When Destiny Calls

by Eric Asher

  A quick snap of my wrist sent the blade spinning into the undine's neck. I watched with a morbid curiosity as her skin turned gray and the scream died in her throat. Slowly, painfully, the gray crawled up and over her face before it slid down her body. When it finished, the assassin looked more like a dirty marble sculpture than anything that had lived so recently.

  Alan leaned back, raising his arms into the sky and roaring like an avalanche of fur and bone. He struck. The undine shattered into fragments no larger than my hand, peppering the riverbank and the shallows.

  The werewolf's breathing began to even out. He turned away from me, exposing his massive, muscled back. His shredded shirt hung low around his jeans. Alan's pants looked distressed, but they held fast as he turned back to me.

  I bent down and picked up a piece of the undine's stone-like face. I liked how it was terror that held her eye open wide. One of the Queen's assassins, sent to kill whoever held the Book of Blood? I had some questions for Koda.

  “Are you okay?” Alan's voice was more growl than words, but I could still understand him nonetheless.

  “I am. Are you?”

  The chunks of stone around us melted, slowly vanishing into the river and staining the dry riverbank. The flesh seemed to change from stone to gel in my hand before it became as fluid as water, and dripped to my feet.

  Alan took a deep breath. I shivered when the ley lines fluxed around us and his features returned to normal. His fur fell away, carried off by the current. I'd never been so close to a shifting wolf before. The rush of power ... if one could harness that. I closed my eyes and threw the thought away. Harnessing a shifter's power would probably kill them.

  “I have to see my pack about this, Beth.”

  I opened my eyes. Two pectorals seeming carved from dark stone stood in front of me.

  He cursed at the drowned, cracked phone he pulled out of his pocket.

  “I need to find Cornelius,” I said.

  He nodded. “I'm going back to Death's Door first. Damian needs to know what happened here. I can go with you if you'd like, after that.”

  The thought of keeping my werewolf bodyguard close by didn't sound like a terrible idea, but he needed to warn his pack, and I needed to see Cornelius. I shook my head. “I'll catch a cab. You warn the pack.”

  “What of your arm?”

  The old familiar sting of a fresh cut wasn't something I noticed much any more, but the latest cut, the deep slash from the Fae blade, didn't hurt at all. I twisted my arm up and glanced at the separation of flesh. It wasn't as deep as I'd expected, and it almost seemed to be closing up. It should have been bleeding more. A lot more.

  “It's okay.” I leaned down and let the river wash away the worst of the blood.

  “That's not the cleanest water ...”

  “What are you, my mom?”

  “No, I suppose not. Keep an eye on it for an infection.”

  I smirked at the werewolf. “Will do.”

  “Be safe, Beth.”

  “I will.” I ran my hand across the slim case of metal blades stashed in my pocket.

  Alan took three steps before he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  The werewolf walked away and disappeared into the old brick architecture of Main Street, Saint Charles.

  It was a lot harder to find a taxi in Saint Charles than I'd expected. I waited on the curb of a busy intersection for almost ten minutes before giving up and calling for a cab instead, and that was after spending fifteen minutes locating the blades I'd thrown at our would-be assassin. I had to give the cabbie credit for letting me take the last of the gauze out of his first aid kit along with some sanitizing wipes.

  The cabbie barreled down the cobblestone street while I rubbed my arm down with alcohol wipes and winced at the sting before I wrapped it up. Stupid Alan and his stupid infection talk. We hit modern asphalt after a few harrowing turns and the taxi swept into the old park where I’d been meeting Cornelius.

  I opened the door and paused. “Can you wait for a minute? I just want to make sure my friend is here.”

  “No problem.” The man gave me a kind smile, not the glazed, lifeless indifference I was so used to seeing in other cities.

  I'd barely even turned around when I recognized Cornelius's old leather hat near the river. I leaned back into the car. “He's here. Thanks again.” I handed him my fare and an extra ten.

