by Amy Sumida
I hadn't checked in with Torquil before we hit the house. He'd been the last knight on duty, watching over Killian for me, and I hadn't called him back for the attack. I had assumed Torquil had heard everything over his comm unit and would take the appropriate actions to watch over Killian. I should have checked. Because now my knight knelt beside Killian, both of them in front of my evil Aunt Rue. Neither man was bound in any way, but their bodies shook as if they were attempting to break invisible chains. Their eyes were wide with terror, looking at me as if trying to convey a message. A warning.
Rue had a hand on each man's head, her fingers threaded through their hair like a lover. To one side of her stood my Uncle Uisdean, grim and darkly handsome as always, and on her other side stood Ewan. I swallowed hard, seeing the extent of decay that had taken over his body. He was missing large chunks of flesh and hair. What remained of his skin was the color of old death; black, purple, and putrid green. But I still recognized him. I would have known Ewan, even had they removed his face. This was the man who had raised me. The man who had turned me into the woman I was. Now I would use his training to annihilate these fucking evil fairies I just so happened to be related to.
“Hello, Niece,” Rue smiled at me with wide lips painted as red as her hair.
Her moonlight skin was glowing with power, her angelic face even more heavenly than the last time I'd seen it. She looked amazing. Too beautiful to be of Earth. Beside her, my uncle Uisdean was nearly as stunning. His pale skin shone like it was polished, his long, silky-straight, black hair flowed around him like water, and his eyes seemed just as liquid. Uisdean's gaze was utterly black, without even the hint of white to it, so it was hard to tell where he was looking sometimes. Today though, it was very apparent that he was staring me down.
Cat growled, her fur rising on her back.
“Unhand them and step away,” I strode forward,one hand filling with sparkling, lavender light as my other hand pulled my iron sword free of its sheath.
“Oh, you're darling,” Rue laughed. “Uh-uh-uh,” she tsked the men closing in around her. “One more step and I shall freeze your friends. To death.”
I contemplated the threat. If I tossed my magic at Rue hard enough, it should blow her far enough back to free them. If we all blasted her, it would be even better. Magic wasn't like a gun, she couldn't zap Killian and Torquil immediately. We'd have a chance to hit her first.
“Aim for her chest,” I said into the comm piece.
My entire team, from hunters to witches, hit Rue with everything they had, all at once. It was a dizzying explosion of colors, light, and elements. Hunters used their mór magics, witches used their tribal powers, and extinguishers used their most aggressive psychic talents. As Rue flew backward, Uisdean fell to the side, ducking for cover. Killian and Torquil only moved after Rue's hands had left their heads, but they did move, flattening themselves to the grass simultaneously. Only my father was completely unfazed by the power surge going off around him. Even when he was tossed aside by the explosiveness of it.
I ran for Ewan immediately, with Cat close on my heels. I knew the others would see to my uncle and whatever remained of my aunt. I had to take care of my father. Ewan didn't even move to right himself when I came upon him, just stared up at me blankly with filmy eyes. I pulled my sword and prepared to strike. But before I could bring it down, his body was yanked away from me, streaking across the grass as if pulled on a string.
I followed his movement with my eyes, all the way to Rue.
She should have been killed instantly. No one could survive that kind of blast. But there she was, striding forward with not a single scratch on her. Rue was laughing hysterically, like someone had just told her the most hilarious joke. She raised her hand and Ewan lifted into the air before her. And that air crackled with power. It sizzled with it. There was so much magic surrounding Rue, her aura was visible to the naked eye.
Everyone froze.
“You thought you could kill me?” Rue chortled. “Haven't you figured it out by now, little half-breed?”
She kept coming, closer and closer to me, but I couldn't seem to make my feet move. I was frozen to the spot. Literally. I glanced down to see that my boots were stuck to the ground with a thick coating of ice.
“We have Dagda's club, remember? Uisdean,” Rue cocked her head and searched the area when she didn't see her husband right away. “Uisdean!” Rue stomped a foot and flung her hand out. Uisdean was jerked violently from a copse of trees lining the back of the property. He landed in a heap before her. “Uisdean,” Rue started again in a calm voice, “tell our niece what we've been doing with the club.”
