Unchosen

by Jeffrey Cook

  "And what do you think of it?" Celeste asked.

  "I hate that any of it is necessary. So far, though, I'm not finding anything better. Come and walk with me."

  Emi took a few steps, then gestured. There was barely a rustle in the trees as the shikigami shifted.

  “...I'm going to guess that the paper doll that just either hit a lucky breeze or crawled from branch to branch is yours?” Celeste asked.

  “Yes. I have a lot of ground to survey, a lot of calculations to make. There's a lot of things that could go wrong, hard to see what's coming. Along the way, I want to get my extra eyes out in the best places.”

  "So, you can see through the dolls? That's pretty cool."

  "It's a little more complex than that, but... basically. And as I understand it, you're a healer?"

  Celeste smiled. "It's a little more complex than that, but, basically. Healing, protection, blessings. I'll do rounds with you, and we can both do our work."

  Emi set up another one of the dolls on the walls, and then, with its aid, began to study the ground for portents. “Can you remember at exactly what time Xharomor got the sarcophagus? It would tell me some things about the Huntsman's advantages coming from the north, to know when he was given more ability to cross between worlds.”

  "Nils might know a little more about that," Celeste, said, and Emi could see a little shake in her hands and hear it in her voice. Emi knew the memory had to be getting to her. Emi knew a little about memories like that, after Hikari. Nevertheless, the darker girl gave her best estimate.

  "Thank you, that should help," Emi said. She noted it for her calculations before she could let herself just be a person faced with another person's grief. She put a hand on Celeste's shoulder—Marshall had been a hand-on-shoulders kind of guy, very American, so that was probably what was best for his fiancée. "I'm sorry for your losses. I've seen...I can guess how it feels."

  Celeste took the offered hand for a moment, and managed a smile. "Thank you. I'm sorry you've lost so many people here, too." They were quiet for a moment, then Celeste did a small ritual at the spot, praying and calling for blessings. When she was finished, both girls started moving again.

  "I know you haven't heard it since you got here, but thank you for taking care of Noriko for us,” Emi said quietly. “She's still our sister.”

  "Thank you for saying so," Celeste said. "I'm not sure everyone would agree."

  "You mean Ishiko?" Emi asked, with a bit of a smile. "She and Noriko were the closest of all. They used to compete at everything. They were constantly pushing each other to be better, trying to impress Aki."

  "Wait, impress Aki? Ishiko's in charge, right?"

  An amusedly raised eyebrow. “Aki wears red. Do you not watch television?” Emi smiled. "Hachiman's blessings give Ishiko an edge when it comes to tactics, and she's more outspoken, especially for warfare. But Aki holds us all together. Those fans are blessed by Amaterasu herself."

  “I guess Marshall did that for us, too. Being Astral and all.”

  “Did he? I know he meant a lot to you, but here you are.”

  Celeste didn't seem to want to address that point too directly at that particular moment. Emi was left to guess at its tentative connection to the next question. “Your calculations have a lot to do with… who or what was in which position when, don't they?”

  “Some, yeah.”

  “Is there any way to know what would have happened if I'd been standing in the spot that ended up taking a disease-curse, so that I'd have gotten sick instead of the person who was playing defense, and... he wouldn't have done the things he did while sick?”

  This was not a road to let anyone go down. That, at least, Emi could see effortlessly, a road of Mandelbrot butterflies of self-recrimination folding onto themselves. “I don't think I can invest time in those alternate-timeline calculations when I didn't even see your traitor coming in this one.”

  Celeste slowly nodded. “Makes sense. So…all the Storm’s Light families have been in this vocation a long time, right?”

  “A long time.”

  “So you could say serving the divine is in your blood, a little? Kind of like the Astrals did?”

  “Yes, but we’re humans graced with something, like you. The Astrals were preternatural servitors…” Emi trailed off as she looked at Celeste’s face. “Wait…why?”

