by Holly Lisle
Lauren gave her a tiny smile. "Mom and Dad left a couple of surprises for us in that notebook. I'll need to show you—but what we have to do isn't as complicated as we thought. Rough…but not complicated."
"I'll take good news when I can get it," Molly said softly.
"I'm not sure you got it. When you get the chance to come by our room, do. I'll show you what I found and what we're dealing with." Lauren struggled to her feet, mostly by hanging on to the marble slab. There was no way in hell she was going to be able to make the trip through the subbasements and back upstairs. Good Lord—she'd be lucky not to kill herself getting out the door to the room.
Molly saw that she was having trouble. She stood, helped Seo to his feet, and then slid an arm around Lauren's waist. "We're in this together," she said. "Might as well lean on me. I know there'll come a time when I have to lean on you."
Together the three of them made their way through the door.
Cat Creek
"The FBI will state that they're working on her case, but they won't divulge her location, or give me any details," Eric said.
Pete sat at the desk, looking out onto Main Street. "The worst seems to be over. We made it through this without her. Why are you still pushing to find her?"
"Because June Bug can't track her," Eric said. "Because she can't find any sign of Lauren at all."
Pete shrugged. "Is that so strange? The grandparents were out in California. If Lauren and Jake are out there, in some high-population city like Los Angeles, why would June Bug think she could track her?"
Eric's face revealed weariness and exasperation. "I'm worried about her, all right? I'm worried about her and Jake—I want to know they're safe. If she loses Jake, I think it would kill her. Just because there's a logical explanation for this doesn't mean that I have to be happy about it. Or that I have to accept it."
"You still…ah…have a thing for her, don't you?"
Eric gave him a flat, hard stare. "I won't get in your way, if that's what you're wondering."
"It wasn't what I was wondering. I'm sorry."
Eric's mouth twisted into a tight smile that did not reach his eyes. "If the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn't be."
Copper House
Molly touched things as she walked through the rooms she shared with Seolar. Cool copper; smooth polished stone; rich, dense velvet; wispy silk. She opened the casement windows and let the evening breeze blow past her, and she inhaled the scents of growing things and rich earth, smoke from village cookfires and the animal smells inescapable in a world dependent on animal power. She'd eaten the feast the servants brought her greedily, tasting everything with desperate gratitude. She listened—to sounds of celebration in the village below; to bird and animal and insect noises that sounded similar to those she knew from home, but still different enough that she felt an ache for places she once knew and might never know again; to the sweet strains of a string quartet playing in the anteroom.
She looked at everything, and drank in the world she'd almost lost.
She did not dare think yet about the darkness inside of her. Not yet.
Seolar, a little stronger after having half a day to eat, drink, and recover, closed the door between the bedroom and the sitting room, then came to stand beside her at the window. "You've been quiet, love," he said.
She turned and smiled at him. "I'm appreciating being alive."
Seolar pulled her into his arms and whispered, "Perhaps as much as I'm appreciating having you alive. I did not know how very much I loved you until I realized you were gone, when I discovered I might lose you forever."
She smiled a little, and kissed him. "How do you feel?"
"Better. Much better." He took her hand. "Come away from the window, my love. The world will still be there tomorrow, but I want to love you as you deserve to be loved. You and I have waited far too long for tonight."
Molly ran her fingers over his face, then leaned up and kissed him. "We have," she agreed. "And we almost didn't get to have this."
He nodded, and led her to their bed.
They touched, slow and gentle—no desperate coupling this time to bury pain or fear. Seolar led, kissing her, caressing her, holding her as no one ever had. Molly let go of her fears for a while, and let go of her secret, devouring darkness, and held herself in the moment. Her hands slid along his smooth skin, her body rose to his slow penetration. They moved together, bound in a place outside of time, in a world of their own making, where all the magic that existed was the magic they made together.
Molly looked into Seolar's eyes, and saw love, and passion, and—most important to her at that moment—acceptance. She was not and could never be the Molly he had first fallen in love with, but he loved her. He loved her enough that he had reached through magic with his touch and his tears to bring her back from oblivion.
He moved her—moved her outside of herself and her fears. When at last they lay together, tangled in the sheets, lost in each other's eyes, she could no longer doubt, and no longer fear. For whatever time she had left, she had found her way home.
Copper House
Lauren and Molly sat in Lauren's suite, and Lauren pulled out the notebook and flipped to the page.
"It's all bullshit, except for this," Molly read out loud. "This? The entries on the page?"
Lauren said, "That's what I thought first. Then I noticed this." She pointed to the odd-colored ink.
"Code. They left us something in code."
"Our parents apparently had a great deal of faith in us," Lauren said. "But it wasn't really a code, so much as it was just…a hidden message. I wrote it all out. If you want, you can go through and make sure I got it right." She handed the sheet she'd written to Molly, and watched her sister's face as Molly read it.
