Syphon's Song

by Anise Rae

  “He’s amazingly well-preserved. The embalmer did a superb job.” Selene held out her free hand over the body and let it hover over his torso.

  “Great,” Bronte squeaked, staring firmly at the wall.

  “Oh, don’t act like a Non. It’s part of life, and it’s going to happen to you too. I swear by the universe, I don’t understand how Nons can live so detached from death. It’s time to face the life cycle, sweetheart. Move your hand to the back of my neck. I need both hands free to find out if he died of natural causes. Not that I’m sorry he’s dead. I would have killed him myself if I’d had the chance.”

  “That sounds like a confession to keep between sisters. If I told people that, you’d probably become a suspect, especially considering you’re his discarded granddaughter.”

  “Does that put you under suspicion too?”

  “I think I was for awhile.”

  “There are a lot of people who wanted him dead. He ruled a territory filled with his enemies, Nons and mages alike. Now, do you think touching me on the neck will work? Or is touching a bone witch there too much for you?”

  Bronte sighed long and slow. Keeping her right hand clasped in Selene’s, she took her left hand and placed it on the back of her sister’s bare neck. Then she let go of her sister’s hand. “Does the attitude come with the gift?”

  “Does cowardliness come with yours?” Selene’s hands hovered above the body and froze, her head bent slightly.

  “I’m so glad we’ve had some time to get to know each other better.”

  “Poison.” Selene spat the word.

  Bronte nodded. It was a good way to describe their time together.

  “Ingested at the mouth.”

  A good murder weapon, too.

  “There are still traces of it despite the powerful cleanse. Did it absorb in the mouth, or in the gut? I can’t be certain. Most likely in the gut.” Selene conversed with herself. She leaned farther over the body, forcing Bronte to do the same to keep touching her neck. Selene leaned over the senator’s head until she was close enough to kiss his lips. If only Selene’s hair had been out of its hat, Bronte wouldn’t have witnessed it.

  “Tell me you’re not going to kiss him. Please tell me that.” Bronte put a knee on the ground to keep her balance.

  Selene looked over at her. Her face glowed eerily with the mage light floating above the body. She smiled and pulled the senator’s mouth open with a finger on his chin.

  “Oh goddess.”

  Selene turned back to the body. Her mouth hovered over his. Bronte felt the breath pull into her sister. The pressure in her ears tripled and then eased as Selene moved from the senator’s face. His cheeks looked pink…surely because of the light.

  “This is a new one.” She sounded troubled. “No potion I know feels like this. And I know all the potions.” She sat back on one heel. “I can get him out.” Her tone was confident, but there was something dark in it. Something that made Bronte not want to inquire how exactly she could do this. “But the medallion has to come off before I can do that.”

  “Then you have a problem.”

  “You take it off.” Selene said “you” as if Bronte were a nameless subject in the presence of a royal personage. “Come on. This is your chance. Stick it to our family. They threw you out like a sick, disfigured pup born to a pedigreed dog.”

  “A colorful description, but I decline your kind offer.”

  “Come on, Bronte. This is your chance. It has to come off. The only other choice is to bring our father down here and have him do it. That makes two of us you’ll have to guide. And even if you can do that, you don’t want him down here, do you? He’d muck up the energy of this place you love.”

  “You do it.” Bronte had no desire to touch that medallion.

  “Death magic may affect the medallion,” Selene admitted. “I don’t know for sure. But there’s a good possibility. Once death magic has touched something, it never un-touches. If the medallion soaks up what I’m about to give the senator, it will never work again. The people in Casteel Territory will truly lose what binds them to the land. The latest riots and fights will be nothing compared to what will happen if the medallion loses its control over the territory.” Selene raised her eyebrows in a what-do-you-think-of-that expression. “Since you’re a Casteel, it should come off for you.”

  “I don’t know how to take it off.” She looked down at her grandfather. Selene had closed his mouth and now his lips were overly smashed together. He looked as if he disapproved of all this. His closed eyes were tipped with stubby eyelashes. His crop of white hair stuck up everywhere. A definite case of bed head. Or rather dead head. Bronte was certain Selene would not be amused.

