Spirits White as Lightning

by Mercedes Lackey

  She didn't dare move, didn't dare look up or draw attention to herself in any way. Aerune was talking like Earth was being invaded by elves in all directions, but as far as she knew, the only one who wanted to invade Earth was Aerune, and he couldn't get any of the other Sidhe to play along.

  So he'd gotten this human to help him present elves as a threat to humanity, so that elves would see humans as a threat. Couldn't this Wheatley see that if Aerune's plan worked, he'd be as dead as everyone else? How stupid could bureaucrats be?

  Aerune was speaking once more.

  "I am aware of your concerns, but I must counsel patience. You may continue to use the special equipment I have provided to search out those members of the Bright Court who live among you, passing as your own kind. Properly handled, even their discovery can bring about the war we seek. Meanwhile, I shall endeavor to provide you with captives who will be properly . . . unconcilliatory, but it will require time."

  "Yeah. The last thing we want is to grab one of those Bright guys who'll go all reasonable and multicultural on us. We need a real fighter," Wheatley said cheerfully.

  "All in time. And what of your plan to move against those of your own kind with Power?" There was a gloating note in Aerune's voice that made Jeanette shudder.

  "Well, there we're seeing real progress," Wheatley said, gloating. "We've consolidated a number of those dumb-ass government psychic research programs under our agency umbrella—Anomaly, Trapdoor, Arclight, and so on—and we're massaging the results to make it look not only as if psionic powers are widespread and reliable, but that the Spookies present a real threat to the power structure. You'll have the screening programs and internment camps you want within five years, or my name isn't Parker Wheatley. When you come right down to it, the Psionicist Threat is the perfect social control: fear of a minority that's invisible, that you can't prove you don't belong to. We can put down anybody we need to by saying they're psychic once this gets rolling."

  "I am glad you are pleased—" Aerune broke off suddenly, and Jeanette realized with a pang of sick despair that he'd noticed her after all. She scrambled back off the edge of his throne, hoping to beg for mercy. But the floor swallowed her up as if it were water, and then she was falling, falling down into the night.

  * * *

  By unspoken agreement, they all gathered back in Eric's apartment on their return from the hospital, huddled together like the survivors of a disaster. For a long time no one spoke. Finally Paul got up and left, returning a few minutes later with a bottle of Scotch and a large silver cup.

  "I'd been saving this for a very special occasion. There's none more important than saying good-bye to a beloved comrade. We'll hope it's unique." He poured the calleach full—it took half the bottle—then set the bottle down on the floor, very gently.

  "Here's to Jimmie Youngblood. Warrior and friend. I will miss her." He drank, and passed the cup to Toni.

  "I loved her," Toni said, her voice stark in its grief. "Waes hael, girlfriend. Go with God."

  The cup passed, each person saying their own good-byes.

  "She gave me more than I ever gave her. I wish we'd had more time." Eric took only the barest sip, but his farewell was no less heartfelt for that.

  Kayla was next. "I didn't know her. I wish I had. Death bites."

  Ria followed, giving nothing but a simple toast and passing the cup. He ought to get up and make some coffee, Eric supposed, but it didn't seem worth the effort. He sat on the end of the couch, the smoky taste of the Scotch on his lips, and mourned the future that would never be. It was one thing to die fighting for something that mattered, giving up your life so that the innocent could live on in happy ignorance of their peril. But that wasn't how Jimmie had died. She'd died in an accident—a stupid, pointless, meaningless fluke, as random as if she'd stepped off the curb and been hit by a car. After all she'd done, all she'd suffered, all she'd given up to be a Guardian, her death should have had more meaning than that. It was as if God had just lost interest in her and blotted her out.

  It wasn't fair. He bowed his head, not caring if the others saw his tears.

  "If Jimmie had to die for me to become a Guardian, I don't want the job," Hosea said thickly. "She was a righteous lady, and I won't ever be able to fill her shoes." He drank deeply, passing the cup to José.

  "Good-bye, my friend. You should not have had to die for so little."

