Lips thinned to a livid line, Nyx regarded him. After a moment, however, her witch light dimmed and she gave him a sharp nod.
“If anything happens to you, Benjamin, I’ll kill him,” she said, clearly for Tzadkiel’s benefit.
Tzadkiel remained silent, but Benjamin felt the anger rolling off the vampire in waves. Purple repeatedly violated the sky, flashing its jagged fingers into a ground-up etheric lightning storm of monumental proportions.
“Can we go wherever you were taking us?” Benjamin prompted.
Wordlessly, Tzadkiel crossed Boylston Street, and angled left. He and Nyx followed, glancing to each other when they stopped in front of a piano shop’s plate-glass window, and Tzadkiel reached into his breast pocket to withdraw a key on a tattered silk ribbon.
The door creaked open, and Tzadkiel stepped aside to allow Benjamin and Nyx to enter first. He locked the door behind them and led the way to the back of the faded Edwardian hallway. At one time the building had been truly lovely. Now it stood as a monument to the effects of wear and tear on a city that had witnessed the Gilded Age.
“There’s a theatre we own, belowground. While it connects to the mora’s tunnels under the street, it doesn’t touch the boundaries of the Common,” Tzadkiel explained as he opened a door on a gallery that led to a grand staircase. “So my mora has been able to access it.”
“A theatre? Belowground?” Nyx’s nose scrunched. “How does that even happen?”
“You know someone on the zoning board?” Benjamin said, facetious, though Tzadkiel’s family’s relationship with the mayor sprang to mind as an example.
Tzadkiel didn’t comment, though his broad shoulders grew even more rigid when they descended the hidden stairway. The damage—a result of neglect and disuse—to the once-opulent space was profound. Plaster had fallen away, exposing the bones of the lath underneath. Their footsteps crunched over the debris, and Benjamin’s nose itched with the damp.
Deep underneath Boston, they emerged into a cavernous room. Benjamin looked up in wonder at frescoed ceilings, once breathtaking in splendor before the ravages of time had taken their toll. He imagined Tzadkiel in a top hat and tails, entering the room to take in an opera with his brothers and friends. The image was so human it took his breath away.
Running a finger over tattered red upholstery, Tzadkiel paused and appeared to take in the space. Benjamin imagined him cataloguing shows and symphonies past, the strains of Mahler and Chopin sweetening the air. All this had been built so Tzadkiel and his people could live their lives—take their pleasures great and small—safe from the death and carnage Benjamin’s ancestors had threatened to rain down upon them. They had not only found a way to survive. They had thrived.
Benjamin stared out over the skeletal rows of so many empty seats—probably three hundred in all—and wondered if Tzadkiel saw the fallen comrades who had filled each one. To have so much—to be entrusted with so much—and to lose it all at his enemies’ hands, must be an awful weight to bear.
“You’ll fix it,” Benjamin heard himself say.
Tzadkiel’s attention alighted on him. “Will I?”
Benjamin couldn’t deny the naked anguish in the vampire’s gaze. Its blade cut him to the quick before Tzadkiel sheathed his emotions once more. Nyx, who had drifted down the center aisle, turned with wide-eyed wonder.
“This is marvelous,” she breathed.
“Can’t you just jump on your dancing broom and sweep it back into order?” Benjamin called, a saucy grin lifting his lips.
Nyx snorted and continued down the aisle toward the stage.
Tzadkiel frowned at him. “What was that about?”
Benjamin shook his head, laughing, as he and Tzadkiel followed Nyx down the aisle.
“When we were in our late teens I once asked Nyx why we all spent so much time on homework when she could just poof”—Benjamin flicked his palms open again—“and it’d be done. Akito and I got a two-hour lecture on how magic works, ending with and that’s why I don’t have a talking cat and a dancing broom, morons.”
Tzadkiel chuckled. The sound lightened Benjamin’s mood further, and he found his grin widening.
“What did Nyx tell you? About magic?” he asked, as they climbed the wooden stairs to the stage.
Beneath Benjamin’s feet, the floorboards moaned. A few had been scattered from their moorings, leaving gap-toothed spots he was careful to step around as they moved backstage.