  The car rumbled off into the distance as I made my way down to the river. The sun slid behind a bank of clouds, casting an eerie shadow over the old log on the bank and the man beside it.

  “Was that you?” he asked before he'd so much as glanced at me. “I felt the shift in the lines, but you never really know. With Damian around ... that boy can sling enough power to distort most any line.”

  “It was me.”

  He turned toward me, the stiff brim on his leather hat shielding him from the intermittent bursts of sunlight. That old hat had almost as many wrinkles and laugh lines as Cornelius himself. His lips pulled up into a smile and he motioned to the log.

  “Come, child,” Cornelius said. He patted the log. It was not unlike the fallen tree near our training grounds that I'd come to think of as my desk. I sat down beside the old blood mage and he patted my knee. “I felt a violent pull on the ley lines, the kind made with blood, and metal.”

  I nodded and took a deep breath. “One of the undine assassins attacked me and Alan.”

  “The werewolf?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are unharmed?” He waved his hand as if to dismiss the thought. “What happened?”

  I told him of the rise in the waves like the wake of a speedboat, the sharp bite of the blades, and the unholy laughter that seemed to echo from nowhere and everywhere. He looked at me with kind eyes and understanding. It seemed odd for a blood mage to be so kind. I imagine it might be how my grandfather would look if I'd ever gotten the chance to meet him. “Now, tell me what happened. In detail.”

  I told him everything. How Koda's blades worked, what happened when Damian unlocked the Black Book, how we nearly lost Alan, and how the assassin died. By the end, I was breathless and ready to listen to the slow cadence of my old teacher.

  “I think I know what those blades are, Elizabeth. The laughter you heard ...” He looked away, studying the river before turning back to me. Cornelius gave me a slow nod, as though he'd made his mind up about something he didn't wish to speak of. “Some call him our patron saint. Some call him a devil. His actions became the root of our power.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cornelius rubbed his knees and leaned back into a fork in the fallen log. “One of the devils in the Burning Lands forged a great weapon from blood and bone and souls. He used it to slay another of his own kind, breaking one of the Seals between our world and theirs. It is through that fallen Seal, bound in blood, that our powers flow.”

  “I thought Damian was the only one to break a Seal, no?”

  Cornelius shook his head and peeled a piece of bark off the log. “This was a very long time ago, Elizabeth. Perhaps Hugh was alive then, and Camazotz, but I doubt very much that anyone else we know was.

  “Koda?”

  Cornelius smiled and flicked the chunk of bark in his hand into the river's edge. “Koda is old, and rather dead, but no. The Seal fell some ten thousand years past.”

  I squinted at Cornelius as I thought about Hugh. The pack Alpha didn't look much over forty, or a well-preserved fifty. “Hugh?”

  “He has aged ... well.”

  If I'd learned anything since becoming aware of the supernatural world, it was the simple fact my experience up to that point didn't mean squat. Accepting the fact I'd barely scratched the surface of the world in what I'd thought had been a well-traveled, well-informed life, took quite a bit longer.

  And now the whole world was adjusting to the fact they had only a partial knowledge of their world, an incomplete picture of a complex system of creatures and gods and monste
rs hiding behind the thinnest of veils.

  I looked up at Cornelius. “How's the east?”

  “The Fae or the commoners?”

  “Both?”

  Cornelius nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It is a delicate balance at best. The fact our government did not try to bomb them off the face of the earth a second time was certainly a good decision.”

  “Can they really fight the Fae?”

  Cornelius twirled another piece of bark between his fingers before snapping it in two. “No, Elizabeth. If they managed to harm the city, the Fae Court could unite.”

  “The courts are about as far from united as they could possibly be,” I said. “They're split between Gwynn Ap Nudd and Hern, and there are even more divisions among the water witches.”

  “You are not wrong, but a common enemy--an enemy from outside the courts--is all it would take. There are greater things at play than a war with the commoners, and too much to exploit, for either side to throw wide the gates of the Abyss.”

  I stared at Cornelius. “The Fae don't have that kind of power.”

