Within the Flames d&s-11

by Marjorie M. Liu

  When she saw Lannes, a tremendous smile broke out on her face.

  “Oh, my God,” said an old man, staring at the gargoyle with disgust. “What is that thing?”

  Lethe burst out laughing, but it was sharp and hard, and brittle. Some of her family flinched, but not one took their gaze off Lannes — or him and Lyssa.

  “Uncle Douglas,” said Lethe, pushing around the women surrounding her, “that thing is my husband.”

  Finally, the entire room did look at her.

  “Oh, my God,” said the old man, again.

  “I apologize for breaking your door,” rumbled Lannes, with an incongruous politeness that Eddie, under other circumstances, would have found amusing. “I’ll pay for the damages, but my wife is coming with me now.”

  No one said a word.

  Lethe, who had been running toward Lannes, stopped moving — so suddenly, it was as though her feet were caught in quicksand. Eddie didn’t understand at first why she seemed to hang forward, as if on puppet strings.

  It wasn’t until outrage flickered over her face that he realized it wasn’t her choice. Lannes growled, and strode toward her — or tried to. He took one step, and the same thing happened.

  His illusion disappeared, as well.

  Stripped into nothing but air, revealing his silver skin and massive bound wings. His eyes glowed red, and the tips of his fingers were sharp. His entire body was rigid and straining.

  The men and women in the room leaned forward and stared at Lannes as though he were some circus freak.

  Eddie scanned their faces. The old man was rubbing his jaw, clutching a cane between his knees, and the middle-aged woman seated on the bench beside him held a glass of red wine in a white-knuckled grip. The three sisters pressed closed together, noses wrinkled as though they smelled something bad and wanted to say, “Ew.”

  An elderly woman stood behind Lethe. She was dressed in a loose black dress, and gold bangles jangled on her birdlike wrists. Elegant, graceful, with silver hair tucked up in a small bun. She placed a gentle hand on Lethe’s shoulder.

  But that was all. If there was a fight, and magic was involved. .

  An odd chill raced over Eddie, as though he stood in an ice-cold river, waters rising over his head. A rippling, lapping sensation.

  Energy, came the unbidden thought. This is magic.

  Lannes’s muscles strained, and he edged forward another step — though it seemed to cost him a great deal of strength. “You don’t want to do this.”

  One of the woman, tall and dressed in black, folded her arms over her chest. She was extremely thin, more so than could be healthy. Eddie hadn’t seen anyone that close to starvation since looking at pictures of concentration-camp victims in World War II.

  Her collarbone protruded at painful angles — so did her cheekbones. If her body was cadaverous, however, her eyes were a brilliant shade of green and the most alive and vibrant part of her. Loose blond hair flowed down her back, so perfectly styled she might have just come from a hairdresser.

  She gave Lannes a piercing look. “It has been fifty years since I saw one of your kind. I heard rumors that you still existed, but frankly, I thought the world had become too small for gargoyles.”

  “Not yet,” he muttered, but there was a note of strain in his voice that made Eddie recall his stories of imprisonment: locked in his body for years, unable to move. “Let my wife go.”

  “Wife,” said the woman heavily. “You cannot possibly be married to my daughter.”

  Lethe made a furious sound. “Mother.”

  “Shut up,” she snapped — and the young woman’s jaw shut. Muscles worked in her throat, and she made a choked, snarling sound that was short and furious. But her mouth. . her mouth would not open. . and it was clear that she was trying.

  Her mother swayed, staring at her. “How could you be so stupid? Don’t you know this is impossible? Even. . thinking about it. . God. It’s an anathema.”

  The old woman standing beside Lethe stepped forward with a disapproving frown.

  “Take care with your temper and insults, Morgana,” she said in crisp, quiet tones — and then, much to Eddie’s surprise, she stared directly at Lyssa. “Your power in this room is infinitely small right now.”

  “Don’t lecture me, Ursula.” The woman’s pale features smoothed into a cold, hard mask — and she focused that heavy, glinting gaze on Lethe. “I understand now why you wouldn’t give me a name, why you refused to say a word. And why you were so shocked.” She took a deep breath, pale hands smoothing down her dress. “Tell me honestly. Is it really his?”