  “Astral blood gets around Fragarach’s mystic pickiness,” the darker girl admitted.

  “Well… I won’t rule anything out for sure, then.”

  Eventually, conversation fell away as both threw themselves into their work. When they'd done all they could, they returned to the water to rest, meditate, and pray.

  Emi did still have to credit Celeste with patience—for an American. She waited until Emi had almost settled before she asked. "What did your divinations say? Do you think it's going to work?"

  Emi took a deep breath. "There will be blood and ichor on the ground. How much and where it flows will...depend. Your little bear-sark is right, though. If they kill the Huntsman, it will throw the enemy into chaos."

  “If?”

  “If.” Emi was very tired of the word.

  "So, what are you going to tell Ishiko?"

  Emi sighed. "Exactly that. No guarantees, but our best chance. And then I will tell her that I have faith in my sisters. All of them."

  9

  Always Darkest

  Celeste Manoucheka LeRoux

  No one had slept well, between nervousness for the next day and the noise of preparations going on well into the night. Celeste's morning meditation, in some ways, was almost more restful.

  Half an hour in, Nils came to join her, listening to her prayers while he rested. It wasn't an unusual situation, really. Nils might not tend to admit just how rough mucking about in Otherness was for a human, but he still sometimes liked to sit down at the edges of some second-hand light. Celeste paused amidst her prayers to cast a small smile his direction—and in the process noticed just how pained he looked.

  "Anything I can do?" she said.

  "After we win," he said. "Save your gift for now. We'll need all of it."

  "We need you, too," she said, reaching to touch his arm, asking for his fatigue to be lifted and pain dulled.

  Just as she was finishing, and he'd started to relax slightly, he sat bolt upright again. "They're coming."

  "You're sure? Not just scouts?"

  He shook his head, struggling to stand back up. “This is definitely a major daemon with plenty of help. They'll be here within the hour. I'll go let Noriko and Ishiko know."

  She helped him stand. "I'll get Emi and make sure everyone's up."

  Celeste stopped by the reflecting pool. Emi joined her in rushing back to the makeshift barracks with her to help spread the word and wake everyone who'd been working through the later hours. As soon as they were stirring, Celeste started gathering her remaining supplies from her packs.

  She noticed Emi watching curiously, so she discussed a few candles she was putting in the most accessible pouches. “He helps mend the bones. They help stop the bleeding.”

  “What's this one?” Emi asked, as a particularly decorated purple candle poked up a little from the bag. “With the crosses and dots and … is that a heart with a mask on?”

  “That's not one I use,” Celeste said. “It was my grandmother's. Other side of the family from what my uncle taught me.”

  “But it's just another candle? What is it for?”

  “It's hard to explain.” Especially since Celeste wasn't sure she wanted to. She certainly wouldn't say it wasn't a Real saint's candle. Somewhere, somehow, that would hurt Gran's feelings. You didn't talk that way about a New Orleans mambo's practice. It was rude, and Celeste LeRoux was too Southern to be rude. “You could say she's the patron saint of You Should've Known Better. It's a different spiritual path, one that's full of death, and it doesn't go with how I work.”

  “Then why do you have the candle?”

  �
��Just a keepsake. Because my mother was a Durand, and her mother was a Dede...”

  “And you are a... LeRoux?”

  “Darn right I am,” Celeste said softly.

  “...I understand that,” the girl said. “But we need what we need, don't we? What could it do right now?”

  “Depends on the circumstances, depends on the person.” Celeste frowned. “It's not just some kind of... metaphysical machine, open to whoever has a matchbox. It's a prayer. And I...I pray for healing. I pray for the stuff my uncle taught me how to pray for. This...”

  Emi listened, but just asked again. “What could it do right now?”

  “I guess it could protect sacred ground.”

  Emi waved the arms that were somewhere within those fancy old robes. “We've got a lot of sacred ground right here that's about to be a monster war zone.”