“She said it didn’t make sense to use magic on things you could do with hard work.” Though he was sure Tzadkiel knew more than the basics, Benjamin enjoyed sharing memories from that earlier, more innocent time. “Magic takes energy, and replenishing it takes time. Use it up on the wrong thing, and it might not be available to you when you need it. Besides, every time she uses it she risks exposing herself to her parents if they figure out this rogue witch they never noticed before is actually their…uh, kid.”
Realizing he’d almost given Nyx’s secret away Benjamin bit his tongue, hard. Most of the time, he went with the flow, not even daring to think about the friend he’d once known. Nyx was now firmly, well, Nyx, the only girl or woman Benjamin ever made friends with. Everything else was in the past, and it would stay there if he and Akito wanted to keep Nyx safe.
“Some witches have an easier time gathering that energy to them than others.” Tzadkiel nodded toward Nyx’s golden light. She perched lightly on her toes in the center of its nimbus like some Shakespearean faerie, ready to take flight. “And you don’t have to worry about Nyx’s secret. It is safe with me.”
Benjamin started. “You know?”
Tzadkiel smiled down at him. “I know.”
They had paused before an iron door, and Tzadkiel inserted his key and shouldered it open. Light and sound interrupted their conversation, tumbling from a room the size of Benjamin’s elementary school’s cafeteria. Inside, forty or fifty vampires, their blue auras pulsing with their flavor of magic, talked and sparred, lounged and ate.
Benjamin’s blood chilled, whether from habit or heredity, he didn’t know. He stopped abruptly. Catching up to them, Nyx gasped. Tzadkiel paused to take in the room, his back straighter, his bearing more regal than Benjamin had known. Violet light pulsed from him, its waves brushing every man in the room. Abruptly, all talk ceased and, in unison, the vampires turned.
Leather creaked and fabric rustled as the mora went to its knees. The percussive sound of fists thumping chests reverberated throughout the room. Benjamin looked to Tzadkiel. Though he no longer smiled, the vampire stared out over his people with moist eyes. Looking from the throng to Tzadkiel and back, Benjamin saw not a War King, but a man, and a family who had just welcomed him home.
Chapter 26
Tzadkiel gazed out over the heads of his assembled mora and lifted one hand. “Rise.”
Dryas came to his side as the men formed up. Modern street wear had replaced leather armor, and the light of the traditional torches the mora preferred over the harsh glare of electric lights now substituted for the bonfires, but otherwise these happy few were as Tzadkiel had remembered them in days of old.
Brave, strong, loyal, and disciplined, they were an elite group of fighters, many of whom had seen action in some of history’s greatest battles. Nico had fought with Tzadkiel and his brothers at Troy. Alexandros as well. These were men as old as he, as well trained as he; they knew the mora’s ways and could recite its ancient rites along with him.
Longing to clasp each to him in homecoming, Tzadkiel instead reviewed his troops. He paced the abbreviated rows, their shallow depth not lost on his gaze. At one time it had been impossible for him to review the men at the back without moving between and among their number. Now, he barely had to lift his head to view the determined face of every man present.
Finished, Tzadkiel caught his strategoi’s eye and nodded.
“As you were,” his general called.
The men dispersed, and Tzadkiel retreated to what had once been the theatre�
��s dressing room. Dryas, the hunter, and the witch followed. Tzadkiel cast a last glance toward his men, who now talked quietly among themselves, as he closed the door. He longed to tarry, to hear how they had fared and what might have befallen the rest.
They had little time to discuss preparations, however, and none at all for pleasantries. What should have been a joyous homecoming for Tzadkiel amounted to a battlefield assessment of his troops. Coming home was nothing like he’d imagined it’d be. He resented that it had come to this—that the Fates had stolen from him his family and home, and even now he felt his brothers’ absence like a poorly patched hole in his middle. Instead of four men he could rely on to advise him, there was now only one.
He turned to Dryas, hiding his sadness behind a terse command. “Report.”
Dryas slid his gaze briefly to Benjamin, clearly hesitant to speak in front of the hunter or the witch.
“They are with us,” Tzadkiel said.
It was all the explanation he would give. In truth, again, because there was no time to defend the complexities of his dealings with the man. And even if there had been time, some things simply defied reason.
