Alexandra nodded, smiling. ‘Thank you, Michael. Anything else to report?’
‘That’s everything, Alpha.’
‘Very well, that’s all for now, but I’d like to speak with you privately, Michael.’
The Elders quietly moved away to the sides of the clearing. Michael remained standing beside the oil drum with its fire of scavenged wood. His expression was blank; Alexandra had not seen him looking any other way for the past month. He had relieved Anita as Captain because he wanted something to do and she had a boyfriend to be with. He had said she deserved a holiday, but what he really meant was that he would go insane if he did not have his mind constantly occupied.
‘Sit down, Michael,’ she said to him and he curled himself into a lotus posture without saying a word. ‘I’ve asked Anita to resume her position next week.’
He frowned; the first time she had seen his face move in a long time. ‘What? Have I done…?’
‘You’ve done nothing wrong. You have, in fact, been doing an excellent job. Several Elders have commented on your maturity and skill. The Guards are well satisfied with your leadership. I simply feel that it’s time Anita got back to work.’
He looked down. ‘Alpha… Alexandra… I need to keep busy or…’
‘I’m aware of that. I’ve spoken to the Anita and the Minister. This contract for security operations at the station has been worked out such that our normal pack activities are disrupted as little as possible while giving added security to a vital national resource. We still need someone who can act as a liaison between the authorities and the pack. Since you are already a Special Advisor for the Greycoats, all three of us concluded that you were best suited to the role. You’ll be expected in the first planning meeting on Tuesday. That gives you Monday to hand over to Anita.’
Michael nodded. ‘Thank you, Alpha. I’ll do my best to make sure your confidence in me is well founded.’ He started to move, but she stopped him by leaning forward and laying a hand on his arm.
‘You mustn’t give up hope, Michael.’
His eyes closed and Alexandra’s heart sank at the pain on his face. ‘It’s Saturday night,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘In a few hours, I should be going over to Kennington to meet them both. But Ceri’s been gone for almost two months. She must have found Lily by now, so why isn’t she back?’
‘They are alive, Michael,’ Alexandra told him. ‘I can see no details, and their future is dark to me, but they are alive. That much I can feel.’
He looked up at her. ‘When you can’t see anything it means that there’s some sort of big choice yet to be made, right? Someone has a choice to make which could change everything?’
‘That’s what Ceri and I believe. She has some quantum mechanical explanation for it, but yes.’
‘When did you know we were going to end up the way we are now?’
She gave an unhappy grunt. ‘Too late to do anything about it. From what I’ve pieced together, it all rested on whether Ceri resisted the dragons when she went to Aberystwyth. Once she let herself be taken they moved very quickly to neutralise you and Lily, and cement their hold on her.’
‘And now everything depends on some other choice she has to make.’
‘Perhaps, but you need to keep hoping. They are not lost yet.’
Michael nodded. His smile was bleak. ‘All right. I can try for a while longer.’
Part Six: The Castle of Bones
Mountains of Khedra, Demon Realm, Day 38
Ceri lay under the weather shield she had put up, looking up at the blank, dark sky. ‘I wish there were stars.’
Lily shifted, moving her head from Ceri’s shoulder to follow her gaze upward. ‘It’s weird, but I never really thought about it.’
‘I have this theory that we’re floating through some huge cloud of gas, but the physics would be… interesting.’
Lily giggled. ‘That’s my Mistress, always theorizing.’
‘Hush you, or I’ll order you to only use your mouth for my personal pleasure.’
‘Mmmm, please Mistress.’ Ceri could tell she was joking since she went on, ‘How much longer before we reach the castle?’
‘Two, maybe three days. Depends a little on the weather. Have you noticed how the wind comes from the north? As it hits the mountains it rises and cools, so we’re going to get more rain, or maybe even snow. That’ll slow us down.’
‘On the plus side, Molech’s Devos won’t be flying in bad weather either.’
‘There’s always a bright side. We should get some sleep while it’s still dark.’
