I have to do this. I have to get out there, help the others and prove myself. Then I need to find Dylan. I need him. Besides the shop, he’s all I have.
I hardened the blade in my left as much as I could, bringing its edge to my other hand. I touched the blade to the massive drop of essence, cringing at coming pain.
Even though my essence was liquid, it refused to part with an easy swipe. I sawed at it, forming serrated teeth along the blade’s edge. Every cut felt as if I were sawing a sword through my chest. My essence clung willfully until the last glistening tendril severed. It fell, almost hovering as if it hoped to be scooped up and embraced once more.
Essence dropped into the basin like runny Jell-O, easily doubling the amount I’d collected after hours of crying over Dylan.
My eyes squeezed tight, a tear running from each corner. I collapsed backward and panted.
Pain won’t stop me. Nothing will.
“Between the boost to recovery offered by Terrance’s slurry recipe and repeating this feat every four hours, it should only take three days for you to return to fighting trim with enough essence in your nest for a single rebirth,” Anima said.
I growled, too tired to hurl full insults.
“That’s a substantial acceleration,” Anima said. “Vitae will be pleased.”
This isn’t for Vitae, he can rip off his wings and jump from the balcony for all I care. I’m a shield...a good one.
I fell asleep on the floor, legs still folded. I slept poorly. Nightmares filled my mind with huge scissors and severed limbs. When I was reduced to a wingless torso, invisible hands hurled me from atop the building only to begin again. I woke in the dark of night. The sanctum felt oddly forlorn—dark, empty and haunted.
Anima lit a table lamp across the room, offering me enough light to see without blinding me. I rose, lip quivering at the sight of my nest. I blinked away tears and crawled back to my basin’s side.
Repeating my earlier performance hurt more rather than less. Without my phone, I set the bedside alarm for two hours and crawled into bed. The higher quality but narrower mattress felt foreign. Dylan’s absence left the bed frigid and forlorn. I curled into a tight ball and tearlessly cried myself back to sleep.
When the alarm dragged me kicking and sobbing from the warm covers, I cut away more of my body, reset the alarm and returned to my nightmares.
The third time my alarm woke me, my body refused to rouse. I fought its sloth toward my nest.
Concern underpinned Anima’s rebuke “Quayla, you’re severing essence too often. You must drink more of the healing slurry and rest longer.”
Chilling the warm slurry didn’t make it taste better, but the remains on my bureau had taken on a scent of rot. I crawled to the kitchen—dizzy even on hands and knees. I abandoned a fruitless search for junk food and claimed a container of slurry dated for use a day hence. I stuffed it into a shopping bag with a half-gallon of cranberry juice and dragged both back to my nest.
I choked down all the horrid slurry I could, failed to scour the taste away with the juice and pushed essence out through my palm. The mucousy glob refused to grow as large as the ones before. I severed it anyway and forced out a second.
“Shield Aquaylae,” Anima cautioned. “You’re going to bring harm to yourself.”
Dylan. Freedom. Respect. Once I’ve reclaimed them all, maybe I’ll leave and never return.
“I will be forced to notify Shield Vitae if you continue.”
Like he cares. He’d be glad to replace me.
I cut away the second piece and crawled back toward bed. I didn’t make it. I collapsed on the floor before I reached my cold covers.
Warmth suffused me when I woke. My fading dream claimed the warmth from Dylan. I turned over, stretching a hand toward my beloved. Questing fingers ran out of bed. I opened my eyes.
Ignis didn’t look particularly mad, but his expression was definitely not happy.
He must’ve warmed the bed.
His expression filled in the pieces I’d cut away with guilt. He knew about the Fae Kissed. I couldn’t look at him. I turned onto my other side, facing Terrance’s sad disapproval.
I glanced toward my feet.
Caelum glanced up from his phone and flashed a smile. “You are in so much trouble.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it even when the muscle motion hurt so badly.
“Little sister.” Terrance laid a hand on me. “We are most displeased with you.”
“You are not helping things like this,” Ignis added. “Healing takes time.”