Uisdean stood and brushed off his clothing. He tried to look composed, but I was close enough now that I could see his hands shaking. I just wasn't sure if it was with anger or fear.
“She has a kinship with the club,” Uisdean's voice was as shaky as his pale hands. His hair was wild now, full of bits of leaves and twigs, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes which I hadn't noticed before. “It's altered her magic, giving her the ability to do this,” Uisdean waved his hand towards Ewan.
“Yes, yes, they know about that,” Rue waved him on. “Tell them the rest.”
“The club gathers the power of life when it kills,” Uisdean swallowed with apparent difficulty. “That energy can then be used to return the dead to life. But Rue has discovered that she can take the energy into herself instead.”
“What do you mean?” I asked Uisdean, but settled my stare on Rue.
“Nine witches with one strike,” Rue said wistfully. “All that magic collected just for me. I drink it up, little princess. I drink it and absorb it and become it. I have more power than you could possibly imagine. I am beyond immortal, I am a goddess.”
“Why witches?” I was stalling, I knew it, but I had no idea what to do next.
“Filthy things,” Rue spat. “A waste of magic. They shouldn't be allowed to live. I read that somewhere, you know,” she winked at me. “But the fact of the matter is, I can't absorb undiluted fairy power. Nine fairy lives are too much for me to consume at once. It stings,” she huffed. “Extinguishers don't have the magic I crave, so they're useless,” she waved her hand and Ewan jiggled like a puppet. “Except for their entertainment value.”
“So that leaves witches,” I whispered, trying not to look at Ewan. If I let on that she was getting to me, it would only go worse for him.
“They're perfect for me,” Rue shrugged delicately. “As if made for me to devour. So delicious.”
“But if they're so perfect for you, why set the humans on them?” I shook my head. I was baffled, partly with her and partly with myself, for trying to find reason within a crazy person.
“As if the humans could catch real witches,” Rue scoffed. “No, I never expected them to kill witches. I thought I'd made that clear with my first clue: Salem. I only distributed the information on witches to make them nervous,” she giggled. “The humans will kill each other until they are vulnerable enough to grind under my boot. Then I shall enslave them. The whole Earth shall bow to me, worship me as their goddess.”
“So it is world domination,” I huffed. Keir had come the closest to figuring Rue out.
“World domination,” Rue rolled her eyes. “How trite. I'm not just going to dominate, I'm going to possess. This world will be mine. Humans to worship me and witches to feed me. And you have postponed my schedule, half-breed. You should have been here ages ago. I left an obvious trail of bodies for you to follow. A lovely game of Which Witch Corpse is the Real Witch?. I practically drew a circle around this ramshackle ruin of a house,” Rue pouted at the general area around her. “I'm sooo tired of Montana. Though it was fun to mock the humans with their own religion. And the witches,” she breathed in deep and moaned, “so full of fear. It made their power taste sweeter.”
“You monstrous bitch,” I growled and launched everything I had at her.
Burning vines as thick as my arms twined
about her, stabbing her perfect skin with vicious thorns. I batted at her psychically as well, using my telekinesis to send my iron sword flying at her heart. Except it never reached her. It fell uselessly to the ground. The thorns didn't draw blood either. Nor did they burn her. Rue just flung her arms opens and destroyed my firethorns like they were nothing but dry twigs. As I gaped at her, the rest of our army started launching their magic at her as well.
Rue let them attack her for a good five minutes before the killing began. It wasn't even a battle, just a slaughter. My soldiers started dropping like fruit cut from the branch, just falling frozen to the ground, where they shattered into oozing chunks. I was too horrified to even scream.
Cat started to move forward, but I grabbed her by the scruff and pulled her back, “No, Cat! We can't win. Run! Everyone retreat!”
