by Tiger Gray
He held Sonth's psychic hand as well as her physical one and waited. Sonth began to chant something in her native tongue, and magic rose like poppy fumes around them.
"A jumble," she said, in English this time for their benefit. Sonth had a serious demeanor on the best of days, but her voice was outright monotone now. "Meaningless images."
Ashrinn could not see those images, per se. He was not a shadowmancer and had very little psychic gift other than a dose of empathy. Yet he perceived them like jumping fish, little sparks of sensation that flashed out of the void for a moment before being swallowed once more.
"It is hot. The weather is hot, and around me is made of sere grasses. It feels like Washington, but it is not nearby."
"Eastern Washington, maybe," Malkai offered, as though he were speaking in church, "Chelan County, or Douglas."
Ashrinn, though he did not see the physical world now any more than the psychic one Sonth saw, felt himself nod. That curious experience of being only tenuously tethered to his body was in effect once more, but this time it didn't frighten him as much as it could have.
Still. If there was a Cult presence there, the Protectorate's supplies could be in grievous danger and the Cult had many chances to further corrupt the water. How odd to live in a world where he now had to consider fighting and dying over irrigation on the soil that had become his home over the past decades. He was used to fighting on foreign ground for often incomprehensible reasons.
"Now cold shadows broken only by bright, bare ceiling lights. It's pleasant here, unlike the topside. Underground. I can hear the voices of the children and the suffering of those who have yet to see Him."
She gasped and went rigid. Ashrinn did the same, locked into her horror with her. "Blood," she hissed, "the sacrifice broken on the cross. He shows me the path of redemption, that I both crave and fear; what if I am not worthy?"
Ashrinn focused on his breathing, trying not to panic. Through Sonth he perceived the other two men in brief moments of greater psychic awareness, their emotions bare to him now that his smidgeon of empathetic gift had been magnified through his teammate.
Neither were unaffected by Sonth's words. Ironically he was possibly the least afflicted, as bound up with her as he was. Her skill offered him some measure of protection.
"We take the serpents because they are His messengers. It is their venom that shows us the way. Even those with no revelations to give teach us in other ways. In caring for them, we come closer to the Suffering God.
"The fools." Sonth's voice had taken on a rage that was not hers. "The leader's people wanted to master the serpents and deny Him. They feared our God, and His bride. For us the true mystery waits, and the rapture of knowing divinity."
The part of him that was caught up in it was all too willing to believe. Wasn't that what he felt when the divine spirit was on him? Mystery? Rapture?
Sonth fell silent. The seconds became minutes, and the minutes piled atop one another like blocks of stone, cut and handled with hasty hands.
"Sonth?" Randolph prompted. That was when the keening began, a wail that came from some primal place inside her. It was not her cry, but the cry of something using her as a conduit.
Ashrinn clutched at her reflexively. He knew Sonth was shouting though he didn't hear the words. Rather he felt them, and he knew that it was the same language he'd seen in Kiriana's spell book, the language that had reached out to him with a thousand red hands.
He fumbled for his spirit blade but he and Sonth could not seem to separate, chained together as though that snake-like presence had wrapped around them like a literal constrictor. The golden weapon waited just beyond in the astral, the snake spirit hissing and spitting in response to the demonic presence that had stolen its likeness, but it remained out of reach.
Despite all of his training, despite all of his experiences, panic shrilled through him. Sonth clawed at him, stinging weals from the hollow of his throat to his sternum.
Before him, the dragon yet not a dragon, the demon that had invaded through the wound its loyal Revelator had made. His consciousness stood naked before that terrible power, a pulsating unholy entity that reached to snuff out his being like a series of stars going supernova.
He choked. Sonth cried out, the two of them trapped in a whirlpool of hell magic together, drowning locked in an embrace neither of them could escape. And beneath it all, the incomprehensible creature, teeth and venom and malevolence, an undulating mass of pure perversion. This was what the Cult worshipped. This was their revelation.
This was what Liu and Coren had given up everything for.