“Yes, sire.” Dryas returned his attention to Tzadkiel. “The Lady Morgana arrives shortly.”
Behind Tzadkiel, Nyx made a stricken sound.
Benjamin swore with vigor, rounding on him. “You can’t let her in here. Are you crazy?”
Dryas’s hand went to his xiphos, unsheathing the weapon so quickly that Tzadkiel—had he not recently had the benefit of the hunter’s blood—would not have had time to react. He found himself in the unique position of disarming his general to save his enemy’s neck. Most literally.
“Stand down, strategoi.” He snarled the command in the old tongue.
Witch fire crackled in the air—Nyx’s. Benjamin’s own sword was out, but Tzadkiel had no cause for worry in that quarter. He could disarm the hunter if need be. Dryas stared at him, bewildered, but did as ordered, and slowly backed away. Much too slowly. His moves bordered on disobedience, no matter his confusion.
“If that is the extent of your ability to obey an order, then I expect you to drill yourself and this mora until the soles of your feet bleed.” Tzadkiel handed Dryas his sword by the hilt. “Is that clear?”
Red crept up Dryas’s neck and overtook his cheeks as he bent his head. Tzadkiel felt the barely repressed questions that vibrated the air between them. He would answer Dryas, his friend, when the time came; however, that time was not now. Dryas, his general, would have to do a much better job of ruling his reactions in the days to come.
“Bring the Lady to the iron room when she arrives,” Tzadkiel said.
“The iron room? You think a room where magic is damped is going to stop her?” Benjamin asked, catching on to the room’s purpose. Then, without pausing to breathe, he said, “This is such a bad idea. At least let Nyx leave before you bring that woman here.”
“I’m not leaving, Benj.”
“Then she’s not crossing that fucking threshold.” Terrifyingly glorious in his own right, the hunter faced down Tzadkiel with his edict. Weapon still drawn, chin jutted, he presented a picture not unlike Ares himself, whom Tzadkiel had witnessed slicing at all comers with indiscriminate fury during the passionate frenzy of battle.
“Stand down, hunter, lest I let my general finish what he began.” Tzadkiel’s threat, though issued more quietly than his last, held the same weight of command.
The hunter swept out a hand, his gesture an ironic salute. “Your house. Your rules.”
Tzadkiel wasn’t sure, but Dryas might have choked. When he glanced sharply at the man, however, Tzadkiel found his general’s face impassive.
Tzadkiel nodded. “Continue.”
“Sentries are posted. We will know when the Lady Morgana approaches.”
“Not bloody likely.” It was Nyx’s turn to interrupt.
Tzadkiel cast the witch an arch glance. Nyx regarded him, features and expression so reminding him of Lady Morgana’s, he was compelled to ask, “How do you believe we should welcome her?”
A flash rent the air, shaking loose plaster from the ceiling. Tzadkiel braced himself against the wall with one hand as he drew his sword with the other. When the dust settled and the tremors ceased beneath his feet, the young witch no longer stood before him. Rather, he was on a wildflower-strewn hill that overlooked the Parthenon. A golden himation brushed his knees, and sandals were secured past his calves. With Benjamin by his side, he faced Lady Morgana, dressed as Athena, the goddess of war.
“Gods,” Benjamin swore. “I told you not to invite her into this.”
The sky darkened as clouds raced to blot out the sun. “Don’t make me bind your tongue, hunter.”
Benjamin opened his lips, likely to make a smartass comment about enjoying ropes. Tzadkiel clamped his hand over the hunter’s mouth, muffling his reply.
“Magic isn’t necessary here.” Tzadkiel kept his gaze steady and unflinching, though he felt anything but. “We can deal with one another honestly and without illusion. With substance.”
Benjamin bit the inside of Tzadkiel’s hand. Tzadkiel clamped down harder. Memory played a faded tape of a boy struggling to get free from this very same grip. Tzadkiel shook his head to dispel the image, not knowing if it was fostered by the Lady Morgana, and abruptly released the hunter. Thankfully, Benjamin remained quiet.