Lily snuggled back against Ceri’s side and closed her eyes. She was asleep in seconds, but Ceri lay awake a while longer, staring up at the empty sky.
Day 39
She found herself walking through hallways with smooth, black walls. It looked almost as though the corridors had been formed by making the stone fluid and reshaping it. There were no joints, no sharp edges. It could have been a blood vessel or air passage in a body.
She walked on through the halls until she came to a doorway made of smooth, black wood bound in iron. Reaching out to push open the door, she saw her hands. They were not her hands. These hands were covered in dense, black scales and had long talons. For whatever reason, she was not concerned about that. There was something on the other side of the door which was more important, more urgent. She pushed on the door.
A female figure stood within the chamber. She turned as Ceri entered and a smile moved over a lipless, lizard-like mouth. ‘It’s hatching.’ Ceri looked away from the black-scaled lizard-woman toward the deep, purple cushion which sat in the middle of the floor. Settled in it was an egg, more symmetrical than a chicken’s egg with a black shell laced with a spider web of golden energy all over the surface. As she watched, the golden light grew brighter and suddenly something punched out through the weakened surface…
Ceri’s eyes flickered open and she looked up at the gloom of early dawn. That was another thing about this place; the dawn and dusk went on too long.
The dream was still clear in her mind and she was a little annoyed that she had woken up before the thing in the egg had emerged. She had had this kind of dream before while wearing Gwyn’s necklace. They were memories rather than dreams; memories from one of her ancestors, a form of deep racial memory. She had once found herself dreaming of being Gwyn, back when she was a dragon and the queen of the White City. So, who had she been this time, and when and where had that happened? The woman Ceri had seen had not looked like any demon she had ever seen, but then she did not know that many kinds of demon. Did she have a bit of demon in her ancestry too? Her genome was convoluted enough with two dragons adding to it!
Feeling Lily stir beside her, Ceri decided that they might as well get moving. They still had a long way to go, the weather was looking good, and they would both need feeding before they started walking. She turned her head so that she could whisper in Lily’s ear. ‘Wake up, sleepy head, Mistress wants candy.’
‘I’m awake,’ Lily grumbled. ‘I was dreaming.’
‘So was I. What was yours?’
‘You and I were servicing the whole pack in the hall at High Towers. What was yours about?’
Ceri sighed. ‘I’ll tell you once you’ve eaten.’
~~~
‘Black scales, lizard-like?’ Lily asked as they walked. ‘I don’t suppose you know how big they were?’
‘Well, I assumed they were human scale, but I’ve no way of knowing. You think you know what they are?’
‘Well, one of the legends Dad told me when I was a kid was about Gorefguhadget and his wife Lenadenora. They belonged to a race of demon which was supposed to have black scales, but they were about fifteen feet tall. It could have been exaggeration, of course.’
‘What kind of demon were they?’
‘No one remembers the name. They’re known as High Ones, or the equivalent. Their real name was expunged from every record anyone could find after Gorefguhadget was deposed.
Supposedly they were murdered to the last child, all except for Lenadenora and her two children. Gorefguhadget sent them through his portal to another world the demons could not reach when it was clear that the castle had been breached.’
‘Two children?’
‘Uh-huh, why?’
‘The memories I see, dream of, they’re probably passed down… well, meta-genetically. So, they pretty much have to come from before my ancestor’s conception. So if I saw the birth of a baby, from a glowing, black egg I might add, then that’s not my ancestor. I’d have to have come from the second child.’
‘You’re saying you’ve got a bit of demon blood in you? From way, way back?’
‘I guess I am.’ Lily giggled at the reply. ‘What’s funny?’
‘I always thought you had succubus in you.’
Ceri chuckled softly. ‘Well when we camp tonight, you can grow a tail and then I will have.’
Another giggle. ‘It doesn’t seem right though. I’d have thought Ted would have spotted some similarities between our trisomies if there was a demonic part of your genome.’