  Greystone had joined them, his wings held high and tight over his back as if he wished to shut out the events of the night.

  "Farewell, mo chidr. We can't always choose our fights, but you never ran from yours. Fare you well." He accepted the cup from José and drained it.

  There was a long moment of silence. "The first time I saw Jimmie," Paul said softly, "it was raining. She was standing outside of the House—no umbrella—looking like a wet cat, and about that mad. . . ."

  But talking about Jimmie didn't make the loss of her easier to bear. It made it worse. They were whistling in the dark, choking on their own despair, each wondering when their own painful pointless death would come. Why live? Why do anything, when your death would be nothing more than a ripple, counting for nothing, quickly forgotten. If life meant so little, if death was so cruel, why not hasten the moment? If you could control nothing else, if there were no true choices in life, why not choose death and get it all over with? There was no way to win against it. Everybody died, and no death meant anything in the long run.

  * * *

  "A test." Aerune's voice came out of nowhere, rousing Jeanette from her aching daze. She could see nothing, could barely feel the surface on which she lay. Everything hurt; her eyes burned and her throat was raw with screaming, but worse than that was the terrifying blankness in her mind. She could not remember where she'd been, or what had happened to her, since she had been in Aerune's throne room.

  Worse, she felt as if the information lurked somewhere beneath the surface of her mind, and to recover it would drive her mad.

  But it did not do to ignore Aerune when he was speaking. He was still angry with her. She could tell.

  "What test, my lord?" she asked. She reached up and felt her face. Her eyes were open, but she still saw nothing. Blindness? Darkness? Or some kind of spell? Asking would only bring her more trouble.

  "Of your abilities. I will bring you to a place where there are many of those whom I seek. You will find me the strongest concentration of them. And I will use their power to give Mr. Wheatley the proof he so ardently desires."

  "Yes, lord." She staggered to her feet, groping for stability in the darkness. When would she stop caring about what he used her to do? When would she go numb, or mad, or just die? When would he be done with her?

  "Come, then."

  She felt a whisper of air, and then the tingle of magic as Aerune opened a Portal. She stepped through.

  The assault on her unshielded senses was as if a million people were shouting at once in a language she didn't understand. She staggered, blinded now by the wash of physical and psychic pain, choking, gasping for breath. She fell against the side of Aerune's elvensteed, felt his armored leg against her back. He moved his mount away from her touch and she fought to stay on her feet. If she fell, he wouldn't let go of her leash.

  She forced her eyes open. Night. Trees. City lights. Hot summer air, the smell of car exhaust and hot asphalt and the distant wail of sirens. Aerune usually chose less populated places for his hunts—Cold Iron was deadly to elves, as well as screwing up their magic, and big cities were full of it. He wouldn't have come to a place like this without good reason.

  Her heart hammered faster, racing, and waves of chill and nausea swept over her. Something was different this time, but she couldn't take the time to puzzle it out right now. Aerune wanted results, but how could she find one trace of Power among so many false clues?

  She was in a park, near the edge. As she peered at the buildings across the street, she realized she knew where she was. New York. Central Park.

&n
bsp; Almost home.

  New York must have some kind of connection to Aerune's home base, somehow—he'd first appeared here when Threshold was doing field tests, and she didn't think he'd have noticed the tests if he hadn't been here, in the same world at the same time. New York must interest him somehow, and she didn't think it was because it was the center of the global business economy, or a great cultural center, or the home town of American publishing, or one of the biggest and most advanced cities on Earth.

  No. That must really be the reason. Aerune wanted to take humanity down here, because if he took out New York, no place else could be any harder to destroy. If she were a Sidhe looking to build a beachhead in the mortal world, she'd pick some place like Minneapolis or Toronto to start with—smaller cities with fewer people. Or maybe someplace with no people to speak of at all, like the Great Plains, or Russia, or Antarctica. But obviously Aerune felt differently.