Molly frowned. Her lips pursed. She tipped her head to one side. After what had to be a second read-through, she looked up at Lauren and said, "But this is almost the opposite of what we thought we would be doing. I'm the Hunter. You're the healer, after a fashion."
"I know. It makes sense. But it isn't a happy sort of sense, especially for you."
Molly stared at the paper again. "In a strange, uncomfortable way, though, Laurie, it is." Molly folded and unfolded the paper in her hands and stared off into space, looking determined and somehow fierce. "I want to get the bastards who came after me—the Night Watch. Baanraak. Especially Baanraak. I want to take him to pieces and burn the pieces and grind the bones, and when I'm done I want to find his resurrection ring and melt it down into liquid and dump the liquid in the sea." Her voice got softer, but developed a menacing edge. "I spent my life healing, and there is value in healing. But somewhere along the way I discovered that there is value in destruction, too—if what you're destroying is the destroyers. And it isn't like I have a soul that can be tainted by what I am to become."
Lauren took a deep breath. "You could, though."
Molly turned to stare at her. "I could?"
"The…God…soul of the universe…suggested as much. No Vodi has ever regained a soul, but the Supreme Being said it could be done."
"But not if I'm a destroyer."
"He knew what you were, and what you had to do. I think…I think above all else, you have to be sure not to become what you destroy."
"I have love," Molly said. "I have people who love me, and I have passion, and I still have a lot of who I once was inside of me. I don't want to become the monster Baanraak would have made of me. I want to be alive, and joyous, and free. And I keep telling myself that the real me already is. That I'm the echo—but that I'm an echo with some bite to it."
Lauren moved around so she could look her sister in the eye. "Molly, listen. You have to find a way not to become the thing you hate. We all experience losses. You'll lose Seolar someday, and you'll lose me, and you may lose you."
"I could take the tried and true Vodi way out," Molly said, giving her sister a wan smile. "We were all in there together, and they were mad as hatters. An etern
ity trapped inside a bit of jewelry, blind, deaf, and dumb to the outside world, but more than able to hear the voices of your fellow inmates…If I could find a way to remove the necklace and live through the procedure, and could then get someone to kill me, what remained of me would be inside the necklace until some kind soul destroyed it." She sighed. "Having seen what walking away from my particular brand of immortality costs, I don't think I'm going to be able to take that route." She shrugged. "Maybe when I'm done, I'll find the courage to destroy the necklace myself."
"Maybe that's what it will take. I don't know. I just know that you have a chance. You have hope."
"That's more than I had." Molly stood up and looked thoughtfully out Lauren's window. The sky above Copper House was clear—cloudless, and free from rrôn spies. "So I'm to be the Destroyer, and your protector." She smiled a little. "And you're to do the magic that makes wonderful things happen back home, and saves the world. I can accept that."
"I'm afraid for you."
"I know, Laurie. I'm afraid for me, too. I'll be walking way on the dark side. And…damn…Seolar is going to have a fit when he finds out that I'm not going to be the healer of the veyâr and their personal negotiator with the dark gods."
Lauren chuckled just a little. "Well, you will be…um…negotiating with the dark gods. It'll just be in a Clint Eastwood–Chuck Norris–Arnold Schwarzenegger sort of way."
"Make my day," Molly agreed. "So. When do we start?"
Copper House
Lauren and Molly decided to create the first lifeline back to Earth from the safe room in Copper House. Molly didn't feel strong enough to go up against any of the dark gods yet. Lauren wanted at least one chance to figure out what she was supposed to do in a protected and forgiving environment.
Lauren created the gate from Oria through to Earth easily enough, choosing a place on Earth that remained sparsely populated and mostly untouched.
But when it came to actually creating the lifeline that would move life energy upworld through the gate, she stood—lost—for what seemed like forever. What did she do to save them? How did she push life into her dying world? She rested her free hand on the gate and drew strength from the touch of green fire and the vibrant energy of Dalchi. And suddenly she recalled Brian telling her the whole point of physical life was to learn love. Love. She loved them, the fragile people who lived in her town, her country, her state. She loved their energy and their hope, their striving in the face of huge obstacles and heartbreaking setbacks. She loved their courage, their timidity, and the fact that in terrible times they rose to heroic heights.
She loved them—and love created a river that began pouring into and through the gate.
She loved—and her love proved powerful enough to start feeding her dying home.
She anchored that love to the gate, wrapping it in a spell that would remember this moment and what she had discovered. That magic was real, and the magic that gave life to the universe was love.