  Lethe gave her a hateful look. A trickle of understanding filled Eddie, but it was so unexpected, so entirely impossible, he wasn’t sure he could be right.

  “Yes,” she said, growling the word.

  The old man muttered to himself. The sisters exchanged disgusted glances. The elderly woman, Ursula, only sighed — and watched Lyssa with puzzlement and sadness. Eddie’s gaze slid to Lyssa, but she was studying Lethe and didn’t seem to notice the others’ scrutiny.

  “God,” said Morgana, closing her eyes with visible revulsion. “How could you? I thought, at least, your baby was human. . but this?”

  Eddie’s gut clenched. Lannes sucked in his breath with shock and stared at Lethe. His wife’s eyes were filled with determination — the answer there as she stared back at him.

  She was pregnant.

  “Lethe,” whispered Lannes, and the reverence in his voice should have melted even a stone heart. But Morgana’s mouth twisted with disdain, and a shudder raced through her that was pure revulsion.

  “Her name,” she said in a clear, granite tones, “is Alice. And she will never bear your child. Not now. Not ever. I will rip it from her myself if I have to.”

  Lannes said nothing; he might as well have screamed, given the crackle of raw, pure energy that suddenly coursed through that room. He lurched forward one step, and the three sisters winced and touched their heads. He took another step, muscles straining, gaze burning with disgust and resolve.

  And then Morgana made a slashing motion with her hand, and he stopped, again.

  Lyssa cursed to herself, but Eddie stayed quiet, burying his heart so deep he could barely feel it. Lethe was quiet, too, but it was a deadly, simmering silence that was murderous, and cold.

  Morgana said, “If you leave now, gargoyle. . I will not hurt you.”

  “Keep him,” muttered the old man, tapping his cane on the floor. “In case the Cruor Venator finds us. Perhaps we can trade his life, or use him as a distraction. It might make all the difference.”

  “You don’t bargain with the Cruor Venator,” murmured Lyssa, but no one seemed to hear her but Eddie.

  Ursula stepped forward, golden bangles chiming. “You can’t be serious, Morgana. This is absurd.”

  “It’s survival. And not a bad idea.”

  “It’s disgusting. She loves him. It’s obvious he loves her. If you kill her child. .”

  “No,” Lannes spat, while Lethe made a furious sound, deep in her throat. “Don’t you touch her—”

  “—you might as well kill Alice,” finished the old woman. “I won’t let you do that.”

  Morgana gave her an icy look. “Are you going to stop all of us? With what? A sharp word?”

  Eddie listened, sickened. Were these people actually talking about his friends as though they could be imprisoned and sold? Were they really discussing whether or not to kill their child?

  He tested his hands and found he could still move. Fire filled his fingertips, hot, mixed with anger. He was just about to speak, when sharp laughter filled the room.

  It was Lyssa.

  She stared at Morgana — at all of them — with pure, rock-hard disdain. It took Eddie by surprise because up until then he hadn’t imagined her confronting these witches, not when she’d been so hesitant to come in the first place.

  Her scorn, however, was a shocking, beautiful thing.

  “Lo
ok at all of you,” she said, with withering contempt. “Look at how ridiculous you are. You think a little power means something? You think it gives you the right to control another living being?”

  Morgana narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”

  Ursula shook her head, looking at the other woman as though she was a fool. “Morgana, be smart. Don’t say another word.”

  “Why?” She waved a bony hand at Lyssa. “She’s a little girl. Nothing but a shape-shifter. Give me a real challenge.”

  A slow smile touched Lyssa’s mouth, and it was dark and chilling, and reminded Eddie too much of that cruel hardness that had transformed her face when she talked about killing Estefan’s murderers.

  “A challenge?” she echoed, too softly. “You will not keep this woman against her will. And you are not touching her baby. Over my dead body.”

  Everyone but Ursula shifted — sideways and forward, at the same time — though not with quite the same movements. Close enough to be eerie, though.