‘Maybe he hasn’t analysed it that deeply.’ Even as she was saying it, it seemed wrong. Ted was a meta-genetics researcher at LCU and he had a copy of both their genomes, even if he did not know that what he had was Ceri’s. He had been delving into the structure of the odd genetic characteristics of both sets of DNA for months and had found no similarities. ‘Or maybe it’s too small a component. Or…’
‘Or meta-genetics is poorly understood and there could be something there but it’s practically impossible to find.’
‘Or that.’ Ceri shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ll have another dream and we can figure it out.’
‘Maybe, but whatever your ancestry, you’ll still be awesome. Hey, if you’re from Gorefguhadget’s line, that makes you even more awesome. You really would be a Demon Lady.’
Ceri grimaced. ‘I think I could live without that. Acting like one is bad enough.’
Lily looked around at the bleak landscape. ‘Not much need for it out here. I doubt there’s anyone within a day’s walk.’ The pass they were walking through was surrounded on both sides by steep, black, basaltic rock. Behind them the foothills were no longer visible and ahead of them there were the tall spires of the Mountains of Khedra. The mountains were just as black as the cliffs bounding the pass, but some of the more distant ones were capped with snow which looked even more starkly white against the black stone.
‘True,’ Ceri said. She had dispensed with the chain the day before anyway. ‘So why are you still calling me “Mistress”?’
‘I’ve been doing it almost constantly for weeks. It’s not that easy to stop. Besides…’ Her voice turned coy. ‘…I like doing it, you know that.’
‘Well stop it, I’m starting to like it.’
Lily smirked. ‘Yes, Mistress.’
Ceri heaved a sigh.
~~~
‘We’re being watched,’ Lily said.
Ceri nodded. ‘There are two of them. One’s in flight. Keeps circling around behind us.’ The second of the Devim was perched on an outcrop of rock halfway up the cliff on their right.
‘You think they’re Molech’s?’
‘It seems likely, but I can’t know for sure.’
‘Okay, do we let them know we’ve seen them, or just keep going?’
Ceri sized up the distance to the Devim on the cliff. Maybe eighty yards or a little further. She pointed her staff toward him and a bolt of lightning flashed out from the ball at the top. Rock exploded from the cliff a foot or so away from the demon, and it let out a squeal and leapt into the air. Leathery wings opened and it flapped rapidly upward before Ceri could try again. Devim were the messenger boys of demon-kind; not exactly nature’s heroes.
‘You missed,’ Lily pointed out.
‘He was a long way away, and small. Besides, I wasn’t bothered about hitting him, just scaring him.’
‘Uh-huh. When we get home we need to see if we can use the shooting range at Greycoat Street for you to practice on.’
‘I am not a bad shot!’
‘Practice makes perfect, Mistress. Anyway, Devim are malicious little pricks. They might try something, we should be careful.’
Ceri glanced up and back. ‘Well, for now they’re hanging well back and just watching.’
‘If they are Molech’s scouts, they’ll probably stick to that. My guess is that he’ll want to deal with Lady Ayasha personally so those two will just watch us and lead him this way.’
Ceri gave a grunt of resignation. ‘Like Faran said, it’s pretty obvious where we’re going. I don’t think there’s much point in stopping them following us.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right. I just don’t like it.’
~~~
There was a moment of shock and confusion. There was a weight on her chest, not too heavy, but restrictive, and something was grabbing at her wrists. Ceri opened her eyes with a snap. There was a Devim sitting on her chest, one hand fixed around her left wrist. Her right arm was folded under her body and it was having trouble getting to it. Two more of the small demons were holding Lily with her hands forced behind her back and her face pushed into the bedroll.
Ceri was not sure where the third Devim had come from, and she was not waiting around to work it out. She gave her tormentor her other hand, sort of, reaching up as though she was trying to push him off. There was a bright spark and the scent of scorched flesh filled the air. The Devim’s body stiffened sharply, and then he was keeling over backward and off her. Ceri could feel the tingle in her own skin from the electricity she had pumped through the thing.