Copper House
You'll be thinking about me, a voice whispered inside Molly's head. Baanraak. Not dead, not dissuaded, and already back and aware of her presence, and her location. Molly, ready to leave the safe room behind Lauren, stopped dead. And I'll be thinking about you, my beloved.
Molly stepped through the door, into the comfort of copper-shielded security, knowing as she did that safety was an illusion, and that though she had been born to hunt and destroy, she would also be hunted.
Thinking about Baanraak. Yes. She would be doing that.
Copper House
Qawar was waiting in the suite when Lauren returned. "You did it then, didn't you?"
Lauren looked at him. "Did what?"
"Made a siphon. I've been watching you all along, knowing that eventually, if you were the ones I've been hoping for, you would create a siphon. And you did, didn't you? I can't feel it yet, of course. If it's a small one, effects won't start sliding back this way for days. But…you have that air about you."
Lauren warily asked him, "Why do you want to know?"
"Because I like Earth. And if you have a siphon situated somewhere on Earth, I could go back and start living my life in the fashion to which I have become accustomed."
Lauren said, "Which would mean…hiding in a hole?"
"Absolutely. Well—that and doing magic."
Now Lauren looked interested. "Magic that helped people?"
"I spent a number of years as an itinerant faith healer, back when the Earth still had some magic of its own. I put the good stuff out. I know how it works. And if you'd point me in the direction of your siphon, I'd make sure it started paying you dividends in short order."
"And what about the dark gods? They'll be hunting for anything like that."
Qawar said, "Yes, of course. But I know how to hide. It's the thing I've done best ever since forever. I'm not the bravest person on a planet—but you don't need someone brave. You need someone who can stay hidden and who will use magic to do good things without getting caught. And that's what I can do. It's what I'm best at."
Lauren said, "I wasn't expecting volunteers."
"You won't get many," Qawar said. "Compared to the rest of the old gods, I'm daring. But if you look hard enough and long enough, you'll find more who will be willing to take chances—especially if those chances might open up opportunities to go home."
"How would they do that?" Lauren asked. "The worlds above the Earth are all dead."
"They are now. But if you were to create siphons into those worlds, too, not only would this give old gods like me a chance to revive those worlds, if only a little bit at a time, but it would start feeding something other than death and poison back down the worldchain."
Lauren nodded. It made sense.
"And going home would be their incentive?"
"Wouldn't it be an incentive for you?"
"Yes," Lauren said.
"Point me where you want me to go, then—to where you hid the siphon exit. As long as I get to move upworld once you start putting siphons higher, I'll be happy to work wherever you put me. But, godsall, I miss home."
Lauren said, "I'll make you a gate there whenever you're ready. It's in a deep valley in West Virginia. I spent some time there. Too rough to really develop, and evidently no convenient coal. I figured it would be a good place to spread a little magic."
He nodded. "Send me now. I don't have anyone to whom I have to say my good-byes. You can pass them on for me, if you will, to Seolar. He was a fine host, but at last I've been given the opportunity I have so craved. The chance to undermine the Night Watch's poison in their chosen world. I yearn to see them fail." He grinned a bit, and for the first time Lauren thought he actually looked brave.
Copper House to Cat Creek
Lauren and Jake said their own good-byes the next day. "It's only for a short while," she told Molly. "I have to make sure the house is taken care of, and I need to see that the Sentinels have a backup gateweaver in place. They aren't going to be able to count on me."
"Be careful."
"I will."
Seolar hugged her. "Thank you for helping me get my Molly back."
"Keep her out of trouble," Lauren said with a little smile. "At least until Jake and I get back here."
Jake gave Doggie a hug. He'd cried when discovering he could not take her home with him, but Lauren had promised that they would see her when they returned, and he'd accepted that.
After hugs and good-byes with everyone else, Lauren picked up her bag, pressed her hand to the gate, and cuddled Jake. "Time to go home," she whispered in his ear.
They stepped through without looking back. Oria would be there, making its demands soon enough. But for now…
She stepped out into her foyer, and Jake shrieked, "HOUSE!" and got down and started racing through the hall, the living room, back and into the dining room, into the kitchen.
He screamed—a scared scream.
Lauren dropped her bag and raced into the kitchen. And there found P
ete, coming in the back door, looking startled.
He saw her and shouted something incoherent, and raced over to her and picked her up and spun her around and yelled, "You're alive. Jesus H. Christ, you're alive! It's been hell around here, and the only time I could get a line on you, things looked…bad."
Lauren didn't pull out of his embrace. "Things were bad," she said. "But I got Molly back. We've started putting the plan into action. We won one, and everything might still be all right."
"Only if you turn into a better liar than you've been so far," Pete said. "Because I had to tell a couple of real whoppers to cover for you—and you're going to have to be the one to stick with them. Jesus Christ, you're skinny. And what did you do to your hair?"