  The medallion drooped to the left side of his chest, a golden gleam in Selene’s light. Plain in design, the pendant was a golden, hollow circle, about four inches in diameter. The chain was made of thin, circular loops, each about an inch long. Such a simple item to cause so much trouble, to symbolize a claim on one of the Republic’s territories, and to hold so much powerful energy.

  “Oh, fine,” Bronte muttered.

  “Great.” Selene sounded like Bronte had just agreed to go out for a night on the town. “I’m going to need both hands to shift him in order for you to reach the clasp. You’ll need both hands too.” Selene still sounded way too enthusiastic. “Push your sleeve way up and we’ll put our bare arms together. That way you can still touch me. Goddess help us if I lose contact with you. I’ll lift his head. You reach under and unclasp it.”

  Bronte did as ordered, maneuvering the right sleeves of her coat and dress high enough to bare her arms, an awkward process without being able to take her hand from Selene’s neck. Maintaining the connection was vital for their safety. Her sleeves squeezed so tightly above her elbow the nerves tingled down her arm.

  Selene scrunched up the sleeves of her left side. Bronte placed her bared right forearm next to Selene’s left, and then removed her hand from her neck. Without another word, Selene lifted the senator’s head off the ground and exposed the chain of the medallion. Bronte slid her bare arm under Selene’s, their skin rubbing together. She reached for the chain with both hands. The medallion came apart at her slight pull and fell free of its former owner.

  “Now put it on and tuck it under your shirt. Keep the thing protected from what I’m about to do.”

  “Very funny. I am not putting this around my neck. If it fastened around me, I’d be stuck as the Casteel senator and zapped to death by a spell the first time I had to step onto the Rushes. Unless you plan to throw yourself in front of me every time. Which means you’d have to hang around me constantly. Sound like fun? If I had a pocket, I’d put it there, but I don’t.”

  “Pockets won’t work. To keep it safe, it has to be next to your skin. How about you stuff it under your sleeve?” Selene’s voice sounded long-suffering. “Then you can hand it over to your sponsors like the good little Non you used to be. Rallis is the only family strong enough to take over another territory. Just be sure to keep it next to your skin. If the safest place for me is next to your skin, then the same goes for that old artifact.”

  “Fine. I’ll stick it up my sleeve.” They carefully switched their contact point so Selene held Bronte’s neck. Bronte held the medallion against her right arm and wiggled her sleeve over it, going slowly since it was a tight fit. She tucked the chain inside the tight fabric as well.

  She shivered as the medallion’s power moved across her skin. Energy never did that to her, not Vincent’s, not even the gyre’s. Their powers went inside to her syphon. They didn’t crawl over her skin. She tried to ignore it.

  “Satisfied?” Bronte asked.

  Selene rolled her eyes and muttered something about a wimp. “Let’s get him out of here. We’re going to move down to his feet.”

  “But he takes up the entire space. There’s no way past him.” Bronte’s protest went unheard as Selene took her hand and then stepped down the length of the body. The
toes of Selene’s shoes slipped under him as she shuffled down the wall. It was either that or step on him. Bronte shoved her boot under Grandpa’s shoulder. The boot’s fine suede grabbed at his suit. His arm flopped and landed against her shin. A moan gurgled from her throat. She kicked his arm away. It landed with a flop against his chest.

  As soon as they passed him, she stepped behind Selene, giving her room to do whatever she had planned. At least, that was her excuse.

  “I’m dousing the light for a minute. I need to concentrate on one energy at a time.” Selene’s glow dimmed until it disappeared. A black ocean surrounded them, so viscous it held Bronte immobile. It didn’t matter how widely she opened her eyes. Darkness consumed her world. She reached for the wall, needing the reassurance it still stood beside her in the utter black.

  A series of shuffles sounded in front of her. Her ears squeezed from the pressure. Finally the light’s glow returned, increasing the pressure in her ears, but she’d take it. Anything to wash away the darkness.