Devim were really not that tactically bright; the one holding Lily’s arms jumped off her back, took the step it needed to get in range, and swung a clawed hand at Ceri’s bare chest as she got to her knees. Off balance and not particularly skilled, its strike missed by an inch or two. Ceri swung back, putting her body into it, and her fist slammed into the demon’s face. Unfortunately she was not the strongest girl in the world and the only result of the punch was that the demon let out a squeal of pain and jumped back a step.
Lily was now annoyed and had her hands free, and the third Devim was holding her head down. Her arms swung around, she grabbed his ankles, and then she pulled, hard. There was another squeal followed by a grunt as the Devim fell onto his back, arms flailing. Pushing herself up, Lily looked across at the unfortunate creature, her eyes glowing red in the night as she pushed out her defensive aura at full power. The Devim looked up at her, started to try to rise, and then collapsed back down, writhing in ecstasy.
Ceri was busy grabbing her staff up from beside the bed. Another tick on the “Devim are stupid” list; they had not disarmed them before attacking. She felt air against her back as the Devim darted in and swung at her back; it had not missed by much. Turning and swinging the staff… The Devim had turned its body as it swung at Ceri and the staff slammed through into its groin. Its red eyes went very wide and its mouth opened, but no noise came out. Ceri almost felt sorry for it. Almost. She reached out her staff again to touch the demon’s chest, there was a burst of light as electricity arced out, and the Devim collapsed.
‘What do you want to do with this one?’ Lily asked, climbing to her feet.
Ceri moved to check for any sign of life in her two. ‘Well, I guess we question the little freak.’ She raised her hand, light flaring around her fingers as she worked another spell. Around the Devim, tendrils of stone extruded out of the ground, wrapping themselves around the creature’s arms, legs, and neck.
‘He’s not going to “question” easily,’ Lily said. The light in her eyes died away, but the little demon continued writhing in the grip of his stone shackles.
‘No,’ Ceri sighed, ‘I’d imagine he won’t.’
~~~
It took far longer than Ceri would have liked just to discover that Molech had, indeed, sent the three Devim to search for Lady Ayasha. Attacking them had been against ins
tructions, however; they had been ordered to follow, not engage. Then Ceri had thrown a lightning bolt at one of them, and the third had caught up and pointed out the fun they could have with Lily…
Ceri looked down at the sweating, whining demon. ‘Well, now you know what fun you can have with my pet, don’t you?’ She was trying hard to keep the distress off her face. She had had to apply a lot of pressure to get the thing to respond. Raising her hand again, she shifted the rock above the Devim’s head to carve a glyph into the ground.
‘Traitor,’ Lily read. ‘Nice touch, Mistress.’
‘I told him I wouldn’t kill him if he talked. I doubt Molech will be so merciful. Come on, let’s get packed up and on the move. I want to be well away from here before it gets light.’
They walked in silence away from the still bound Devim until Lily was quite sure that their voices would not be heard. ‘We needed to know and he was too frightened of Molech to give it up any other way. You did what you had to do.’
‘We’re supposed to be the heroes here. Heroes don’t do that kind of thing.’
‘Heroes only win in fiction, love. We’re not heroes, we’re just two people trying to get through this alive.’
Ceri was silent for a while. ‘But if I’m not the hero, I won’t get the girl in the end.’ It sounded a little forced, but she was trying.
‘You get the girl every morning and every night, and sometimes during lunch. If you win you get the boy too.’
‘That doesn’t happen much in fiction.’
‘It would if I wrote it.’
Day 40
‘You know what’s making me nervous?’ Lily asked, her eyes scanning the canyon they had come through. The pass had opened out a little and there was actually some grass and even a bush growing at one side. They had decided that taking a break for lunch and a small nap was a good idea, but neither of them seemed entirely comfortable.
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