I looked down at myself.
That’s what Ignis is mad about?
I bristled. “I could be back on my feet if Vitae would get off his ass—”
“More needs healing than your body,” Terrance said.
“And we are all in agreement with Vitae on this,” Ignis said. “You haven’t been paying proper attention to your duties or your studies.”
“If we’d known you hadn’t been shown how to refill your nest,” Caelum shook his head. “Well, you should’ve told us you were struggling.”
The warmth Ignis gifted my covers shot through me. “When should I have studied, Ignis? When Vitae snarled any time I stepped a toe out of my room? As for you, Caelum, my nest was empty because I had to rush a bunch of seeds and I know how to refill my nest, so why would I ask?”
“Then why didn’t you refill it?” Caelum demanded.
“Doing it the fast way hurts. My essence doesn’t like to be separated, it’s the nature of—” I threw up my hands. “You know what, why am I even bothering to explain? None of you understand. You don’t have to saw chunks of yourself away.”
“I do,” Terrance said. “And I have done so far longer than you.”
“I bet it doesn’t hurt you like it does me, because you and Ignis don’t feel anything anymore, just like Vitae. You’re barely more than gargoyles.”
Caelum smirked, but neither Terrance nor Ignis looked pleased.
“Vitae was right,” Ignis said. “You’re long overdue to grow up.”
His words hit me like a slap.
“Ignis and I have grown weary of hurting while watching mortals dear to our heart pass from this world, little sister. That does not mean we do not feel.”
“True, I don’t sever essence very often,” Caelum said. “But I keep extra on hand to ensure not being reborn is seldom a risk.”
After all I’d been through, I couldn’t resist lashing out. “I bet that’s really hard for you, what do you do? Stand in your nest and tell jokes? Spout hot air while reveling in the sound of your own voice?”
Caelum darkened. “Maybe Vitae is right. If you’ll do this to yourself just to get back to Dylan, maybe he’d be better rewritten and out of your life.”
Caelum stormed out before I could say anything.
Ignis followed, pausing at the door. “When you are healed, we will discuss the lie you told me.”
Terrance closed his eyes, head shaking slowly back and forth. “We are your family, Aquaylae. Like it or not, we will be together a long time, and our memories aren’t short. If you want to be a productive member of this Shield—”
“Maybe I don’t want to be in a Shield at all.”
Terrance’s eyes snapped onto mine and seemed to bore deep inside me. He studied my soul for an eternity, still as an old owl save the slowly drooping corners of his mouth.
He patted me. “Rest, little sister. Things will look different once you’ve recovered.”
Terrance turned away.
“Terrance, please don’t let them rewrite Dylan.”
He looked back from the doorway, scrutinizing me once more. “I have heard your request. Rest.”
I struggled upright. I managed to get to my feet and crossed to my nest. I looked at the still forlornly empty nest and then my skeletal limbs.
If I fill my nest any more Anima will inform them.
I turned aside for the library. My legs collapsed just over its
threshold, but luckily Vitae wasn’t present to lecture me. I crawled to his favorite armchair and collapsed in soft, encompassing leather. A book sat on his side table.
When sitting and panting grew too wearisome, I examined the new book.
“Primal Battle, A Primer on Essence Warfare,” Anima said. “Vitae reads it often, apparently finding its contents interesting.”
I frowned at the book.
Why would someone hiding in a library reread a battle primer? Does Vitae imagine himself some kind of warrior?
“Perhaps a bath might be a good use of your time?” Anima asked.
I wanted to be angry but didn’t possess the energy. “Are you suggesting I stink?”
A bath actually sounds nice.
“I thought it might be relaxing.”
“Thank you.” I lurched out of the chair, the book coming along by the simple virtue of my never thinking to release it. A hot bath soothed me and the book—authored by a more impassioned Vitae than my own—proved curiously interesting as advertised.
