ago, and although we all . . . well, most of us in the higher ranks, know of the word Patriarchae and its use over the centuries, it had been several years since I’d heard it used again. I pictured the word in my head, knowing I’d seen it somewhere important, but simply couldn’t place it until I started doing some research.” He gestured toward the drawing. “Once I saw this image, I remembered. What most do not comprehend about this ring is the point of the symbol itself.”

  “Are you planning to tell me?” Cole sat back in his chair.

  “In spiris anulum, the coiled ring, is a tangible symbol of Et mortali spiram. The Mortal Coil, as it were. The gift of life ends in death, as you said.” He walked back to his desk and tapped the depiction of the ring. “In this visual it shows how the Daemoneum have always planned to accomplish this end.”

  Cole lifted his brows.

  “The egg is clearly the symbol for birth, humanity, or we could easily say it symbolizes Earth, even the Universe. The snake with its body wound, or coiled, around the egg is, of course, the symbol of death. The snake is in control. The tighter it squeezes the egg, the faster it takes its life.”

  Cole nodded. “Right.”

  “Right. Simple. Quite straightforward.” The Warden waved his hand through the air. “But what we don’t normally see is the context that lies underneath. In any dictionary the word mortal means human, h
umanity. And the word coil has a plethora of meanings. A spiral of rope, a spring of metal, a ring of smoke—and even, as Shakespeare mentioned, the turmoil of everyday life. The list goes on and on, but only one definition applies to us. The definition that concerns us is this: a coil is an electrical device consisting of a length of wire arranged in a spiral. The spiral converts a level of voltage which produces a magnetic field, or a circuit. So, the symbol of the snake signifies a relay coil.”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed.

  “In this situation,” Warden Caelius went on, “I believe we have two issues. The snake is signifying a coil that can convert energy. The second issue is the relay. Relay means to transmit. Such as a device that transmits a message or a signal.”

  “Okay.” Cole nodded.

  “As you know, we have a magnetic field coursing through our bodies, all life does, but as avians, we are a bit higher on the evolutionary scale with our knowledge. In our avian forms, we can find any location on the planet and beyond without so much as a simple thought. We could go as far as to say the magnetic field around the Earth, the Universe as a whole, acts as a massive relay system guiding all avians. Connecting us to it. Almost like a transmitter.”

  Cole held up his hand, and the Warden knew he understood. This was the reason so many of the Principals within the Ward disliked his grandson—he was quicker and smarter even though he was half their age.

  “The Daemoneum also have a magnetic field within their bodies. And Kadence, as an Anamolia, has a very special mix of these properties, as she undoubtedly has both positive and negative energy to guide her.”

  “Okay … that makes sense. Devil God.” Cole nodded for the Warden to continue.

  “As the snake moves around the egg in its coiled form, it acts as a relay, and reroutes the world grid, shifting the magnetic fields as it moves. If I were to uncoil the snake from around the egg and lay it head to tail, it would be straight, as a line is straight. As a Leyline is straight.” He drew a straight line on a scrap piece of paper on his desk. “In the position of a coil, the snake draws all energy and therefore creates power. There are some who believe the egg symbolizes the birth of the Universe as a whole and all walks of life contained within it. It is an ancient belief, but our belief systems, as you know, predate this planet and all of humanity. The magnetic field was here far before any humans roamed these lands and seas.