  “Perhaps not, or perhaps not yet. What they do have is Damian.”

  I frowned and gave a sharp shake of my head. “Damian would never help them. That would kill his friends, and his family, and his sister. He broke the rules to save his sister. You told me that.”

  Cornelius laughed and stripped another piece of bark off the log. “Elizabeth, I told you that before I knew what he was, what he could become. The Fae will do everything they can to manipulate him. If I know Glenn ... if I know Gwynn Ap Nudd, he has known longer than us all. It is likely why Cara and Foster and Aideen are living in his very home.”

  “They live at his shop.”

  “A technicality.” He looked out across the river and inhaled before turning back to me. “Gwynn Ap Nudd has been sighted around Falias. Word is the Fae are moving to restore the buildings and take up residence in the ruins.”

  I didn't know the fairies well enough to make a judgement call on Cornelius's claims. It seemed possible, as manipulative as the Fae could be, but I'd heard the stories of Foster and Damian's friendship.

  I leaned forward and spoke quietly, as though the river itself may hear us. “Have you told him? Or any of them?”

  Cornelius barked out a laugh. “Gods no, Elizabeth.” He spread his arms before resting his hand on my shoulder. “We must know our limits. If the Fae King heard of my suspicions, and those suspicions were correct, I have no illusions of what would happen to me. I would vanish from this realm with little more than a shout.”

  “Unless you saw them coming.”

  “Perhaps, Elizabeth. Perhaps you are right, and perhaps I would let them take me. I have lived a very long time. I fought at Gettysburg almost two centuries ago, and I watched that nightmare reborn not so long as a year ago.”

  We sat there for a while, watching the water go by. I remembered the look on Aideen’s face when Damian took us to the library. I thought he might have his own suspicions about the Fae.

  Ashley struck her trainer with a vicious forward kick. Even through his pads he went down, collapsing into the grass.

  “Exactly!” he said, strangely excited for someone who had been struck so hard. “Exactly like that.”

  Ashley's hair had half escaped the ponytail she'd pulled it into. I loved the auburn color of it in the fading sun. Sweat caught the orange glow of the sky as she bent down to help her trainer up.

  “That's enough for today,” she said.

  “As you wish,” her trainer said when he regained his feet. They bowed to each other before he left.

  He vanished into the side yard without so much as a hello or goodbye for me. I didn't know his name. Ashley said it wasn't important, so I left it alone.

  I don’t like secrets, even if I do have plenty of my own.

  “Do you want to spar?” Ashley asked.

  I leaned away and smiled. “I just got done killing an undine with the help of a werewolf.”

  “What?!”

  I told her the story as we walked back toward the house. We sat down at the kitchen table once she had a glass of water and some boiled chicken. She wanted her entire coven in fighting shape, and while she lost some sisters because of that very desire, the rest of us just didn’t want to eat boiled chicken every day.

  “Why are you looking at my chicken like that?” Ashley asked.

  I smiled. “No reason.”

  She inhaled and exhaled through her nose. It was a sigh more than anything else. “Koda found Camazotz … does Damian know?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t really think to ask him.” That made me think of the shop, and the man I’d seen walking in as I’d left. “Edgar showed up at Damian’s shop as I was leaving.”

  “Oh, did you get the candles?”

  “No, I’m sorry. It slipped my mind completely!”

  Ashley nodded and chewed on another bite of chicken. “Edgar can do that to a person.”

  I didn’t mention how frazzled the Watcher seemed. I didn’t want Ashley to worry about Damian and run off to help her friend. That man knew how to get his head stuck in a hornet’s nest, and I didn’t want to see her dragged down with him.

  “I’ll find out eventually, you know?”

  I blinked and stared at Ashley.

  “You’re leaving out part of the story. Your nose twitches when you do that.”

  “I … what?”

  She smiled and stood up to clear her plate. “I know you’re only looking out for us, Beth, for the coven as a whole I mean. Just don’t hold anything back that could get us killed, okay?”

