“Well, I, for one, am not stepping anywhere until someone tells me the whole farfoilt story.”
Maybe it was the Yiddish that finally got through to Wynn, for after all that her friend had the decency to look abashed. “Right. On it. Introductions, then the story. Promise. Guardian, I am Wynn Powe, Warden to your brother Knox. Kylie, Knox is like … uh, sorry, I didn’t catch his name.”
Kylie pressed her lips together. Apparently Wynn had not met the love of her life at a store she supplied with bath products as the woman had originally said. “Dag. Dag, Wynn. Wynn, Dag. Story. Now.”
“Absolutely. Just do me a favor? Try not to hate me or think I’m crazy until I get it all out, okay?”
And finally, Kylie got to hear the story. It sounded like a fairy tale, or a high-fantasy novel she’d glanced at while she wandered through the bookstore. Shelved somewhere between Terry Brooks and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, the world found itself faced with a great danger. Just as there is Light in the universe to give life and peace to all living things, so there is a Darkness that seeks always to devour goodness and to remake the universe in its image. Because Darkness, like Light, can never be completely destroyed, the only hope of keeping it at bay is to divide it and contain it, to keep it from pooling its power and devouring all that goes before it.
At the point where the world was most at peril in the face of this great evil, a group of immensely gifted magic users joined together to summon forth a power capable of defeating the Demons who make up the Darkness.
That power took the form of the Guardians—seven immortal warriors, one for each of the Demons they would combat. The mages did not create the Guardians but merely called them forth from the Light, fully formed and ready for battle. Their purpose became their titles, because they existed to guard humanity from the servants of evil.
The mages quickly realized, however, that the Seven Demons of the Darkness could not be entirely destroyed. They were formed from the Dark itself, and so will exist forever in the same way that the Light will exist forever. In order to contain them, they were separated from each other to prevent them from feeding each other’s power, and each was banished to a desolate plane where it was imprisoned for eternity.
Knowing of the potential for the Seven to return, the mages made the decision to remain united and thus formed the Wardens Guild in order to monitor the ongoing threat from the Darkness. They gathered and shared their knowledge of the enemy, assisted the Guardians with the tools and support they required for battle, and monitored the activities of humans seduced or enslaved by the dark powers. The Wardens bore the ultimate responsibility for alerting the Guardians when they needed to rise up and face a renewed threat, and they also acted to send the warriors back to sleep when the threat was vanquished. Even during those periods of slumber, the Guild remained vigilant against the forces of the Darkness.
“A broch.” Damn, Kylie muttered when Wynn finally wound down. “You guys were really serious about the demon thing.”
“Deadly serious. But how did you find out, Kylie? Part of the job of the Guild is to keep the truth from the world so that humanity doesn’t panic and start acting stupid. If random people are finding out our secrets, we might have a whole new problem on our hands.”
Kylie’s eyes darted to the side, her lips pursing. “I, uh, I don’t think you need to worry about that, Wynneleh. It’s not like it’s the hot topic around the water cooler. I think you’re good.”
Wynn’s eyes narrowed. “Kylie, what did you do?”
She sighed, big and loud, the way her bubbeh had taught her. “Come on, Pooh Bear. What do I always do?”
“You hacked into something. You hacked Bran, didn’t you?”
“How else was I supposed to find anything out? You weren’t talking, except for that meshuga about a heart attack. I knew you were lying to me, even if that is what the coroner’s report said, too.”
“You hacked the Cook County medical examiner?”
“Only a little.”
“You know it doesn’t help anyone if you go to jail, right?”
Kylie snorted. “Don’t be insulting. You think I’m some kind of amateur?”
“Right. Sorry. For a second I forgot I was talking to Geekzilla.”
“I prefer SuperGeek, thank you very much. I’ve got a thing for capes, and no desire to destroy Tokyo.”
Beside her, Dag growled low in his throat and leaned toward the monitor. “This chatter is meaningless. We must focus on the task at hand. Brother, you must tell me why two of us have awakened at once. A grave threat indeed must stand before us.”