  Before her stood the late Senator Casteel, eyes closed, mouth closed, belly protruding a breath away from Selene, and his head inches from the ceiling.

  A note of fear sang out of Bronte. She tried to clip it short, but it stopped only because she ran out of air.

  “Hellhounds, it’s so weird down here.” Selene sounded amazed.

  “Yeah,” Bronte agreed shakily.

  “It’s so easy it’s almost hard. I barely need to pull any vibes at all.” Selene gave a little move of her head, not quite a nod, more of a brief thrusting of her chin. Senator Casteel’s body stepped backward along the spiral.

  “Um, do you think you could make him turn around?” Bronte was careful to keep her volume low, her tone calm, her panic buried.

  Selene gave a weary sigh.

  He spun around.

  It was a slow procession. Weren’t they a freaky parade? A dead man controlled by a necromancer who held hands with a syphon. Her parents would vibe out of their senses.

  As she stepped up the incline, a sense of relief poured through her. It was almost over. She relaxed as much as possible with ears ready to burst, all while following a walking corpse. Energy from the gyre flowed through her faster as if calming had decreased its friction. The senator’s feet lost their rhythm for a moment, and he walked into the cave wall.

  “Syphon, what the hell?” Selene stopped to recover control of the body. “Control it.”

  “My apologies, necromancer. I don’t have much experience at this.”

  The air cooled as they approached the cave’s opening. Wind swirled past her as they stepped into the night air. The senator’s hair moved with the breeze. Selene’s mage light glowed as they walked through the stones of the gyre. It danced above them like a little white moon. She was probably showing off to prove to the Council guards she had enough control for this.

  Selene’s light impressed a moth at least. It fluttered around before they were ten feet out of the cave.

  The crowd ahead grew noisy at their approach. Bronte recognized her mother’s squeal above the rest. The waiting mages stepped to the edge, standing among the white trees guarding the gyre, too close for comfort, but none moved away. Even Phyllis was out of her chair.

  “Sergeant Tyler, throw the body bag to my feet!” Selene’s holler cut through the air as they reached the edge.

  “He’s alive!” Phyllis shrieked. Selene disagreed and tried to explain it, but Phyllis had a long habit of not listening to anyone, no matter the message. Bronte remembered that well.

  “Can he speak?”

  “Only what I tell him to say. And since I don’t know precisely what killed him, I can’t make him say it, if that’s where you’re going with this. I’m taking him back to my lab. You’ll get the body back when I’ve taken energy samples.”

  “Where’s the medallion? Where is it?”

  Selene ignored their mother as the sergeant tossed the body bag on her right foot. She bent down to open it.

  Bronte, feeling like a coroner’s assistant, helped. Together they were two-handed. Even this close to the edge of the gyre, the power would be too intense for Selene without Bronte’s touch.

  Selene unzipped the flat, crisp material, and dropped to her knees as she stretched down the length of the long bag. Then she stood, brushed off her pants with one hand and nodded at the senator’s back.

  He lay down on the bag like a trained dog.

  Bronte helped enclose him within the plastic, a task requiring multiple hands since some of the bag was stuck under the body. His weight was almost too much for them. She huffed in disgust every time she had to touch him. Finally Bronte zipped up the bottom half and Selene finished the top part.

  An absurd sense of satisfaction drifted through her at a job well done.

  “Where is the medallion, you lousy girl?” Phyllis hissed. Bronte looked over to respond but found that Phyllis was looking at Selene. To speak to the Council’s envoy so disrespectfully was risky, even for her mother.

  “Bronte, grab the other corner here.” Selene ignored Phyllis and picked up one corner of the foot of the bag. “We’re going to drag it over to the trees. The guards can pull it the rest of the way out.”

  Bronte did as instructed. The two struggled to haul the 200-pound body a mere five feet. The Council guards pushed Phyllis aside, disregarding her protests. They reached in and yanked the bag out. The broadest of the guards slung the body bag over his shoulder.

  Bronte swallowed hard and looked away, trying hard to forget about the contents of the plastic.

  The trio of men departed and headed toward the road. They ignored the gardener mage, who stood behind a tree, peeking his head around in a halfhearted attempt at hiding.