He reached for Sonth's mind, her essence. Defiance, that old defiance that had made him spit in Kir's face more than once even as she was torturing him, rose up in him. He couldn't will his spirit blade into his hand, so he reached instead for the divine with nothing to focus it through, calling with all of his strength and faith.
The red-gold light flared up like a signal fire at his urging, casting harsh illumination on the mental scene. Nothing of the mundane world remained, only he and Sonth on a black plane, the beast rising up so that it's ruined heads cast their own hideous shadows.
He reached, wordlessly begging Sonth to meld with him. He would not allow her to be lost to that creature, to the void, and the thought gave him further strength. This would not be like the battle with the dragon, him dead at the end and Sonth's mind in tatters.
She grabbed him as the demon attacked. A burst of magic ignited between them, cold this time, sharp like star shards. They moved as one being, drawing their power towards the center and making a shield at the last second. The demon recoiled, and Ashrinn found himself walking forward without even realizing he was doing so, his hand outstretched with the divine flame held aloft in his palm. The cry of hunting birds cut the darkness.
His heart sang and his spirit blade came to his free hand as if it had never been separated from him. Sonth often seemed made entirely of shadow, but this time she was clothed in moonlight, those star shards clinging to her hair and shining in her eyes. Together, they held the demon back.
Its claws sparked on their shield, and he remembered with sudden clarity the way the dragon had burned away the shield he'd created so many months ago. He didn't allow himself to falter, not with Sonth at his side, but he could see the shield losing layers like torn gossamer sheets.
He tried to protect Sonth, push her away so she could go safely back to her body, but she only clung to him harder. She wouldn't leave him, no more than he would leave her. The serpent on his blade freed itself and rose in challenge, but its light was dwarfed by the demon's evil, though it could not be extinguished. He held the line with everything in him, but he knew they couldn't keep it up forever. This demon was very old, and powerful.
And somehow, familiar.
The red-black haze he'd felt off and on for years rose up to blind him. The truth of it hung in the air, impossible to look away from. His blood had gone to feed this thing. The last of the shield fell away and he lifted his sword to fight it to the last, even as Sonth's signature dimmed and flickered.
Mal's shout, Randolph's curse, and then there were hands on him, dragging him back, another set ripping Sonth from him. He fought, screamed her name, heard her terrified response. At the last moment he managed to reach for her mind, reach into the endless maw of the demon, and pull her free.
"Ashrinn!"
His name. That was his name. The slap that followed resonated through his whole body, snapping his head to the side and knocking him down. Reality shocked him back to reality, pleasure, rage, and shock in equal measure. He grabbed at his attacker's forearms out of both instinct and a need to ground himself while a wave of sexual satisfaction rolled over him. He wanted to be sick immediately thereafter. He didn't want that feeling, hadn't asked for it.
Malkai, pressing him to the floor. The other man's knee was planted on his belly, and there was a fierce look on his friend's face. It took Ashrinn a moment to reali
ze that Malkai's hands were likewise pressing him to the ground. He groaned an involuntary groan, desire so powerful it ached suffusing him, and horror behind it at a clip a coursing hound would have envied.
Malkai's expression was not difficult to read now, Ashrinn reflected as he oriented on his friend. Anger. Ashrinn thought perhaps that was in response to the unexpected violation he and Sonth had experienced. Confusion. That too was easy: how had this happened? Malkai did not understand shadowmancy, Ashrinn knew, and he knew further that the lack was most probably driving his friend mad. The realization that they were pressed together.
For a long moment, the event refused to process. Then, the fact that they had come face to face with only a sliver of the true creature manipulating the Cult, and that the merest exposure had nearly driven both he and Sonth mad. That Malkai had been unwitting party to and witness of the things within him that Kir had changed forever; he shuddered as an aftershock caught him, the fresh memory of that slap, with all of Malkai's weight behind it.
From across the room, the sounds of Randolph comforting Sonth. She was forcing assurances through gritted teeth, tears notwithstanding. Some mistook Sonth for weak, but in reality she was impossibly hard beneath her serious demeanor. Still, Ashrinn fought to be free of Malkai's grip, needing to know she was all right.