But there was no escaping Rue, a fact that my uncle seemed to know all to well. Uisdean simply sat down, placed his face in his hands, and wept. All around him was chaos as his wife struck out with little waves of her fingers, felling men like a scythe through wheat. I watched in paralyzed panic as my Star's Guard ran to help me, only to be killed within seconds. All of them. Dead. Frozen and shattered, beyond saving or even reanimation.
“Seren!” Killian had reached me. He grabbed my hand and yanked me away from the massacre.
Then I was pulled from Killian's strong grip, my body shooting upwards into the sky and twirling around until I faced my aunt. There was a storm surrounding her. Violent, sooty clouds spun, crackling with lightning, but Rue paid them little mind. The gloom separated us from the others, and I dearly hoped some of them were using the cover to escape.
“Uisdean keeps telling me how bright you are, how wise in the ways of this world and how blessed in magic,” Rue looked me over and scowled. “I had hoped for more from you. This was pathetic, this paltry collection of soldiers who were completely unprepared for what awaited them. When all I really wanted was you.”
“What? Why?!” I hung there like a rag doll, limbs loose and limp.
“It's why I kept your human father,” Rue waved her hand towards the storm, as if she could see Ewan through it. “I wanted to draw you here. If you'd been half as honorable as Uisdean said you were, you would have come alone and sacrificed yourself to me. But no, you're selfish and stupid. Their deaths are on your hands.”
“Why?!” I shouted again.
“Because she loves you!” Rue shouted back. “That bitch of a goddess touched you and claimed you. Danu gave you magic and power, yet when Uisdean schemed to do this to me, she did nothing. She let him bring me back from death wrong. You think I don't know what I've become? I know,” Rue pulled me down so she could sneer into my face better. “I know what I am and I will glory in it. But first, I will take something from her. Something she loves. Just as she took my kingdom from me.”
Rue reached up to me slowly, her fingers closing gently around my throat as her expression went soft. She was going to kill me while she smiled like an angel.
“That will be enough,” a male voice cut through the thunder around us, startling both Rue and I.
I fell to the ground as the storm disappeared. Just winked out. Rue turned in shock to stare at a man standing nearby. He was Asian, slight of build, with golden skin... no wait. He was a Polynesian man, thickly muscled, with a wide nose and dark eyes. Then he shifted into Scandinavian, even taller than before, with a golden fall of silky hair and eyes like an icy lake. He kept switching through the races of man, a different look with each step he took. Finally, he settled on a mixed race. A powerful body, with ropes of muscles twining about his long limbs. His hair was dark and dreaded, with gleaming beads on the ends. His skin became the in-between color that could mean anything from Spanish to Filipino. His eyes elongated into almond-shapes, with irises bluer than the most priceless sapphires. And that exotic, cerulean stare was focused on me.
“Hello, Daughter,” he said in a rich voice. The voice of all men.
“Who the hell are you?” I whispered in awe.
“He's dead, is what he is,” Rue growled and lifted her hand. As soon as she did, it broke, twisting back in on itself. Rue screamed and fell to her knees, holding her flopping hand to her chest.
“I don't interfere often,” the man said as the surviving soldiers started to gather around us. “It goes against my own laws.”
Cat streaked through the soldiers, running for me, and the man smiled sweetly at her. I opened my arms and she launched herself into them.
“My sister has been busy and perhaps a little naughty,” the man, who was all men, watched Cat and I with an amused expression. Then he shot an angry look at Rue, “But no one calls her a bitch. Not in my realm.”
“Sister?” I stood as Rue's screams died down to a whimper.
“No,” Rue growled. “There are no gods here. This is a dead land, ripe for the claiming. No one to interfere with my plans!”
“You are mistaken, child,” he said softly.
Around us, the others were falling to their knees, realizing something that I was just beginning to understand.
“Anu?” I asked with wonder.
“It has been a long time since I've been addressed by that name,” his smile grew. “I didn't realize how much I've missed it.”
“But you,” I shook my head. “You're not my god. You never were. You never once spoke to me, never helped me. I prayed to you. I believed in you.”
