by Dean Murray
It didn't matter. In less than two seconds, I'd touched all five of them with my insubstantial limbs and a series of blinding blue bolts struck them from the sky. The thunder was so close it shook our car, one impossibly long rumble that I felt all the way down to my toes.
Bethany tugged on my hair again and I looked over at her.
"What just happened, Selene?"
I looked down at the shining rod that had yet to leave my hand in the hours since the Lady had given it to me.
"I just figured out how to use the Scepter of Storms."
Chapter 18
We debated the best course of action for nearly an hour. All three of us felt like we should turn around and try to drive off Kyle and the Unseelie fae, but none of us really wanted to go back there. Maybe things would have been different if Bethany or I had been able to get hold of the Lady or one of her people, but we couldn't. That meant we had no idea what we might be headed back into.
The scepter had just proved itself adept at destroying weaker fae, but there was no way to know how it would do against someone like Fenrir—not without actually getting close enough to strike him with a bolt or two—and that was incredibly risky.
If the scepter was capable of taking him out with one or two strikes, then we'd be home free. That would mean that we could drive right up to Camelot and destroy fae as fast as they showed themselves. That could change everything. If we could destroy the bulk of the Unseelie fae, then the Lady and the rest would be well placed to kill them again as soon as they were able to reform their physical bodies.
If, on the other hand, we drove right into the center of Kyle and all of his forces and found out that taking out even something the size of the pooka I'd killed required dozens of lightning bolts, we'd be screwed. I couldn't amp myself, which meant that I'd be tons slower when it came to launching attacks, and Jace would be completely useless. If we got in too deep and got surrounded by bigger fae it was entirely possible that we'd get killed and Kyle would end up with the Scepter of Storms.
Not going back meant that there was a good chance the Lady and the others who'd accompanied us out to Camelot would be killed several more times as Kyle and the others farmed them for the memories released each time they were killed. That would have terrible implications for the war, but in the end, all three of us decided that was the best way to go. We needed time to recover our emotional reserves before we went back into battle.
The rest of the trip back to Colorado went smoothly. We stopped twice for fuel, and each time stayed at the gas station just long enough to fill up the tank before racing back to the interstate.
Jace was beyond exhausted by the time we pulled into the garage, and I wasn't much better off, but we couldn't afford to swap out, not as long as there was a chance that I'd end up behind the driver's seat when we got jumped by whoever Kyle had sent on ahead to ambush us. I spent the entire trip at least partially immersed in the blue-tinted vista that being linked with the scepter brought on.
Having another presence in my mind—something that was supposed to be nothing more than an inanimate tool, but which was feeling more and more alive by the hour—didn't become any less unnerving, but I forced myself not to push it away. The last thing I could afford to do right then was lose my connection with the one thing that gave us a chance of surviving the war.
Arriving at the house was a huge relief. Incredibly, nobody had come through and destroyed our wards, which meant that they were a little stronger than when we'd left. They still weren't going to stop anyone who really wanted to push them over, but that put them one day closer to reaching maturity and crystalizing.
Jace and I argued for nearly a minute over who would keep watch while the other slept. Bethany finally told us both to go to bed while she kept watch. It was a calculated risk. Bethany couldn't sense the approach of other Awakened, which meant that she couldn't do anything to head them off before they hit the wards, but in the end we decided she was right.
It wasn't a matter of if someone was going to hit the wards, it was a matter of when. Given that, it was most important that Jace and I get back up to fighting strength as quickly as possible.
That meant that we might lose the outer set of wards, but the odds were good that Bethany would be able to make it down to the vault in the basement before anyone could stop her. That ward was good enough to hold even Kyle out for at least a few hours, which would buy us time to attempt a breakout.
The scepter probably wouldn't be much use that far underground, but if we both went after him at the same time there was a decent chance we'd be able to drive him off and make it back up to where the scepter could work its magic—assuming I could figure out how to use it again.
Jace and I both headed down to the vault, and I didn't realize just how much tension I'd been carrying until we stepped inside the innermost ward and were well and truly safe. I'd known that I was worried—fleeing for your life tended to do that—but I hadn't realized just how much it had been affecting me.
I debated showering, but only for half a second—I was just too tired. Jace made noises like I should take his bed and he would go take Kat's bed, but I just pulled him down onto the bed with me without saying anything.
He didn't fight. Both of us were too tired to do anything other than sleep—even assuming that was a boundary we'd been interested in crossing. All we really wanted was the comfort of knowing that we were more than eighty feet underground with a powerful ward between us and whatever nastiness was crawling around outside the house.
I woke up to an empty bed and the smell of French toast teasing my nose. I stumbled out of bed, surprised to find out that I'd slept for more than four hours. That wasn't quite a record since I'd made my transition to full Awakened, but it was pretty close. Apparently the fighting combined with using the scepter had taken more out of me than I'd realized.