  Morgana unfolded her arms, staring. “I can rip you apart with my mind.”

  “Then why do you need six minds to hold one gargoyle and your daughter? I can feel the link among you all. Without it, you could never hold either of them.” Lyssa shook her head and stripped off her glove, exposing her right hand. “No. You can’t touch me.”

  She walked toward Lethe, and Eddie fell in beside her, silent as her shadow.

  She gave him a brief, startled look. He didn’t understand why, and he didn’t care. Everyone in that room was staring at them with the same surprise — though their gazes were equally torn to her hand, with its glinting golden claws and crimson scales.

  Morgana stepped in their path. Again, a wash of air rippled and undulated against his skin, but the fire rose from his heart and consumed the cold — swallowing that watery sensation until it was nothing. Lyssa stepped up to his side. Both of them faced the witch.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “Move aside.”

  Morgana frowned. “No.”

  Eddie gritted his teeth and strode toward her, fire sparking off his hands, flames licking his wrists and threading into the air. He never engaged in deliberate displays of power, but his anger was too rich.

  And power, it seemed to him, was all these people understood.

  Lyssa moved with him, silent and graceful — deadly in her grace. No fire, but heat throbbed off her body, shimmering around them both.

  Morgana’s eyes widened, and she slid sideways, almost staggering in her haste to keep him from touching her.

  “Impossible,” she murmured, staring at him — and then Lyssa. “You can’t be immune to our power. Not both of you.”

  She said it as if a blob of mud had just started quoting Shakespeare. Eddie was pretty certain he should feel insulted.

  Lyssa squeezed his arm as she passed him. “Maybe you’re just that bad at magic.”

  Morgana choked.

  Lyssa ignored her and stopped in front of Lethe. Eddie protected her back, waiting for someone, anyone, to finally react. No one did. Just that one act of defiance had broken something in them. He could see it in their eyes.

  Everyone, that is, except Ursula. . who gave him an oddly knowing look that was surprisingly kind, and resigned.

  “I apologize for what I’m about to do,” Lyssa said to Lethe, then scratched the woman’s hand. Blood welled, coating her claw.

  Lyssa placed it in her mouth and licked.

  Everyone in that room sucked in their breath, as though punched. It was the kind of sound Eddie heard in theatres, watching horror movies. An uncontrolled reaction of shock and revulsion.

  Morgana seemed the most undone, hands pressing down hard on her bony chest, as if she were trying to hold herself together.

  “Oh, my God,” whispered the old man. “God save us.”

  “Hey,” Lyssa said in a tense voice, and suddenly Lethe fell forward, staggering into Eddie’s arms. He tried not to let his hands touch her, afraid they were still too hot.

  “Can you walk?” he said, keenly aware of Lyssa closing her eyes and swaying, her lips stretched in a grimace.

  Lethe gave her mother a venomous look. “Absolutely.”

  She pushed away from Eddie and ran to Lannes. She hugged him hard, pressing her cheek against his chest — but he remained frozen in place, grimacing with frustration and pain.

  “Sweetheart,” he whispered.

  Lethe kissed his chest and swung around to face her mother. No words. The betrayal in her eyes was enough — as well as the hate.

  Ursula sighed. “Let him go, Morgana. You lost. You lost more than you had to.”

  The woman stared at her daughter and swallowed hard as her pale, bony hands trembled. “You can’t be sure the baby will survive. There has never been a human and gargoyle hybrid. And if you do carry it to term, what then? What if the birth. . kills you?”

  Lannes sucked in his breath. Tears glittered in Lethe’s eyes.

  “Let him go,” she whispered.

  “Let him go,” Lyssa said, flexing her claws. “Or I’ll make you.”

  Morgana flashed her a hard look, one filled with fear and hate — but Lannes sagged forward with a grunt, reaching for Lethe in that same heartbeat of freedom. The desperate relief on his face hit Eddie in the gut.

  After today — after so much violence and pain — it was like a star of hope, shining for one lost moment.