  Her silverware rang against the sides of the deep sink before she turned around and kissed the top of my head. “We’ll be celebrating Samhain soon. I’m afraid it won’t be much of a celebration with the breaking of one of the Seals.”

  You deal with enough craziness in one day, sometimes you just need a drink. I sat on a corner stool on the highest floor of the Trailhead Brewery, watching the happy, the drunk, and the terrified people shuffle through the bar.

  The world seemed brighter than ever to some, the veil peeled back and a world of magical creatures exposed for all to see. Others behaved as I feared everyone would, rallying to fight against the Fae and all who support them, calling them evil and constructs of the Devil. A small group of guardsmen huddled in the corner.

  “Anything else, hon?”

  I raised my eyes to the server. “A round for the guardsmen on me. Don’t tell them who it’s from.”

  “Sure, hon.”

  She walked away, and I went back to the half-full glass of amber beer in front of me. My foster father had been in the military. He told me horrible tales of war and death. I’d asked to hear them, so it served me right, but I’d never be able to forget them, or that distant look in his eyes.

  “Edgar said I could probably find you here.”

  I glanced up and froze. Samantha Vesik stood before me. She was Damian's sister, yes, and close with the new vampire lord. I had a healthy fear of anything that should be dead and wasn’t. Samantha stood impossibly still, so much so that her hair only moved when someone walked behind her. It’s something you see the old vampires do, and it’s the creepiest damned thing you can imagine.

  All she did in the time I spent staring at her was raise an eyebrow. “May I?” She broke the stillness and gestured to the empty stool across the table.

  “Sure, whatever you like, I mean …” I took a deep breath.

  “Why did you give that book to Damian?”

  I flinched like she’d struck me. “What do you mean? Did he send you here?”

  Sam blew out a sharp breath. “No. I suspect he’d think I was putting myself in mortal danger, talking to a blood mage.”

  I looked around the room after she said it. Eyes scanning for any hint of recognition on anyone’s face.

  “No one heard me. Don’t worry. I want you to answer me very honestly.” She leaned in, slowly, pur
posefully. Were those fangs I saw? I shivered, and I swear she smiled.

  “What?” I asked. It came out in a harsh whisper, far harsher than I’d meant it. “Just … what?”

  “Did Koda give you that book? You swear it was the old ghost? You aren’t here with some outside agenda to break our alliance with the Fae and bring Hell down on my brother?”

  I stared at the vampire, stunned. She was here to look out for her brother? She wasn’t here to turn me into her own personal blood bank? I shook my head. That was a stupid thought. If she’d come to kill me, it wouldn’t be in public. In fact, I doubt I’d be thinking for myself at this point. I wasn’t immune to a vampire’s aura.

  “Hi Sam,” the server said, flopping down onto the stool beside the vampire. “Get you anything?”

  “Maker’s Mark. Neat.”

  “Sure thing.”

  As quickly as she’d come, the server vanished into the crowd around the bar.

  “What?” Sam asked, brushing her raven hair back before I realized I was frowning at her.

  I looked down and took a long, deep gulp of beer before I met her eyes again. “You’re just here because you’re worried about Damian.” It may have been a statement, but I meant it as a question.

  Sam smiled without baring her teeth. “Damian may be an overprotective sibling, but he’s not the only one.”

  “But you’re a vampire.”

  “I’ve seen vampires die. I’ve seen necromancers die. I’ve seen immortals die. Everything can die, Elizabeth, of that I have no doubt.”

  It wasn’t until that moment I realized I’d misjudged Samantha Vesik. Her temper wasn’t the barely contained bloodlust I’d imagined. I nodded and said, “Koda of the Society of Flame gave me that book with strict instructions to tell no one but Damian.”

  “You told Alan.”

  “Technically Damian told Alan. I wouldn’t go against Koda’s orders for anything. He knows some very scary people.”

  Samantha let a slow smile bare her teeth. “Don’t we all.”

  The server zipped by, sliding Samantha’s drink to her in one smooth motion. The vampire caught it and inhaled deeply through her nose.