Malkai scrambled off of him. Ashrinn couldn't help a weary chuckle at that. Malkai never scrambled anywhere. Then the severity of what had happened sunk in and he forced himself into a kneeling position, stomach twisting.
"Sonth?"
"Here, Commander," she said, voice wavering but mostly normal now, "I am... that was a surprise."
"Understatement," Malkai growled, back to Ashrinn. "What the hell was that?"
"It... was God," Sonth said, wonderment evident in her voice, "to the Cult, at least."
Randolph crossed himself, rising from where he had been cradling Sonth a moment before.
"They're worshipping a demon," Ashrinn supplied, panting for a variety of reasons, "an immensely powerful one."
"Then why does it not crush us all?" Randolph asked, taking a seat once more.
"It can't manifest. Not on its own."
"Then..." Ashrinn began, asking the question even though he already knew the answer in his very veins, "what does it need?"
Sonth's eyes were black fields as she stared at him, still crouched on the floor across the room.
"You."
* * *
"Absolutely not," Mal blurted, as though he could handle this the same way he could handle a kid begging him to buy sugar cereal. "No."
"Me? Why?"
Mal helped Ashrinn to his feet. Sonth made her shaky way back to her seat on the lounge. Mal noticed she wasn't the only one shaking. When Randolph righted his chair, tremors made his fingers twitch.
"Demons are bound to their plane unless specific circumstances are met. A place of power where they may enter the world. Worship. Sacrifice." Randolph said. "All those tales about deals with the devil have some truth in them. "
"I can accept a demon needing a blood sacrifice," Sonth said, "but the Cult shouldn't know about the Commander at all. We have no intel indicating we've been compromised and even if we had been, there's nothing special about him other than the fact that his familiar happens to be a snake."
Mal saw Ashrinn's face turn sheep's wool-pale. Ashrinn had put it together, Mal could tell. He waited for Ashrinn to say something, but his friend stayed silent.
"Ashrinn knows a thing or two about demons," Mal said. Ashrinn gave him a stricken look.
"Don't --- "
"Ashrinn," Mal started, ignoring the fact that he felt like the world's biggest ass, "it could be important."
"You leave her out of this," Ashrinn snarled, hands balled into fists. Mal didn't think he'd ever seen Ashrinn so angry. Angry and afraid, like a starving shelter hound. "Just leave it."
Ashrinn's voice was hot, like he was being betrayed. Maybe, Mal thought, he was. He didn't let the part of him that was Ashrinn's friend take over. The part of him that helped lead the Order had to win out for everyone's good.
Of course, he didn't think it mattered that he was related to the Host. He left that bit out.
"Ashrinn?" Randolph asked. Sonth was staring at them all, her eyes once more eclipsed by shadows.
"Kiriana is a warlock," Ashrinn said, spitting the admission like a mouthful of venom. "She ran off a couple of days ago."
Sonth's façade didn't crack, but Randolph looked thunderstruck. Their leader's stoic mask cracked and empathy pooled up, but Mal knew Ashrinn would reject it even before Randolph spoke.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite." Ashrinn said. "I have one of her spell books." Ashrinn's voice was colorless and his head was bowed. Mal swallowed hard at the shame he could read so easily in his friend's posture. "I had no idea until she left. I was going to tell you."
The unspoken part, the part about that warlock magic needing Ashrinn's blood to work, hung in the air so thick Mal felt like he couldn't breathe. There was no way that demon could have come to need Ashrinn's life, if it hadn't been fueled by Ashrinn's blood.
"She's been working against us?" Randolph took his seat once more, slowly, as if the very process of moving his body hurt him. "For how long? Why?"
"Power, I'd reckon," Mal said. Ashrinn swayed as if their words were blows. He looked wild eyed, like he wanted to bolt but had forgotten how to work his legs.
"We have to protect you," Randolph told Ashrinn. "We can go over the rest later." Mal knew Randolph was doing his best to calm Ashrinn down. Mal hadn't forgotten how unhinged Ashrinn had been back when he'd been discharged, and he guessed Randolph was thinking it too.