Jace looked up at me with a smile as I dragged myself into the kitchen. "How are you feeling?"
"Like death warmed over, but I think some breakfast might get me back to feeling like normal."
"Are you thinking that you'll have to club the bread a few times in order to get it to an edible state?"
I looked down and realized that my scepter was still in my hand. I didn't remember picking it up when I'd climbed out of bed.
"Wow, I didn't even realize I was carrying it. I guess I'm still a little nervous that we're going to get attacked. That or maybe that it's going to disappear if I put it down for more than a couple seconds. I'm surprised I was able to let go of it long enough to fall asleep last night."
"I'm not sure you did. When I got out of bed this morning you were cuddled up next to it."
That made a cold wind blow through me. I did a cautious survey of the inside of my mind and confirmed what I'd been worried about. The presence was back.
I wasn't sure whether I was more concerned that it was still there, or that I was becoming so used to it that I hadn't even realized it was there when I woke up. I wanted to ask Jace what he thought about what was happening to me, but I just forced a smile onto my face.
"Do you think that there's time for me to jump through the shower before the food is done?"
"The food is just about finished, but it will keep. I'll stick plates over everything and put it inside the microwave so that it all stays warm."
I wanted a shower in the worst way, but even more than that, I wanted time to myself, time to pull myself together and figure out what I was going to do about the permanent visitor inside of my mind. Even so, hearing that Jace was going to have to wait for me stopped me before I could take a second step towards the bedroom.
He sent a reassuring smile my way. "It's really okay, Selene. Go ahead. I'll just finish up here, make sure that nothing will get cold while you're cleaning up, and then I'll run up to your room and grab you some clothes."
I'd forgotten about that. The two bedrooms down in the emergency shelter under the house were fully stocked with clothes for Jace and Kat, but
there hadn't been time—or space—in which to move clothes for the rest of us. I nodded numbly as a tide of emotion started to crash over me, and hurried into the other room before I could start bawling.
I stripped out of the dirty clothes that had carried me through some of the most terrifying fighting of my life, and made it into the shower and got the water turned on in time for it to drown out my sobs, but it was a close thing.
I'd left the Scepter of Storms leaning against the wall, but it had required a concentrated effort on my part, and that just added to the overwhelming nature of my predicament. The last thing I needed was to be addicted to an artifact that was supposed to be inanimate, but which was proving to have an agenda of its own.
Once I got started crying, I knew that I wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. That was bad because I had a very limited amount of time before Jace would start worrying about me. I wanted to just slide down the wall and curl up into a ball at the bottom of the shower, but I forced myself to get started lathering up. I couldn't afford to break down completely—not if I wanted to keep Jace in the dark about what was going on.
There was plenty of hot water, and I kept turning it up, but no matter how hot the stream coming out of the shower head got, my insides still refused to warm up. I was pink all over and my skin was starting to smart, but I still felt like I was freezing to death.
I'd gotten a lot better at compartmentalizing stuff over the last few weeks. I managed to get the shampoo rinsed out of my hair before it happened. I was sitting there—water running down the back of my head—mostly back under control for the first time since I'd realized that I'd spent the night with a death grip on my scepter, and then I felt it reenter my mind.
Somehow I'd thought that I was safe as long as I wasn't in contact with it. I'd felt the beginnings of some kind of addiction, but I'd been thinking that the real battle was going to be stopping myself from constantly touching it. I hadn't realized that we were linked tightly enough now for it to invade me from several feet away.
I completely lost it. I couldn't have explained all of the reasons why my world felt like it was coming down around me. I was scared of what was going to happen now that I was linked to the scepter. The Lady had warned me about this when she'd given me the last artifact available to our side, but she'd been more cryptic even than normal, and I'd completely failed to understand what she'd been hinting at. The question of just exactly what price this particular artifact was going to extract from me was terrifying enough all by itself, but it wasn't the only thing bothering me.
I lost track of time for a few minutes and somehow ended up sobbing, curled up naked at the bottom of the shower while hot water pelted me. The only thing that brought me back to myself enough to register what was going on was the sound of Jace knocking on the bathroom door.
"Selene, are you okay? I went upstairs to get you some clean clothes. I was going to just leave them outside of the door, but it sounds like you're crying."
I tried to muster up an answer, but all that came out was more sobs, and a second later the door to the bathroom clicked open.
"I'm coming in, Selene."
That did the trick. I was still crying, still a complete wreck, but I was also scared to death of having Jace see me like that.
"No, stay out. I'm still not dressed. Everything is fine."
"You don't sound fine."
"Just put the clothes on the counter and close the door—I'll be out momentarily—I'm fine."
I wasn't fine, but I knew that I had to be convincing. Jace stood there silent and motionless for several seconds before I heard my clothes rustle followed by the click of the door closing.