  Arrogant. Stupid. And powerful enough that it probably didn't matter, in the long run. Make a big Sidhe fuss here, in the Big Apple, and there'd be no way on earth the government could hush it up. He'd have all the panic he wanted—and the war he wanted, too.

  But right now, Aerune wanted a Hunt.

  Jeanette picked a direction at random and began walking, trying to get her bearings and cull information from the agonizing and bewildering wash of sensations that surrounded her. She needed to strike a trail, and fast. Aerune's patience was close to nonexistent at the best of times, and this was more than a test. Somehow, this was a trap.

  Is what I overheard so important that I've got to die? That can't be it. He could kill me any time he wanted to. And who would I tell about Wheatley, anyway? Everyone in that place belongs to Aerune body and soul, even the High Elves. None of them would betray him. None of them would even care.

  All the while, something had been trying to get her attention, like the high faint peal of a bell over the roar of a storming ocean, and she finally focused on it.

  Power.

  Enormous power. The thing Aerune sought—that he must have known was here, somewhere in New York, before he ever set her on its trail. She stopped in her tracks and turned this way and that, trying to get a bead on it.

  North and west.

  "That way." She pointed.

  Aerune reached down and pulled her up behind him on the horse, riding in the direction she indicated. It drew her, swamping all other input. Not one Talent, but too many to count—an ocean of power, enough to drown in.

  Enough to turn Aerune into a god.

  And if she didn't help him find it, there were millions here for him to slaughter. He didn't even have to kill them one by one. All he had to do was take down the power grid, and thousands would die as the carefully-balanced machinery of the city ground to a halt.

  And if she did help him find the Power he sought, how many more would die?

  How could she make that kind of choice?

  The elvensteed broke into a trot. They were near the river now, and Jeanette realized he was no longer waiting for her directions. Whatever the source, it was big enough—and close enough—that Aerune could sense it himself now.

  They stopped on a darkened side street. She didn't know what time it was, but she knew it was late—there wasn't any traffic here, and most of the buildings around them were dark. On her left was a parking lot filled with motorcycles and an assortment of small cars—the lot itself unusual on the Upper West Side, where real estate space was at a premium.

  And beyond the lot was the source of what had called her. An apartment building, with a few windows lit. Every apartment contained Talent of some sort, and behind one of those windows, a concentration of pure Power, and anguish so great that Jeanette tried to curl up where she sat, and only succeeded in sliding from the saddle to the ground, to huddle at the elvensteed's feet.

  Aerune jerked on her leash. "Stop that." The Sidhe's voice was lazy; he sounded almost drunk on the pain that was killing her. "Do you not see? My other hound has done me one last service in his dying, striking a heart's blow against these petty mortals who would oppose my will. He has opened a path through their defenses; helpless in their grief, they will not sense me until it is far too late. In their destruction, the seeds of mortalkind's destruction will be sown as well."

  He was gloating, Jeanette realized with numb indignation. But she could barely concentrate on his words, let alone react to them. The torment was too great, worse than ever before. It was as if . . .

  She was dying.

  In his impatience to tap into this concentration of Power—or perhaps because he needed all his own puissance to survive here—Aerune had loosed the spells that kept time from affecting her. The T-Stroke was working again, weakening her, burning her out.

  If only the people in the building would keep Aerune distracted, keep him from noticing her again until it was too late. She hated herself for the thought, but she had no illusions left. She was a coward, a user, a destroyer. A victim, not a hero. Even if she dared to try to do something right, things only got worse.

  All she could do—the only thing she could ever do—was try desperately not to be noticed. To escape, any way she could.

  * * *

  If only mortals knew what power lay in their despair.

  Aerune could sense his hound's anguish—he fed upon it, increasing it as he did the pain of those who lay in the fortress beyond. It had been Jeanette's helpless rage and self-loathing that he had most loved about her. Her empathic power had only been an incidental thing, his use of it a way to pass the time and learn more of the mortal world while his long-range plans came to fruition. He had been surprised at her strength—no matter what he did, she did not surrender, did not come to fawn upon him with the helpless groveling love of his Court. With time enough, she would have realized what power her despair gave her, and that would be tiresome and inconvenient. Better to end it here, now, by allowing the poison she had taken to work its will upon her at last—or would it be more amusing to let her think she had escaped, then to snatch her back from the gates of Death?