"I appreciate it, sir," Ashrinn managed, though he wouldn't look at any of them, "but I can't just shiver away in a cell somewhere. I have a team to lead."
Just by his voice, Mal knew they'd never move him on that point. They couldn't tear that out of Ashrinn's hands. What would he have left then?
"They're going to come after you," Mal said, "I don't like it."
I lived with Kiriana for over twenty years." He paused. "What do you think that was like?"
Mal stared back. The man was marked to be tortured to death in order to feed a demon so powerful it had nearly destroyed both him and Sonth at a fraction of its power, and he was less afraid of being attacked by zealots out for his blood than he was of his own wife.
Sonth stood. "Commander, let's call the Storm. We're going to need to do a lot of extra work to be ready."
Ashrinn let Sonth lead him towards the door, but he paused there. "It isn't just me. They'll try and take territory, supplies, everything. In their belief system, it is certainly not the meek who inherent the earth."
"The Storm was made for this," Randolph said. "You'll get your fill of urban warfare. We need to find their altar, their calling circle, as soon as possible." Frustration sat heavy on Randolph's words. They'd been trying to do just that for years. Ashrinn looked at Sonth.
"Let's make sure they've bit off more than they can chew," he said, and then they were gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Malkai felt Ashrinn's presence before he heard the other man's footsteps. Ashrinn could be silent as a shadow if he wanted, and even though he was injured, Malkai reckoned he could still scare up some of that ability even so.
Mal fidgeted with the Mustang's driver's side door, picking at the rubber ringing the window like maybe he was thinking about replacing it. He knew it was lame as hell, that Ashrinn would know he was bullshitting, but damned if he was going to turn around.
Once again he prayed like he had when Raietha had barged in on them, wishing Ashrinn would just go away. This time it didn't happen. He expected Ash to come into the garage, but he didn't expect Ashrinn to jump him. Malkai didn't make a sound --- he'd been trained too well for that --- but he fought Ashrinn's grip, demon-strong despite all his friend's injuries.
Mal struggled, managed to
break Ashrinn's hold long enough to turn around, only to be slammed against the car for his trouble. He knew he could put Ashrinn down easy, but he just couldn't quite make himself take advantage of his friend like that.
Especially with how crazy Ashrinn looked. His eyes were too bright, fever-bright, maybe. He had a lot of desperate strength in his wiry body, but he trembled and Mal guessed it was from pain. He'd never seen such a look of anger on Ashrinn's face and it stilled his heart, watching that expression.
Ashrinn grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and shook him, and he just let Ashrinn do it. He was angry too, sure, but for some reason it felt like he couldn't even get a breath, let alone make a fist.
"How could you do that to me?" Ashrinn said. He didn't even sound like himself, Malkai thought. Ashrinn was kind of an intense guy as a general rule, but this was a different kind. "Did you think I wasn't man enough to say it myself?"
Oh. So this was about what he'd said about Kir.
Malkai thought Ashrinn might be mad enough to go for his throat and he felt some creeping wariness, remembering how well Ashrinn had killed back in their Unit days. He trusted Ashrinn implicitly, but at the same time he'd never seen him pushed this far, either.
A new burst of rage hit him like a shot of liquor, burning up his insides. He found his strength and reached up to push Ashrinn off of him. Ashrinn stumbled back, gasping, and nearly went down on his bad knee. Mal ignored the sympathy he immediately felt and advanced on him.
"This isn't about you." He hated the coldness in his tone even as he said it, but he pushed on. "You're talking about treason. About... I don't know. Murder, maybe. Evil."
"You don't know." Ashrinn flung the words at him, passion in his voice even though he was hunched over like he might collapse. "You didn't live in that house. Look at you, talking about evil like you've ever even seen it."
Mal felt that worry Ashrinn had inspired in him so much lately. "What the hell did she do to you?" He heard himself shout the question as if someone else had said it, and instantly wished he hadn't done it. Ashrinn went grey and Mal went over to him, anger forgotten between one breath and the next. He only wished his friend wouldn't faint, and went to steady him.
