by Joe Jackson
“What do you mean?” Kari inquired.
The rogue sighed, flipped back a few pages in the journal, and pointed out several lines as he reread them. “If this is supposed to be a record of everything related to this Ciceria woman, Bosimar was either addled or he was hiding something. There are just too many holes in his records, and they lack any sort of flow or continuity. What do you figure, he had maybe a hundred or more hunters working for him at any given time?”
“Far more than that,” the terra-dracon woman answered.
“Yet he sent some random group of mercenaries to investigate demon activity of the sort that would be of concern to the Beast? And then, when they found it, he turned around and sent them to investigate the theft of Turik Jalar’s armor and axe? That doesn’t make any sense; any good tactician would’ve had eyes on Ciceria the moment she left his custody. From what’s written in this journal, she walked away from their meeting knowing far more about him and the Order than he knew about her or her people. That’s a mistake I have a hard time believing the Avatar of Vengeance would’ve committed under those circumstances. I don’t believe it when he says he was trying to make her feel he took her at her word; she told him something that he left out of this journal, and he might’ve…”
Aeligos paused for a minute, and Kari waited patiently for him to continue his train of thought. His mother, Kyrie Kyleah, sat down at the head of the table near him and Kari, and she patted Kari’s hand and smiled. Kyrie was absolutely gorgeous, a stunning example of how serilian-rir genes could enhance beauty and sexual allure. She had a dazzling combination of blonde hair and green eyes – apparently where her son Typhonix got his coloration from – and one of the warmest personalities Kari could ever remember encountering. Kari couldn’t quite grasp everything that had gone on in the woman’s past to make her walk away from her mate and her children, but in the years she had come to know Kyrie, Kari was confident that it was not a choice the woman had made lightly. Her children, some of whom had gone decades without seeing her, held no grudges against their mother – even Typhonix, who had long felt betrayed by the absence of the woman from his life. That, too, spoke volumes to Kari about what had caused Kyrie to walk away.
“Tell her,” Kyrie said to her son, and Aeligos turned his gaze back to Kari.
“I think he might’ve been working with them,” the rogue finished.
Kari was taken aback; to utter such a thing on the campus of the Order might’ve resulted in Aeligos being thrown headlong into the mud outside its gates. “Aeligos,” Kari said with a shake of her head, “Jason was the Avatar of Vengeance, there’s no way he would’ve been working with demons. Zalkar would’ve stripped him of his rank and power.”
The rogue slid the journal back across the table toward her. “I don’t mean he was helping them, Kari. Just that he may have been working with them toward some common goal. That’s my best guess,” he said, holding his hands up defensively. It was clear he didn’t want to insult Kari or her Order, but he was confident in his conclusion, and despite her own feelings, Kari knew that she had to assign it a lot of credibility. “I’ll reread the journal tomorrow and see if I come to the same conclusions, but at first glance it looks like he was keeping just enough records to satisfy the Order while he hid a lot of the truth from his charges.”
“But again, Zalkar would’ve stripped him of the rank,” Kari countered.
“Not if Zalkar was satisfied with Jason’s line of thinking,” Aeligos replied with a shrug.
Kari put her face in her hand and leaned on her elbow, and Kyrie gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “I can tell you from experience, sometimes the politics of a very black and white situation can blanket everything in shades of grey,” the priestess said. “Kaelariel has at times walked a dark path that led his Koryonite counterparts to question his motivations, but in the end, their trust in his integrity proved the correct course of action. You must consider that as Avatar, Jason may have felt the imminence of the Apocalypse weighing upon his decisions as well. It’s possible he let Ciceria go because he was afraid of starting a war with the syrinthians or even an underworld lord if his suspicions proved false. I have to believe that such logic would have satisfied even the Unyielding under those circumstances.”