  He looked at Lyssa and found her watching them, too. He reached for her left hand. She flinched when he touched her — and then relaxed — giving him soft, grim eyes.

  It was as if she was reaching for him with just her gaze — and he felt himself reaching back, with all the cold broken pieces of his heart.

  “Alice,” whispered Morgana, but her daughter deliberately turned her back and grabbed her husband’s arm in a white-knuckled grip.

  Eddie couldn’t see her face or hear more than the murmur of her voice, but Lannes dipped his head, silver hair falling past his broad shoulders — and his eyes were hard and full of love as he whispered, “Yes.”

  He looked past her at Morgana and the rest of the witches.

  “If you come after us,” he said quietly, “it will be war.”

  Eddie felt a shiver course through the room.

  “War,” murmured Morgana, glancing at Lyssa. “I believe you.”

  Lyssa did not move a muscle, but the sense of menace that had been growing around her seemed to spark and intensify, until it was as though actual doom was descending: a hard dread that was physical and cold as ice. Eddie felt it, but the sensation slid off him like water.

  It did not slide off the rest of the room, though. He saw pale faces, hollow eyes, and fear. Fear that was sharp, biting.

  “You damn well better believe it,” whispered Lyssa. “You go after any gargoyle, or your daughter—or their child — and there will be a storm that comes down on your head that you won’t rise from, ever. Do you understand me?”

  Only an idiot wouldn’t understand. Eddie didn’t know if it was Estefan’s murder that made her so angry now, or if she had always been this full of purpose and intensity. What he was certain of, though, was that he wanted to bow his head from the odd, dark pleasure that filled him when he listened to her. He squeezed her hand, and though she did not look away from Morgana, her fingers tightened around his. Fire between their palms.

  The witch trembled and looked at her daughter. “Don’t do this. Don’t go with that monster.”

  “I love him,” Lethe hissed.

  “Not him,” she replied. “Her.”

  Lyssa started laughing again, but it was a strangled sound that put even Eddie on edge. Not with fear, but concern. He remembered how she had tasted her own blood — and the aftermath. Like a drug user coming down from a high.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the consequences of tasting someone else’s blood, if there were any. He didn’t understand magic or witches, or how any of this was supposed to work. . just that his job was to make
things right and safe. Somehow.

  Almost every witch in that room seemed to shrink from Lyssa’s voice.

  “I’m the monster?” she asked softly, eyes glowing with golden light. Morgana stepped back, burying her hands against her long skirts. A tremor raced through her.

  Ursula stepped toward Lethe and Lannes and made a shooing motion. “Go on, now. Quick.”

  Lethe glanced back at the old woman, tears spilling down her cheeks. Lannes barely looked at her. His focus was on Lyssa. Eddie didn’t like what was in his eyes. Too much bad news. Like he’d just discovered that you could catch a terminal disease from breathing the air.

  “We’re gone.” Lannes wrapped his arms around his wife and gave Eddie a haunted look. “Eddie—”

  But he didn’t finish.

  Lannes staggered forward, grunting in pain, nearly taking Lethe to the ground as he went down on one knee.

  He was big. His body had been blocking the entire doorway. But when he moved, Eddie saw that someone else had been standing behind him.

  Betty. Pale, beautiful, and smiling. Seeing her was like being slapped in the face by a nightmare that Eddie had, until that moment, forgotten.

  She held a curved obsidian blade in her hand, which was dripping blood from the shallow cut that she’d made across Lannes’s back.

  “A gargoyle, a dragon, and a roomful of witches,” she murmured. “What a perfect day.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was the knife. Lyssa looked at it, and for one precious moment, lost herself to memory. It was night, and she could hear the drip, drip, drip of blood on snow, and the rasp of sobs, and her mother’s quiet breathing as she begged, with dignity, for her daughter’s life.

  And then the memory died, she blinked, and said, “Kill her. Quick.”

  Eddie gave her a startled look, but Lyssa didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t. If Betty got away and told the Cruor Venator what she’d found, there would be another bloodbath. Lannes and his wife would never be safe. Neither would the witches, though frankly, Lyssa was a hell of a lot less worried about them.