  Only a small part of Aerune's consciousness was occupied with that idle speculation. Most of it was engaged in siphoning off the rich banquet of power and grief that lay before him, slipping his subtle magics past the lax wards of the stronghold and turning the anguish of those inside back upon itself so that they could think of nothing else, and in their sorrow become utterly vulnerable to his attack.

  For I am the Lord of Death and Pain, and all who sorrow and weep do me homage . . .

  Aerune no longer felt the weakness brought on by the deathmetal surrounding him. Once he had drained these enemies dry, destroyed the last of their defenses, all that set them apart from the ordinary run of humanity would be gone, to flow through his veins, allowing him to strike them down with impunity. Power to spare, power to waste, power to shield him from their monkey tricks and petty impediments . . .

  * * *

  Kayla's eyes ached with unshed tears. The power she'd expended tonight had left her exhausted, and there was nothing to show for it. The operation was a success, but the patient died, as the old joke went. Her head drooped, and she shivered, even though she'd reclaimed her leather jacket when they got back here and was huddled into it now. Everything in her urged her to give up, surrender, make an end to things now before life could hurt her any more than it already had. . . .

  Wait . . . wait . . .

  Her thoughts were groggy, as if she'd had a lot more to drink than just a sip of Scotch.

  This isn't right.

  It was hard to think. She was drowning in the others' grief, resonating to it like a water glass to a soprano.

  Not just me . . .

  Cautiously she lowered her shields, wincing at the uprush of grief that spilled past her barriers. Gritting her teeth, she reached past her immediate surroundings. The House itself was grieving—it, and everyone in it: the Sensitives who did not know the cause of their overwhelming sorrow; the magicians who set up
wards against it in vain; even the other tenants, those who were only as sensitive as any artist. All of them mourned, turning inward, shutting out the world beyond their walls.

  And something outside those walls was feeding on that pain, magnifying it and siphoning it off at the same time.

  Kayla drew back inside herself, making her shields as tight as she could. But there was such a sweetness in surrendering to the pain, a dark joy in the knowledge that she could receive no greater hurt in life than that she had already received, that turning away from that submission was the hardest thing she had ever done.

  "Hey . . ." Kayla said. Her voice came out in a croak. "Something's wrong."

  Paul looked at her, his red-rimmed eyes bleak. "Everything's wrong. The good die and the innocent suffer, and there's nothing anyone can do about it," he said in a flat voice.

  Kayla pulled herself to her feet, the dragging weakness—physical and emotional—making her stagger and reel. "No!" she said, louder now. "Something's wrong!"

  The others ignored her as if she hadn't spoken. Sat, drained and grieving, emotional zombies.

  I've gotta do something! Something to turn them out of themselves, away from Death, back toward Life. But Kayla was tapped out. She had barely enough energy to keep herself on her feet, and none to spare to heal them.

  Music. Could that help?

  I've got two Bards here, they oughtta be able to do something.

  She looked at Eric. He was sitting with Ria's head on his shoulder, staring at nothing. His eyes were empty, swollen with unshed tears. Maybe if she put the flute in his hands . . .?

  She staggered toward the bedroom. The floor tilted crazily with her exhaustion, and she could barely feel it beneath her feet. She clung to the wall, keeping herself upright by sheer bloody-mindedness.

  There! The flute case lay on the bed, and beside it, Hosea's banjo. She tripped over the edge of the flokati rug and fell to her hands and knees. It would be so easy just to lie here, give in to her exhaustion, sleep and pray to never wake up again.

  Wimp.

  She pulled herself to her feet, clinging to the edge of the mattress, then grabbed the flute case and the banjo. They seemed to burn in her hands, weighing far more than they possibly could. It was only with an effort that she kept herself from using the banjo as a crutch as she reeled back into the living room.