“Graver than you think,” Knox agreed, peering into the camera on his end. “And it is not just you and I who no longer slumber. Two others have stirred as well.”
Dag said something brief and guttural in a language Kylie didn’t recognize. She didn’t need to in order to catch the gist. He wasn’t saying how do you do. “Where have you gathered? I will join you at once.”
“It’s not that simple, big guy,” Wynn broke in, laying a hand on Knox’s arm as she spoke. “We aren’t all in one place. Knox and I are here in Chicago, but Fil (that’s Felicity) and Spar are in Montreal, and Ella and Kees have stayed in Vancouver. Mostly. For the moment, until we get a better handle on what’s coming next, we’ve decided to monitor the situation in each of the cities where we’ve had incidents.”
“Incidents?”
The witch nodded. “Kees woke first, in Vancouver. He and Ella had to face off against the first wave of nocturnis. From what we’ve been able to gather, they’ve organized themselves to go looking for the Guardians, hoping to destroy you while you’re sleeping. In Knox’s case, they succeeded. He was summoned to replace one of you the Order managed to blow up. But in between Kees and Knox, we got the really disturbing news. A sect in Montreal turned out to be sacrificing humans to feed to Uhlthor. We think it has already been freed and is gathering strength while the nocturnis work on releasing the rest of the Seven.”
More of that unfamiliar language poured from Dag, and Kylie found herself wincing even though she still didn’t understand a word of it.
“That’s what really happened to Bran, Ky.” Wynn’s expression softened and creased with grief. “He … he was possessed, by the Demon. It took his soul. I had to—” She paused and drew a shuddering breath. “I had to release him.”
They watched while Knox wrapped his arms around the witch, cuddling her against his chest as tears trickled down her cheeks. “Shh, little witch,” he crooned. “You gave your brother peace. It was the greatest gift you could offer.”
Kylie felt her own heart squeeze, but she knew pieces of the story were still missing. “But why would a demon go after Bran in the first place?”
Wynn lifted a hand to wipe her cheek, but she didn’t pull away from her fiancé’s embrace. And Kylie would certainly be revisiting the idea of her friend’s engagement to a member of another species at a later date.
“Bran was a Warden,” Wynn said. “We’ve had Wardens in our family for generations, but Bran figured out something odd was going on in the Guild and with the Order. He got too close, and the nocturnis got ahold of him. They used him to feed Uhlthor’s power.”
“A Warden? You mean the magic guys from the story? Those are seriously still around?”
“You’re looking at one.”
“One of the few who remain,” Knox added. “We have discovered that the Order has instituted a new strategy in this latest phase of the war. We know now that in addition to striving to free the Seven, they have been working for some time—perhaps even for several years—to weaken the Guild, thus minimizing the resistance they will face when they are ready to launch their primary attack. Hundreds of Wardens have been killed or simply disappeared. Some may have gone underground, but even we are having trouble locating them and making contact. Their headquarters in Paris has been destroyed. From what we can tell, none of the inner Council ha
s survived.”
“Yet only four of us have woken?” Dag shook his head, his expression both angry and aghast. “This sounds too far advanced for such a slow response. What has happened to our brothers? We should be awake and ready to strike at our enemies.”
“Trust us, we’re way ahead of you.” Wynn’s smile looked grim. “Ella, Fil, and I are actively searching, both for the remaining Guardians and any surviving Wardens we can find, but it hasn’t been easy. When Knox said the Guild headquarters were destroyed, he meant it. It burned to ash, which is quite an accomplishment when you’re talking about a several-hundred-year-old stone building. The fire destroyed the Guild’s library and archives, as well as killed everyone inside. We’re working blind while we try to locate the rest of you guys. We don’t have the usual records to show us where you’ve been resting.”
Dag scoffed. “A simple fire destroyed the Guild?”
“Simple, my ass. It was magical, without a doubt,” Wynn said. “The Order was definitely behind it, and they were thorough.”