Ignis
Ignis pulled up to the dilapidated strip mall, eyeing the burnt remains of an old church across the street. Faerie taint slammed into his nostrils the moment he opened the door. Fresh flame and the lingering warm aroma of old wood reduced to dormant charcoal rode just under the taint. He grabbed his bag, locked his Camaro and crossed to the obvious arson.
He walked the perimeter, making notes for his report and inhaling once more.
Unseelie? Maybe their Fae Kissed? Whoever it was lingered to watch it burn.
He shook his head, trying to ward off the rising heat in his core. The local fire house had recovered an old caretaker’s remains from the rectory’s ruins. It’d been a sad discovery, but they couldn’t smell the lingering malicious delight of the murder that had preceded the arson.
He eased into the church, looking for the ignition point.
If they did this with spell fire, I’m going to have to fabricate something. Damned, faeries, I hate lies.
The scent of Unseelie intensified inside the ruin, eliminating the possible involvement of Fae Kissed. There’d been a lot of them, or they’d come back to relive the murder like some sort of glamour newsreel.
A shift of ruin turned his head. An elven knight stood in ornate armor beneath the arriving wave of twilight.
Ignis’s jaw tightened. “Which of yours did this, Sir Dolumii?”
Flaming hands seized Ignis’s arms.
Efreet? What are Wyldfae doing working with an Unseelie knight?
Ignis addressed the efreet. “This action violates the Articl—”
“I set them upon the Betrayer’s house. I killed the old caretaker,” Dolumii said.
Efreet, I should’ve smelled them. Vilicangelus, hear my call.
Ignis tried to pull his arms free. “After you tortured him.”
“Played, not tortured. Everyone likes to play with fire.” Dolumii smirked. “I know you do.”
Ignis reached into his core, gathering energies for a transmog. With the gaps in the burnt church and dim twilight making his flaming form all the more apparent, there’d be hell to pay.
Later and paid with Dolumii’s hide.
His heat rose, but the efreet tightened their grip, growing stronger off his power while preventing his transmogrification.
“The wafers have a saying, fight fire with fire. Who knew they possessed wisdom?” Dolumii leaned in close, stroking the fingers of his gauntlet with magic that stretched them into a bladed claw. “Lore masters whisper that if you can rip out the still beating heart from a fire phoenix, it becomes an eternal flame—one that might prove able to control a phoenix. Shall we find out?”
They’re stealing the energy before I can build it up to transmogrify. They’re too strong to fight my way free. I must sacrifice this life and return.
“You know I’m coming back for you,” Ignis said.
“Please do.” Malicious delight twisted Dolumii’s face. “Then we can try out my new toy.”
Ignis focused on his inner self image, pouring all his strength into the mental picture.
Dolumii’s hand drove into Ignis’s chest.
Ignis fought to ignore the pain with every ounce of willpower, focusing on himself as his missing heart beat once more, before igniting in the elf’s hand.
Vitae
An agonized shriek rippled through my study. An almost unintelligible word reverberated in the echoes of the dying cry. I bolted from my seat, setting my copy of Les Miserables onto the side table. My gaze shot to Aquaylae’s statuette, but she was not the source of the cry. Eyes scanned the others, finding Ignis’s ruby figurine folded in on itself. An odd pulsing lit the statuette in waves, nothing I’d ever seen. I sprinted to the control room.
“Vitae, a phoenix has fallen,” Anima said.
My response came out an impatient bark. “Get me a location.”
The map shifted to the far eastern end of our jurisdiction. A gaping hole deadened the sentry net around the area.
I cursed. “Where are the others?”
A quick scan showed the others further from whatever had cost Ignis his life. “Notify Summuseraphi.”
I bolted for the exit, snatching twin canes from an umbrella stand next to the elevator doors. I rushed sideways into the parking deck, not waiting for the doors to open fully. A flash of light coalesced between me and my Mercedes. I bobbed my head in hasty respect and jumped into the car. “Ignis’s last word was efreet.”
Summuseraphi leapt into the other seat, fastening a seatbelt.
“Divine One, shouldn’t you coordinate from upstairs?”
“This is the second phoenix I’ve lost my first month as your Praefectus,” Summuseraphi growled. “Drive.”