“That’s a very good point,” Aeligos agreed with a nod. “I would’ve gone about things differently, Kari, but bear in mind I’m only working with what Jason recorded here. As I said, I think he was hiding something, so until we know what that was, it’s hard to judge the course of action he followed. I hope I’m wrong, but I’ll tell you this much: you’re not going to get the entire story from his journals. If I were you, I’d track down Tormaar or one of his companions. It’ll probably be hard to get a hold of Jori-an again unless Karmi’s Sword comes into port, but those people will be the only ones that can tell you what Bosimar left out.”
Kari nodded and forced a slight smile back onto her features, considering the weight of what she’d just heard. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “I suppose we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions until we know what really happened. My instincts are to trust Jason, and the fact that the Order hasn’t heard anything about the snake-people or any disturbances in the mountains kinda re…reinforces that.”
“They didn’t mention anything of the sort when I was in training,” Typhonix added from behind her. He was seated in the lounging area in one of its deep rocking chairs with a thick history book open in his lap. Despite his appearance and reputation as little more than a brute, Typhonix, the youngest of the siblings, was exceptionally smart – as all of the Tesconis children seemed to be – and he took a great interest in history, politics, and economics. It was a strange hobby for a sometimes ill-tempered man who always seemed ready to pummel someone, but one that Kari appreciated very much in a brother-in-law who once hated her. Ty shrugged when Kari turned to look at him, and he added, “Then again, they spent most of the time talking about you.”
Kari snorted. “How many times did they mention the erestram?” she inquired. The erestram were massive demons with lupine features from the underworld, and they were incredibly tough shock troops in the underworld armies. Kari was the only demonhunter in recorded history to have beaten one in single combat, a fact that was usually blown well out of proportion with claims that she’d killed it and made a cloak out of its hide. Typhonix chuckled but didn’t respond, and Kari turned back to Aeligos and Kyrie. “Where’s Jol tonight?”
“Working late at the forge,” the rogue said sarcastically with his brows raised, and even Grakin joined Ty and Kyrie as they laughed.
“What’s so funny about that?” Kari asked. Serenjols – or Jol, as he was more commonly called – was the eldest of the Tesconis siblings, a massive man who stood over seven feet tall. He was a gentle giant, though, with a shy personality that only gave way to his protective nature when the situation demanded it. He was an accomplished fighter but also a highly skilled smith, and he’d been working with a group of human blacksmiths since Kari and her in-laws returned from Tsalbrin.
“He’s been ‘working late at the forge’ for two months,” Aeligos answered with a slight shake of his head. “He’s seeing someone. I already know who it is, as hard as he tries to keep it a secret. I won’t spoil his surprise, but I can tell you she’s a good woman. Mom will be happy.”
Kyrie smiled and patted her son’s hand. Kari knew that the woman simply wanted all of her sons and her daughter, Sonja, to find mates of their own. Thus far only Grakin and Aeligos had any sort of meaningful relationships, though Aeligos’ courtship of the enigmatic assassin Eryn Olgaryn was fleeting at times. Grakin approached from the kitchen, sat beside Kari, and kissed her lightly on the side of her snout, and she leaned into him as he moved his chair closer to hers. Grakin’s other two siblings – his elder brother Erijinkor and his younger sister Sonja – were absent: Erik was on an assignment in the city of Ceritopolonis in the north, and Sonja was training with the archmage Gareth Maelstrom
and hadn’t been home in days.
Kari excused herself when she heard her son laughing upstairs, and she walked up to his room to see if he was awake or simply laughing in his sleep. Little Gray was such a good-natured child, rarely bratty or fussy, and he had a wonderful tendency to sleep through the night. When Kari entered his room she could see that he was asleep, and she absently pushed the reading chair back into the corner. The moonlight filtering in through the east-facing windows was strong, so Kari pulled the drapes closed and then moved toward the bed. Little Gray opened his eyes and giggled as Kari kissed him on the side of his snout, and she knelt down with a smile.
“What are you giggling about?” she asked him in the rir tongue.
“Saying nite-nite to the Fuzzy Man,” he answered with another giggle.