“Thorough enough to have destroyed my Warden as well?” Dag asked. “If that were true, how is it that I have woken? With no Warden to issue the summons—”
“Oh, you’ve got a Warden, big guy. Don’t worry about that.” Wynn smirked. “As a matter of fact, you’re standing right next to her.”
“Her?”
“Me?” Kylie wasn’t sure who sounded more shocked—her or the lump of lava rock hovering beside her chair. “Half an hour ago, I didn’t even know what a Warden was, and now I’m supposed to play one on TV? Ayn klaynigkeit.”
Yeah, sure.
“Trust me, Ky. All three of us have stood right where you are, and it was just as big a shock to us,” Wynn assured her.
Kylie choked out a laugh. “You just said you’ve got like a hundred generations of these Warden thingies in your family, Wynneleh, so tell me how that’s the same as my not knowing magic existed before tonight.”
“If you claim not to know magic, you are mistaken.” Knox eyed her through the camera lens, his chiseled features serious. “A Warden must be gifted with power in order to be admitted to the Guild, and only those with the greatest abilities can summon a Guardian from his sleeping.”
“Okay, (a) we just discussed that the Guild is now so much dust in the wind, and (b) I did no summoning of any kind. Bupkes. Whatever woke up Rip Van Winkle over here, I wasn’t any part of it.”
Wynn wriggled a little in her chair. “See, that’s the thing, Ky. Knox is right. You must have some abilities you’re not aware of, because every one of the Guardians who have woken so far have done it when a Warden near them was in danger, even if the Warden didn’t know what she was at the time. Ella and Fil didn’t know anything about all this before they got dragged into it, either. First time they ever heard the word ‘Guardian’ was when their Guardians started talking to them.” She paused, her mouth actually curving into a smile. “In fact, now that I think of it, this conversation we’re having right now is pretty much becoming a sort of tradition for our little underground army. Huh.”
Kylie grunted. “Yeah, it’s charming. Just like Shabbat dinner.”
Knox leaned close to Wynn and spoke quietly, but his deep voice carried farther than he probably thought. “I do not understand many of the words this friend of yours speaks. Are you certain she makes sense?”
“I have wondered this myself,” Dag threw in.
Wynn laughed and patted her Guardian’s chest. “She’s fine, big guy. When Kylie gets worked up, she starts to fling the Yiddish. Totally normal. Well, for her anyway.”
“Yiddish? But this word means Jewish, and this language is not Hebrew, which I would recognize. It sounds … it sounds as if Germans and Russians were put in a pot and shaken until they couldn’t remember their own tongues.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. “Yiddish is the common cultural language of the Ashkenazi Jewish people of central and eastern Europe. It is also frequently spoken by Jews of that descent here in America as well as in countries around the world. In addition, it’s used by plenty of non-Jews with fluent Jewish family members.”
Dag eyed her curiously. “Then you are Jewish?”
“No. My father’s a Jew, but my mother is just a capitalist.”
Wynn laughed, but the Guardians looked even more confused.
Kylie had told this story a thousand times, so she sighed as she again answered the unspoken questions. “Jewishness varies depending on who you ask. Traditionally, and according to the Orthodox community, I can’t be Jewish because my mother isn’t. Judaism technically passes matrilineally. Also, since I don’t actively practice, most Reform Jews don’t consider me Jewish, either. They’re liberal enough to say anyone with Jewish ancestry who practices Judaism is a Jew. Again, not me. But I spent a lot of time with my grandmother when I was growing up, and she was Jewish—my father’s mother. She was also fluent in Yiddish, so I learned the language from her.”
“And she uses it whenever she gets worked up, angry, frustrated, happy, you name it.” Wynn grinned. “It’s actually a pretty accurate emotional tell. Very useful.”
Kylie glared. “You suck.”
“Ladies.” Knox cleared his throat, looking as if he were sorry to have spoken at all. “Let us focus on the matter at hand, shall we?”