Dolumii
Dolumii bounced the burning jewel in his palm, willing it aflame and extinguished in delighted turns. He pulled a cell phone from his belt pouch, giving the instrument a dubious frown. He touched it in the sequence he’d been instructed.
A deep, powerful voice boomed one word. “Report.”
“It is as bargained, mortal,” Dolumii said.
“Leave the salamanders to face the Vitae.”
“I do not trust these Wyldfae,” Dolumii said. “And what if they send another phoenix rather than the Vitae?”
“Agents are in position to prevent that. I’ve fulfilled my end. Don’t forget yours, Sidhe.”
The device sparked, melting like snow brought to the desert. Dolumii shook the remnants from his fingers, drew his sword and reopened the rend he’d cut in the Veil. “Stay here and deal with the Vitae. Keep him as long as possible as you have bargained, Wyldfae.”
He stepped into Faery.
Quayla
“Ignis has fallen.” Anima’s voice echoed out of my nest.
I froze.
As soon as I recovered, I lurched to a sitting position in bed, swung my emaciated legs over the side and placed Primal Battle on the side table. My thoughts raced a thousand miles an hour.
Iggy is dead? Wise, professional, experienced Ignis? How? Why?
I shut my eyes and reached out to my seeds. None of my seeds sensed new taint. “Ani, what happened?”
“Ignis did not report anything regarding an incursion. He did not transmogrify, but his dying word was efreet. Vitae and Summus are en route to investigate.”
“Vitae and Summus?” I scowled. “That’s not protocol. Whatever, I’m on my way.”
“Shield Quayla, you are too weak. Please lay back down and continue your reading. I am sure they can deal with whatever slew Shield Ignis.”
“They might need me.”
“You are still not allowed to leave headquarters,” Anima said.
I cursed, but I lay back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
I hate this.
Vitae
I screeched to a halt behind Ignis’s Camaro. Throwing open my door and charging across the street, I barely avoided getting hit by a UPS van. Blazing fire
light flickered in the early evening darkness within the burnt out church.
Fire? But Ignis is dead.
“Vitae, stop,” Summuseraphi called from the Mercedes. “Don’t you smell that?”
I ground to a halt in a gap in the church’s wall. A pair of elfish figures reclined against broken furniture, their golden scaled doublets shimmering reddish in the small bonfire between them. They rose, stepping from either side into the bonfire. Flames shot skyward, splitting into two towering spirals firestorms. Massive burning wings spread as the spiral became serpent-shaped.
I froze, unable to move body or thought as I looked up at a threat greater than a bevy of Seelie knights. They swept their wings together in unison, filling my world with flame and death.
Blinding light walled me away from the pain.
I opened my eyes to find Summuseraphi’s wings wrapped around me. The archangel leapt over me, a glowing spiked chain spinning in either hand.
The divine phoenix might’ve been young, but he was brave and quick on his feet. He darted around the towering efreet, lashing them in alternating blows as he danced out of reach of their strikes.
I collected myself, took control of my essence and shifted it through my fighting canes. Three-quarter moon blades of red-gold plasma wrapped around the ends of my fighting sticks.
Efreet, efreet, I must remember.
My blades carved deep lines into the nearest faerie. The efreet cried out. My energy plummeted without warning as the efreet’s wound closed. A flaming claw raked me. The blow staggered me, but didn’t immediately flare with pain. Agony engulfed me a moment later as the deep, charred gouges screamed their arrival.
I bit my lip and sliced the efreet’s leg off at the knee.
My energy reserves all but vanished. My knees collapsed beneath me, leaving me looking up as the efreet’s limb reknitted and rose to stomp me.
Efreet can’t do that.
Summuseraphi tackled the efreet at the last moment, my own efreet reduced to dying lumps of coal.
Coal? That’s not possible, unless...
“Divine One, these aren’t efreet at all, they’re salamanders.”
“I know that,” Summuseraphi slashed an X across the fire serpent’s skin.
Ashes of Raging Water Page 22