  Tonight’s performance had attracted quite a crowd.

  Phyllis hobbled after the Council’s men. “Stop! I need the medallion!”

  Her husband added his own demands with the righteous anger of the privileged.

  Selene’s soft voice cut through it all. “Bronte has it.”

  17

  Her sister threw her to the wolves with the simple words. Bronte swayed against the force of every gaze shifting to her. They stared from between the tight trees like an army ready to storm her defenses. She held her ground. Phyllis prowled forward to the edge of the gyre. Her injuries forgotten, she radiated an energetic violence. The woman had more reason than ever to invoke the Right of Creator.

  “Spells can come in,” Bronte whispered the warning to Selene as softly as she could, not wanting to give her mother any ideas. Vincent wasn’t here to shield her this time. Gregor and Dane were ready to pounce, but they couldn’t get in.

  Gregor waved for her to come out of the gyre.

  Bronte took two steps to scramble to their side, but Selene yanked so hard on her arm her shoulder joint popped a warning. Worse, her fingers ached with a sharp pain from Selene’s squeeze.

  “Don’t you dare hurt my fingers or I’ll…suck all your power out,” Bronte hissed.

  “Pfft.” Selene rolled her eyes at Bronte’s words, though her gaze was directed at their mother. Selene wore a tiny, vicious smile. Her sister had a lot of little teeth.

  Phyllis tossed her head back and laughed. “Isn’t this sweet? Two monstrosities united at last. You won’t win.”

  Bronte shook her head. No, she wouldn’t win against her mother. She didn’t even want to play her games. Phyllis was too powerful. Bronte opened her mouth to surrender, but Selene squeezed tighter. Crushed fingers would not glide over violin strings.

  She glanced at Dane and Gregor. Dane thrust two fingers in the air and pointed them toward his own eyes and then at Selene, as if he wanted Bronte to poke Selene’s eyes out. He nodded encouragingly…and then rolled his eyes as she just stood there. He changed tactics and wove through the trees toward Phyllis.

  “Actually,” Selene began with a voice loud enough to carry through the woods, “I think we might win.”

  Time to put an end to thi
s pointless scene.

  “The medallion is safe in my sleeve.” She looked at Selene. They were the same height. “I don’t want it. I’m stepping out of the gyre now. You can either come with me or not.” She wanted this medallion gone. It was the catalyst for the entire mess stewing around her. If it hadn’t gone missing, she’d still be in Chattanooga playing music…and helping Double-Wide kill people, she thought sourly. And never experiencing the pleasure of her syphon pulling at Vincent’s energy, a little voice in her head added.

  “Go ahead. Give it to them.” Selene led the way out through the trees and then looked back at Bronte with a daring spark in her eyes. That proud little smile still graced her lips.

  Dane and Gregor gathered around her the moment she stepped out of the gyre. Selene kept pulling her, holding tightly to Bronte’s hand so that slipping free would take an aggressive effort. She stopped in a clearing large enough that all the mages could gather around. Evidently her sister wanted the audience to have a clear view.

  Selene held her mage light between them.

  Bronte ignored the pressure in her ears as she gathered her sleeves up her arm.

  “Don’t any of you touch it,” warned Phyllis. “That medallion belongs to no one but my husband.” She crunched through the underbrush toward them but halted when Gregor stepped forward. Phyllis bristled in silence.

  The medallion, tucked high up the dress sleeve, was being stubborn about coming out. Bronte caught a link of the chain and, working it back and forth, slid it free of the soft dress. It slid down her exposed right arm and got stuck at the top of her hand.

  She wiggled her arm to set it free, a loose shake that reverberated through her body until the tremble took on a life of its own.

  Get off, get off, get off. The words chanted through her head. An order, a plea, a prayer. She clenched her jaw to stop her chattering teeth.

  The golden hollow circle, the symbol that represented the Casteel claim as a founding family, clung to her arm. The chain had threaded through the open design of the medallion, ensnared it, and then wrapped around her. The medallion had clasped itself to her.