Kari shook her head. “Well when you see him again, you tell the Fuzzy Man to bonk whoever keeps moving your reading chair and forgetting to put it back,” she said. “Now you get some sleep.”
“Okay, mama,” Little Gray said and he closed his eyes.
Kari kissed him again and then rose to her feet to leave the room. She heard the creaking in the house again and ignored it, but as she strode toward the doorway, she felt a slight breeze blow past her. Kari’s eyes widened and she became very still; it felt like the draft of another passing body, or the resistance of one. She could feel her heartbeat begin to race and she looked around and listened for any further sounds, but soon her pulse rang so loudly in her ears that she was sure she wouldn’t have heard anything anyway. Her nerves hardened like icy steel, and a fuzzy feeling crawled just under her skin as her survival instincts took over completely. Her feet and legs were poised and tensed, ready to explode into action, and without thought she moved into the defensive posture that Aeligos had taught her during their days sparring. She was ready to be struck but to counterstrike just as quickly in defense of herself and her child. Kari turned and stared into the far corner of the room, where the shadows were deepest, and she was sure she could feel eyes staring back at her from the darkness. Without hesitation, Kari dashed over and scooped Little Gray out of bed, and she hurried down the stairs.
“Kyrie! Kyrie!” she called. Her mother-in-law met her at the base of the stairs, as did her mate and his brothers. “There’s something upstairs in Little Gray’s bedroom; I felt it move past me!”
Kyrie didn’t bother asking any questions. She rushed up the stairs with Typhonix and Aeligos in tow, and Grakin hugged Kari while she tried to calm her breathing. “I think…it felt like it might’ve been a ghost,” Kari said breathlessly, and Little Gray began to cry, sensing his mother’s fear. “I couldn’t see anything, but there was something there.”
Grakin hushed her and kept her in his comforting embrace. “It cannot be a ghost,” he said calmly. “My mother warded the house against unwelcome spirits.”
Kari met her mate’s stare. “What if it’s not the house? What if it’s me?” she asked. “What if my father’s spirit is following me? What if…”
Grakin gripped the sides of Kari’s face as she continued to get worked up. “Kari, your father is dead! He cannot hurt you anymore. You know this.”
Kari closed her eyes and sighed. After so many years, that was a fact she had to remind herself of again and again. The abuse she had suffered at her father’s hands was ever a part of her, one that no amount of time, happiness, or meditation could ever seem to completely bury. The mental exercises Kari had learned from the war wizard Triela during her mission on Tsalbrin served to keep her centered and focused, but it never seemed to take much for the scars to become raw and painful again. Giving birth to Little Gray had been the worst instance of it: the pain of childbirth had nearly sent her over the edge, and for those few hours of labor and giving birth, she had relived that personal hell she’d suffered through for years as a young woman.
How it had stung to be so exposed in front of her entire family. There had been no hiding her past after that: the things she had said and the way she had snapped at those around her while suffering the pain of childbirth made it obvious to everyone. Stripped of her usual careful guard, Kari divulged her torturous childhood to her mother-in-law and her mate’s siblings. She thought now that it was hardly surprising how supportive they were, though at the time, Kari was shocked at how much more they seemed to respect her after hearing her tale. She had expected some small bit of resentment for deceiving them, or for the fact that she hadn’t been completely honest with them before she and Grakin were officially mated, but that resentment never came. Even Erik seemed to hold her in higher regard than he already did, which was considerable after she’d saved his life on Tsalbrin.
The memories were painful, but they were a part of Kari and seemed like they always would be. However, the strength she gained from her family’s support and the love of her mate was always enough for her to beat them back into submission and cover them up again. Kari’s heart slowed and calmed as she basked in the warmth of Grakin’s touch, and even though the others weren’t beside her, she could feel their gentle presence encourage her from across the distances. She was a woman of strength and courage, a hero beloved by the masses, and what her father had done to her only made her triumphs more incredible, more inspiring, and more comforting.