“What you want most can only be gained through magic.” White gown billowing, shoulders bared to accentuate a sapphire choker at her throat, Lady Morgana held her arms wide. “And through me.”
Next to Tzadkiel, Benjamin stared at the witch, expression darker than the thickening thunderclouds overhead. The himation the hunter wore, Tzadkiel noted, wouldn’t suit him nearly as well were the Lady to behead him. He attempted to hurry the conversation along.
“My kylix,” he tried. “It is my desire that it be returned to me so that I may fight your husband and reclaim the Common and its magic for use by all, and so that you may rebuild your bridge to faerie in the New Year.”
“The kylix is not what you seek,” she contradicted, moving toward him.
Irritation skittered down Tzadkiel’s spine. He grew tired of this game, but unfortunately he knew she might play it for hours. Time moved differently in Lady Morgana’s realm. They stood on a plane of her making. He might wake from this half-dream to find the battle with the Morgan over and lost without him.
“If you were a wise woman, you would not toy with me on this. I call in the favor you owe.”
“Save your breath, Tzadkiel, you’re not going to win this,” Benjamin muttered out of the side of his mouth.
The Lady ignored the hunter and focused the storm of her too-green gaze on Tzadkiel. “You call in my favor, but you cannot demand the manner of its giving.”
Tzadkiel would have known what to do with her anger or deception. If only she would come at him head-on, and not in this oblique manner. She did not stoop to cliché and cunning, exactly, but rather toyed with him like a lioness enjoying a kill before bringing it home to her cubs.
Passing a hand over his face, Tzadkiel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Either help me regain my kylix, or at least return us to my mora so we can find another way.”
For a moment, he thought he might have convinced her. Looking out over the mirage of the place he’d once called home with his brothers, he felt the weight of his own sadness pressing upon him. He had to win this war for them. He had to win back the mora’s home.
“Do you ultimately wish to win this war against my husband?” she asked, staring out with him at the shadows that raced by, a result of the clouds she called.
“Yes.” Tzadkiel growled his answer in his frustration, then he realized what he’d done. He’d just agreed to a wish. “Wait—”
But she was already gone. Grecian hills faded, and Tzadkiel fisted his hair in fury, before letting his hands drop to his sides. He looked around the underground chamber. Benjamin, in a heap, slept with
his head on Nyx’s shoulder. Likely, he had been only a prop to Lady Morgana’s illusion as well, and hadn’t been present at all.
Damn the ancient ones. They knew how to twist things to their advantage. As Benjamin had said when Tzadkiel had freed the Lady from the coven’s shop, she would pay him back, but he might not like the manner of her choosing. She’d pretty much guaranteed his mora an eventual win over the coven; however, that didn’t mean he or anyone he cared for now would be alive to see that victory. Their triumph might come in ten minutes or ten eons.
Benjamin stirred and stared up at him sleepily.
“What happened while I was…meeting with the Lady?” Tzadkiel asked.
“Wondered when you were going to snap out of it.” A jaw-cracking yawn followed the statement. Benjamin sat up and scrubbed a hand over his face. “You were frozen, staring into space for the last several hours. Dryas went to talk with some of your commanders about battlefield positions. Told Nyx and me not to leave you alone. Did you get your kylix from her?”
“No.” Not knowing what made him do it, Tzadkiel held out his hand. Benjamin took it and stood. They stared at each other for a time, before Tzadkiel’s plan truly took shape. “She says she’s going to help us win the war with the Morgan without it, but…” He shook his head. “She didn’t even tell me where or when the battle might be. You were right. I should not have trusted her.”
Benjamin mock-gasped, putting one hand to his chest. When Tzadkiel failed to return his mirth, the hunter quickly sobered. Though he hated to erase the smile from Benjamin’s face, it couldn’t be helped in light of what Tzadkiel knew.
“We need to destroy the pentacle that is strangling the ley line on the Common.” Tzadkiel glanced down at a slumbering Nyx. Golden light buzzed around the witch even in repose. He lifted his gaze to Benjamin’s face. “I think you and Nyx can do it.”
“About the ‘where’ and ‘when’ you mentioned?” Benjamin offered, seeming to take Tzadkiel’s pronouncement in stride.
Surrender the Dark Page 22