I still wanted to fall apart, but I forced myself to turn off the water. I was shaking too badly to towel myself off very well, and I could feel what little control I had left starting to crack again.
I grabbed my underwear and pulled it up over my wet, quivering legs as tears continued to stream down my face. It was a small victory, but it was enough to strengthen me to the point where I could dig my bra out of the pile of clothes and get it pulled into place.
By then I could feel my control starting to come back to me, but all that did was make me careless. I was reaching for a towel again so I could take another try at drying my hair when it happened. My bare leg brushed up against the Scepter of Storms and the invasion of the artifact trying to batter its way deeper inside of my head completely undid me.
I screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor. The pain disappeared as soon as I broke contact with the scepter, but the fear and worry was going to take a lot more than that to go away.
Jace was through the door a split second later. "What's going on?"
I tried to tell him once again that I was fine, but it would have been a lie. I couldn't even get to my feet on my own. Jace wrapped a towel around me and then picked me up, cradling me in his arms.
"We've got to get you out of there and dried off. I don't like the way you're shivering—you can't afford to get sick right now."
He carried me out into the bedroom and set me down on the edge of the bed before heading back into the bathroom for more towels. My towel was too wet to fight the chill inside of me, but he just wrapped more layers around me and pulled me into his arms, rocking me back and forth.
"Whatever it is that has you worried is going to be okay. I'm going to make sure of it."
"You can't say that. You can't protect me from this—nobody can. I can feel it inside of my head. Even when I'm not touching it, it's still there, drawing me towards it."
Jace shifted me around so that I had to meet his gaze. "Are you talking about the scepter? What do you mean it's inside of your head?"
"The Lady warned me about it, but she only told me part of what was going to happen. Maybe she didn't know all of it—who knows how long it's been since one of us used it last. It's inside of my head, Jace. It's not like a magic wand or something that I can just point at the bad guys and strike them down.
"That's why it didn't work for me while we were back at Camelot. I couldn't use it until I linked with it, and that couldn't happen until I relaxed enough for it to get inside of my head. It happened while we were in the car when I was starting to fall asleep, and now it's controlling me.
"I let go of it before I went to sleep last night. I distinctly remember setting it down on the floor next to the bed. I wanted it close enough that I could grab it if Bethany came zipping down to tell us that someone was attacking the wards, but I didn't want it touching me."
"Why didn't you want it touching you, Selene?"
Jace was asking because he wanted to hear it from me, but I could tell that he already knew.
"Because I didn't want it inside my head, Jace. It wants to be used. It likes nothing better than to call lightning down from the sky and kill things—kill people. It would lay waste to everything around it if it could, but it can't access the lightning without me. I'm like some kind of massive, cosmic safety—which would be fine except for the fact that I can feel it pulling at me all of the time now. Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's loud, but it's always there, telling me to tap into all of the energy sitting out there waiting to be used."
"So we'll make sure that you never touch it again, Selene. We'll lock it away in a pit somewhere with a ward that makes the one around Camelot look like child's play. If that doesn't work then we'll have Bethany shift it out of this plane and promise never to give it to you again."
I slowly shook my head. "It doesn't work like that, Jace. Even if what you're suggesting would get it out of my head, I still couldn't do it. If I don't use the scepter then people are going to die. My dad, Ari, Kat, you. All of the people I care most about are in the line of fire right now and if I don't stop Kyle and his allies then they'll all die—along with four or five billion other people. I can't let that happen."
"It doesn't have to be that way, Selene. The weight of this entire war doesn't have to rest on your shoulders. You can give me the scepter a
nd I'll go out there and stop Kyle and the rest."
"It won't work, Jace, and you know it. You've got decades of experience at this kind of thing. You're hell on wheels with that ax of yours, and more than capable of killing most fae all by yourself once you're amped up. I, on the other hand, am the next best thing to useless.
"Giving you the scepter would just take me out of the fight at a time when we need everyone to be at their best. I have to wield the scepter because that's the only way I can make a difference."
Jace's arms tightened around me. "You're not useless; if that thing works like advertised, whoever isn't using it will just be along to watch the light show."
"Thanks for trying, Jace, but this is the way it's going to have to be. The Lady cautioned me against letting anyone else assume this particular burden. She made it sound like it might destroy me, but that it would destroy anyone else who tried to carry it. I'm not going to be responsible for that."
"Maybe she's wrong. We'll never know until we try…"
"No. I made a promise. It scares me to death, just like the thought of being the one who's responsible for stopping Fenrir and the rest, but I'm not going to back down now—not when there are so many people depending on me."
Jace had looked worried before, but now he looked positively anguished. "What can I do, Selene? I want to help you. This isn't a fair thing for anyone to ask you—you're not even eighteen yet."
"It's okay—I've got an old soul. I'll make it through to the other side as long as I know you'll be there waiting for me."