Kari opened her eyes and hugged her son tightly, and the love in Grakin’s expression brought gentle tears of joy to her eyes. Grakin wrapped her and Little Gray in a tender embrace, and the fear that had stabbed into her like a cold blade subsided. “You’re right,” Kari said with confidence. “I just…I don’t know what it was, but I’m sure something was there. But you’re right, it wasn’t…it couldn’t have been my father. He’s gone.”
Little Gray couldn’t understand what his parents were saying in the common tongue, but he calmed down and tugged playfully on Kari’s long hair. “Did you see the Fuzzy Man, mama?” he asked in the rir tongue. “He has funny eyes.”
Kari chuckled and regarded Grakin, and she could see that the question piqued his own curiosity. Both turned to look up the stairs when Kyrie returned with Grakin’s brothers, and the priestess put her hands on her ample hips once she stood before her children. “I think your son’s imagination may just be getting the better of you,” she said, and she placed her hand on Kari’s shoulder. “I used every divination I know: there’s no demons, no ghosts, nothing harmful of any sort upstairs. If there is something in this house, it’s either something Kaelariel can’t find – which is extremely unlikely – or it’s something completely harmless, like one of those old spirits the humans used to call…domovoi, I think it was.” She regarded her grandson and spoke in the rir tongue. “Is the Fuzzy Man still here, Little Gray?”
The young boy shook his head. “Nope, he goed nite-nite.”
Kyrie kissed Little Gray and met Kari’s eyes, but before she could speak again there was a knock at the door. Kyrie went to answer the door, and Typhonix and Aeligos both gave Kari comforting pats on the shoulder before returning to their reading. Kari felt a little foolish, but at the same time, the instincts that made her such an effective demonhunter warned her that all was not as it seemed. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she – and more pointedly, her son – was being watched by something insidious, and that it had something to do with foiling the demons’ plans on Tsalbrin. She wasn’t sure how or what they were slipping past Kyrie’s magic-enhanced senses, but she was hesitant to ignore her instincts under the circumstances. She had confidence in the power and integrity of Kaelariel, but much more confidence in her own instincts.
Kyrie returned from the front door with a young shakna-rir demonhunter who had only recently graduated from the academy. Her name was Irressa, if Kari remembered correctly, and the girl was serving a probationary period as a law-enforcement official in the city before she would receive hunting assignments. Shakna-rir demonhunters were always a bit of an oddity, since the shakna-rir people were not indigenous to Askies Island and rarely made the trip to attend the Academy. Irre
ssa was taller but lankier than Kari, with angular features, long brown hair she kept in a single braid, and the intense red eyes that were common among the shakna-rir. Irressa saluted Kari as her superior, and then she bowed politely to Grakin.
“What is it, initiate?” Kari asked.
“I was ordered to come and find you specifically, Lady Vanador,” Irressa responded curtly. Her voice seemed soft, but she worked to give it an edge of authority. “There’s been a triple homicide, and it seems to involve one Lord Kaelin Black.”
“You don’t mean…,” Kari started, her eyes going wide.
“No, Lady; only that he was involved,” Irressa said.
Kari rolled her eyes with a sigh and handed Little Gray over to his father. “Honestly, this took longer than I expected. And frankly, I’d rather deal with a ghost,” she muttered, which drew chuckles from her mate and her mother-in-law, but a curious glance from the initiate. “Give me a minute to get dressed.”
Kari returned to the second floor, and her eyes scanned the darkness around her warily as she made her way to her and Grakin’s room. Nothing moved, and even the creaking of the house was silent, so she took her armor from the wardrobe and began putting it on. Her paluric armor, a rare treasure worth a king’s ransom, still fit her well. Even after giving birth to Little Gray, it hadn’t taken Kari long to return to the athletic physique that people remembered her for. She never went anywhere in the city without her armor, since even in the streets of a city like DarkWind a demonhunter was rarely completely safe. Kari considered the trouble that had apparently accompanied Kaelin Black, and that fact stood out even more prominently.