I don't know why I was so angry. Perhaps it was because I felt betrayed by yet another father figure. Perhaps it was because I'd thought I was utterly a child of Danu. Perhaps because Anu had arrived too late. Just minutes earlier and he could have saved my Guard. He could have saved all of the soldiers who had died. Whatever the reason was that fueled me, it made me want to scream at him. To ask Anu the same question I had asked Rue, why? Why now, and just plain, why?
“You have always been mine,” Anu reached a hand out to me, and I felt my feet move forward all on their own. “To a degree,” he placed his hand to my chest, right above my heart, and I felt my psychic powers flare to life. “Danu holds part of you and I hold the other. It's so with all our halflings. We must share, like good siblings.”
I gaped at him.
“My sister and I disagree on the way to guide our children,” he sighed. “She believes in a more hands-on approach while I prefer to guide in more gentle ways.” His eyes shifted to silver and fastened on me intently. “I heard you, Seren, and I answered. I strengthened you when you were weak, and I showed you that your life did not have to end along with your mother's. I spoke to you here,” he tapped my heart. “I know you heard me.”
“I...” I thought back to the horrible days following my mother's death, and suddenly recalled the moments of peace I'd found within them. Ewan had nearly lost himself to the rage, and I had begun to follow him down his dark path. But something stopped me, and I'd never lost myself. Not completely. “Yes, I did,” I said in amazement.
“Yes, you did,” Anu nodded. “Tell Danu that, if you please,” he winked at me. “She's so certain that the only way to reach her children is through obvious interactions,” he removed his hand from my chest and waved it at his shifting form. “I think it's a bit showy. People need to find faith in their own ways.”
“No,” Rue moaned. “No. This world is mine.”
“This world is mine!” Anu said with sudden savagery. “And you are not one of my children. Begone from it, you unnatural thing. Return to whence you came.”
Anu waved his hand and Rue screamed. Her whole body flashed once, and then simply disappeared.
“Uh,” I blinked. Seriously? Just like that? “Thanks.”
“You're welcome,” Anu grinned, returning his gaze to me. “Don't tell Danu that I said this, but there is merit to this direct approach,” he flicked his hair back and it shifted into a spiky fall of black, with two crimson stripes. He caught me staring at the stripes and smiled wider. “Yes, I helped you with him as well.”
“Damn it, can't you guys stay out of my love life?” I huffed.
“Love is a powerful part of life,” Anu chided me. “It can motivate you, inspiring you to pursue your destiny. Or it can destroy you,” he waved his hand to where Uisdean was sobbing near the tree line. “You cannot ask for our guidance and then deny us in the ways of your heart. If we do not take the time to look after that most important aspect of your life, you will never achieve the greatness we desire for you.”
“I suppose,” I whispered.
Cat whimpered and leaned into my side.
“She knows,” Anu nodded to her. “Now, stop fighting us and follow your heart. It isn't being manipulated, I promise you. We may wrangle the world around you, but no one, not even a god, can force your heart to love where it will not. Trust it, if you cannot trust us, Daughter.”
“I'll try,” I offered lamely, looking around at the bodies of my friends.
I wanted to mourn as openly as Uisdean was, but I was still too numb to cry. All I could do was focus on their names; Conri, Gradh, Torquil, Ainsley, the litany of loved ones started echoing through my head. And Ewan. Where was he? I had lost track of my father completely.
“That's good enough for me,” Anu nodded. “Now,” he turned to the few survivors. A mere handful of men. “Some of you here are mine, and others are only half mine,” he nodded to the two witches left standing, one of them was Killian. But even you fairies shall feel my blessing today. For you have suffered greatly in my realm, and I feel... well, responsible, I suppose. I will make an exception and interfere. I'm overdue for a miracle anyway.”
Anu lifted his arms, stretching his head back and closing his eyes with a soft smile. The many faces he wore flashed over him, faster and faster, until they became a blur and he was a being of pure light. Yellow light, as bright as freshly bloomed daffodils. It struck me that yellow was purple's complimentary color. In Danu's temple, the central column was filled with violet light, representing Spirit. In particular, the spirit of Danu. It made sense to me that her brother's spirit would blaze like the sun. They were twins after all, nothing more complimentary than that.