“Right.” Wynn nodded. “We need to find out what Kylie can do.”
Kylie groaned. “Wynn, we’ve been friends for years. You know what I can do. I can finish a crossword puzzle in five minutes without thinking. I can write software, I can program apps, I can tinker with hardware, and I can hack into any computer this side of the galaxy. But that’s it. I don’t shoot lightning out of my fingertips, and I don’t pull rabbits out of a hat. I’m a hacker, not Harry frickin’ Houdini.”
Dag rumbled, “Is that why your eyes change when you watch the computer?”
Kylie turned to frown at him, her stomach slowly twisting under her “Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock” sweatshirt. “What did you say?”
Dag gestured toward the setup on her desk. “Your eyes are brown when you are away from the machines, but when you watch the screens, they change. They develop a green ring around the pupil and glow with a strange light.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it is a human disfigurement of some sort, but it looks more like magic to me.”
Grinding her teeth together kept Kylie from either tossing her cookies or shouting a denial; she wasn’t sure which would have come out first. No one else had ever noticed how her eyes looked when she worked, but then again, she usually worked alone. How had Dag seen it? It must be getting worse.
In the beginning, when she had first noticed the eerie light in her eyes, Kylie had only seen it when she was really deep into something complicated. She had to be concentrating hard and giving her skills a workout before that glow appeared.
At least, that’s how it used to be, but she had seen it more often in the last couple of years, almost any time she focused her attention on something electronic. Still, getting a freaky evil eye from time to time had nothing to do with magic, right?
“Oh, wow. I didn’t know that was even a possibility. Can magic really work with technology like that?” Wynn turned to Knox, her expression excited. “Bran used to say that what Ky could do with a computer was magic, but I thought it was just a figure of speech.”
“Perhaps not.” Knox peered at the camera, his gaze thoughtful. “We tend to think of magic as something organic, something that comes from the earth, but in reality it is greater and more elusive than that. There have been tales of magic affecting machinery for centuries, since humans began to use it so frequently. Usually the two systems are viewed as opposing forces, disruptive and destructive to each other, but it is possible that your friend is able to harness her powers in a way that complements rather than contests the power of human technology.”
“So she’s like a cyberwitch.” Wynn’s eyes twinkled even over the remote connection. “Ha! Now who gets to call who names, sh
iksa?”
“Half shiksa. And like you needed an excuse before,” Kylie grumbled, still trying to wrap her head around the idea that what she thought of as hard-earned skill might owe at least a little bit to some kind of supernatural power. She wasn’t sure whether she should feel proud or embarrassed. Had she been cheating all these years?
“If this is the case, perhaps Kylie will be able to use her power to discover the things we have not,” Knox suggested.
Wynn agreed enthusiastically. “That would be amazing. None of us is half as good online as the Koyote, magic or no. How about it, Ky? Do you think you can help us?”
“If I had any idea what you were talking about, I suppose anything might be possible.”
“Don’t pout. Knox is right. El, Fil, and I have been running into dead end after dead end.” The witch sighed. “It hasn’t helped that we’re trying to do three things at once, even if we’re all working on it together.”
“We need to locate the three remaining Guardians, first of all. Dag is right that it will take all of them together to face whatever the Order has planned. Second, we want to locate any members of the Guild who might have escaped the Order’s killing squads until now. Ella, Felicity, and I have learned a lot, first from some books El got her hands on, and my uncle Griffin has taught us a lot, too. He was a Warden back in the day himself. More Wardens means more information, and the more info we have, the better we can fight the Order. So finding the rest of the missing is important.”
Since Bran had been one of those missing for more than a year, it didn’t take a lot of work to convince Kylie of the importance of that task. She just nodded her agreement.
“The third thing is the trickiest, but maybe the most critical. For the last six months, we’ve actively begun looking for the Hierophant.”
“The whosie-whatsie?” Kylie asked, tilting her head as if trying to hear more clearly.
Rocked by Love (Gargoyles Series) Page 4