  “Sacred to Amaterasu. You really think your goddess is okay with an … Irish-Caribbean saint even being asked to help out?” Just considering how some of the human beings around here felt about foreigners, Celeste had a hard time figuring so.

  “I really think we're all really desperate right now.”

  Celeste took a deep breath, considered the candle, and then nodded. "I think maybe we are." She made sure the candle was accessible among her things and finished the preparations, before moving with Emi towards the main gate.

  Hobie and Kaida were already in place when they got there. Kaida was helping out with attaching a chain to one of the gateposts. The other end was attached to a heavy shackle that Hobie was closing around his ankle, as a reinforcement to hold his ground at all costs, as the berserkergang overcame him. Celeste did her best to push aside that thought—that he wouldn't be able to retreat easily, even if he was convinced he should somehow—and particularly did her best to ignore the gallows humor between him and Kaida. Leave it to Hobie to find the only person here who would respond to his bit about making the lines longer in Hel with a cheerful “Which hell?”

  Instead, Celeste turned her attention towards blessing them and the ground they were on, to give them as much protection there as she could. Noticing her, Hobie's expression became more serious, and he cut off whatever dark-humored thing he was about to say. Kaida, turning to look where he was glancing, likewise sobered, nodding politely before finishing her work helping to secure Hobie in place on his limited chain. It didn't escape Celeste's notice that, once he was secured, Kaida spent a few moments mentally measuring the chain and settled into a spot where she'd be just out of his reach at the end of it.

  She heard Noriko and Ishiko arguing over ambush tactics before she saw them. Then Celeste internally corrected her assessment: from the tone and what she'd come to think of as good-family-manners-suffixes, it was more of a spirited debate than an argument. Celeste then interrupted that debate for a blessing. Both girls waited patiently under the traiteuse's touch for a moment—Ishiko apparently refusing to be out-patienced by her sister—before Noriko smiled fiercely and clasped Celeste's hand.

  "I'll see you when we've driven them off," Celeste said, trying to sound optimistic for her friend.

  "Or killed them all," Noriko said. Ishiko just nodded.

  "Or that," Celeste said. Then the two resumed their planning discussion together.

  Aki was the next to arrive at the gates. “All right, everyone. Let's do this right.”

  Emi looked at the sky for a moment, then gestured Kaida over to a precise spot. Kaida smiled and shook her head as she stepped into the indicated place, and Emi stood to the left of her. Immediately Ishiko stepped to stand behind Kaida, and Aki stepped to face them both.

  There was a pause.

  Aki looked up. “Noriko.”

  Noriko hesitated, but Aki gestured expectantly to the spot on the right of Kaida.

  There was something in Noriko's face as she walked over to that spot that made Celeste unsure whether she wanted to cheer or look away or hug her. Probably hug her.

  Aki spoke for several minutes in rapid Japanese within the little circle. Then, ritualistically, each of the Storm's Light girls said something in turn.

  After everyone else had said their brief piece, Aki had a few more moments. Celeste knew prayers and blessings well enough that she didn't need to know a word of Japanese in order to get the intent. When it was done, the group bowed to one another and turned to go their separate ways. After their bows, Ishiko and Noriko disappeared out through the gates, hurrying to get into their prepared position. Aki watched them go.

  “What was that about?” Celeste heard Hobie quietly ask Kaida.

  “You know,” Kaida said wryly, “Emi goes on about directional flow and my place as the mountain of the I Ching because I'm blessed by Oyamatsumi, but I think she and Aki just put me in the middle because I'm short, and everyone can see over me.”

  Aki turned, her expression at first equally wry looking to Kaida, but soon both their expressions become more calmly serious. After a few more words exchanged in Japanese, Kaida bowed to her, and Aki turned to Hobie.

  "My turn for the inspiring speech now?" he said, looking at her curiously.

  "Speeches are for those who need them. You... fight for us and with us today, and I will drink in your honor tonight." Celeste noted a couple of things right away. First, that Aki didn't specify Hobie living or dying, just fighting with them. Second, that Hobie went from surprised to grinning. Then, mimicking Kaida, he bowed to Aki. For a few moments, it reminded her a bit of Marshall, and how he seemed to be able to reach everyone. She winced and turned away.

  A few seconds later, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Celeste turned, unsure what Aki might say to her that wasn't just going to end up making her feel worse.

  "May I speak with you privately, while we have a chance?" Aki asked quietly.

  Celeste nodded, and followed her to one of the outer rooms of the shrine. "How can I help?"

  Aki managed a small smile. "I am sorry we have not talked more. I've heard excellent things about your gifts. Perhaps you can help me?"

  Celeste gave her a confused look, but slowly nodded, one hand reaching for her bag. "Of course."

  "I could not say this in front of the others. They are not, well—" she paused, taking a deep breath. "They are not huggers. And I could really use one. I thought you might understand."

  Celeste smiled, and opened her arms, and Aki gave her a firm hug, holding for several seconds before she pulled away, looking a little sheepish. "Thank you."

  Celeste nodded with a smile, then paused. "That wasn't just because you thought I needed a hug, right?"

  Aki smiled in return. "We're helping each other. It will be a very long day."

  Celeste was about to respond when shouting from outside pulled both of their attentions away. She glanced back to Aki, who had gone from sheepish to looking resolute again. The Storm's Light girl gave her a nod, and they parted ways.

  Celeste rushed to join Nils and Emi near the main entrance to the central shrine building, where the high priestess, a few monks, and a few other volunteers who'd agreed to accept the risks and stay behind were beginning the ceremonies. Despite all of their preparations and fortification, the shrine was never intended for a military purpose, so even with JSDF soldiers around, the people conducting the ceremonies would be very vulnerable if anything got past the small magic-using crew.

  That was all the time for speculation she had before seeing the first wave of daemonic forces. The term was apt. The front ranks swept over everything as they came, filling the air with all manner of howls, clicks, roars, and snarls, all against the thunder of thousands of charging footfalls. Dozens disappeared into the traps or crashed against the spear walls. Those behind them just kept coming, trampling over the bodies, monstrous forms washing over everything. Of all of the defenses, JSDF bullets were the least effective, but they were better than nothing, a few daemonic things faltering or even falling under concentrated fire from the outer walls.

  Her position at the back ranks afforded Celes
te an excellent view of their frontal defenses, and especially of the oncoming tide. She hesitated for a moment, looked to Emi, in the midst of her own castings with the help of her paper dolls. The Storm's Light onmyoji caught her glance, nodded, and continued with her castings.

  Celeste sat, finishing a few very familiar prayers, before delving into the less familiar. She whispered some of the stuff she'd heard Gran say as she took out the candle and match, but it needed more. Celeste tried to shut out the distractions beyond the gates and concentrate. Excuse me, Ma'am. You don't know me, but I'm Stephanie Dede's oldest grandbaby, so you may have heard. You don't know this place either, but all I can promise you is you won't like what's trying to trample it, and we're all in this together, and we'd really appreciate the help.

  As the candle started to burn, Celeste almost thought she heard some of the howls and bays grew louder, as more aggressive powers aided in strengthening the sanctification of the grounds, and the earth itself became all the more torturous for the daemons to cross.

  Just before the rolling wave of oncoming attackers reached the gates, the arrows started. The first hit one of their machine-gunners, stopping the hail of fire from one of the heavier weapons. Kaida swept an arrow out of the air with the chain, but that left her open to the fastest of the creatures barreling down on her. She took a bite to the shoulder before she flung the creature away, and dropped the next coming at her with a kick to the head. After that, Kaida and Hobie were flurries of motion, occasionally disappearing amidst a mass of creatures trying to overwhelm them.

  All around, Celeste heard shouts of warning, screams, and more gunfire, as creatures reached the walls on all sides, and the defenders struggled to fight them off.