by Iris Walker
Lucidia realized Max’s concern as she connected the dots.
Fausta’s people had retrieved the flag from Darian’s hideout, and brought back Magnus. “Why was Magnus there?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I was with Magnus,” Lucidia pressed. “And Robin. We escaped with a vampire named Ivan, but he double crossed us and tore off with Magnus and Robin. Reykon and I have been looking for them ever since.”
“Ivan Lukashenko?”
“I guess? We didn’t swap zodiac signs.”
“I’ve been using this whole war thing as an opportunity to break into the black box of secrets I had the foresight to grab. Ivan Lukashenko was a clandestine agent for House Xander.”
Son of a bitch.
“Ivan was working undercover at House Demonte? For Darian?”
Max nodded. “As far as I can tell.”
“That means that Darian had her,” Lucidia whispered, the realization crashing in. “He had Robin.”
“But where are they now?” Pax asked, pushing a hand through his hair.
“Fausta would have broken fireworks out if she had recovered either Darian or Robin from the winter fortress,” Max said.
“So they escaped?” Pax asked.
“My best guess.”
Lucidia shook her head. “That cunning leech.”
“Who? Darian?”
“He had an energy pool,” Lucidia muttered. “That has to be it.”
“So where’s the nexus?”
Lucidia scoffed bitterly. “Which one? Darian had about six of them, all connected.”
“Where would be the next safest place for them?” Max asked.
“There’s nowhere safe for them,” Pax said in a cutting tone. “Not anymore.”
Lucidia let out an angry breath. “Where’s the nearest airport?”
“What? Why?”
“I need to get on the ground, now.”
“But-”
“Now,” Lucidia said sharply, walking to the pilot’s cabin. “Someone has to know about this.”
She stood behind the two pilots during the entire descent, her mind running wild with the thought of Robin in Darian’s clutches. She’d be fine, physically. But he had a way of manipulation that was much more dangerous than Fausta’s antics, in the long run. There was no telling what he’d already planted in Robin’s mind.
Darian had had her the whole time.
And Reykon had no clue.
The plane jolted onto the ground, bouncing twice before smoothly stopping. Lucidia grabbed a bag of money and supplies and was out of the door as soon as it opened.
She flipped her phone open and checked for service.
Max poked her head out of the plane and scowled at her. “Where are you going?”
“I have to make a call, and then I have to go west.”
“Oh, how specific. Thanks for clearing that up. It’s not like we’re all being mowed down in the streets and concrete locations are important.”
“I gotta go,” she said. “Pax will stay with you to help. I’ll message you as soon as I can.”
Max jerked her chin to the bag. “There’s a sat phone in there, and I took your number down. You can call me anytime, anywhere, and I expect a call as soon as you know anything.”
“Aye aye,” Lucidia said, saluting her tech-genius friend. “Give ‘em hell.”
“Always,” Max grumbled, disappearing behind the silver exterior of the plane. Lucidia dialed the number to Reykon’s burner and pressed her finger to her other ear, fighting to hear the phone over the booming plane engine.
“Luce? What’s up?” Reykon’s gruff voice sounded out. She could hear that he was driving somewhere.
Never one to mince words, she dove right in.
“Darian had Robin and Magnus,” she said. “They were being held at a winter stronghold in the northern Canadian Rockies.”
A minute of silence sounded out, thick and tense.
Lucidia felt the anger boiling up, restlessness taking over her mind. “Reykon?” she asked sharply.
“You said she was there,” he muttered. “What does that mean?”
“Fausta attacked the house. She has Magnus as prisoner at House Xander, but there was no sign of Robin or Darian, so they had to have escaped. I don’t know where, but I have a hunch. Where are you?”
Reykon paused for a moment before answering. “I’m with a caster that I stole from Landon. She worked with Calliope, and she’s-”
“What the hell are you doing joyriding with the enemy?” Lucidia barked, anger rising up inside of her throat.
“No,” Reykon said. “Listen: Calliope and Robin are linked, and the Legion are hunting Calliope as we speak. We have to find her before that.”
Lucidia pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to understand everything that he was saying. The thought of the Legion coming for anybody sent icy fear into her gut. “This whole thing is so fucked. It just gets worse, everything we learn.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Lucidia. There’s something weird going on with the caster’s guild. They pulled all of their casters from the vampire houses, and then they supposedly annulled the treaty over a year ago because of some incident that happened at House Demonte, that never happened. They’ve been gearing up for war and experimenting with vitalurgical magic because of it, but we didn’t know a single thing. It’s like they fabricated the whole thing, and then made Calliope into a scapegoat for it.”
She shook her head. “Wait, the treaty? It’s not annulled.”
“It is,” he said. “I’ve got a high-level caster right next to me, and she swears by it.”
“But you said the casters were all pulled back. Darian Xander had a caster sent from the guild in the palace with him the whole time, and evacuated with them, whoever they are.”
A woman’s voice spoke from the background. “If there’s a caster with Darian, then they’re not from the guild on official business. I’m telling you, all the casters were pulled back in preparation for a war that was founded on a lie.”
“So someone is screwing with us? All of us?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Reykon said sharply, anger tingeing his voice.
“And you’re trying to outrun the Legion to get to Calliope first?” she clarified.
“If Calliope dies, Robin dies. You know how links work,” he muttered. “I wish to God I could go after Robin, but we have to do this first.”
“I understand,” she said, softening her tone. “Where are you going?”
“We’re cutting east, to Foxborough, Massachusetts. There’s some concentration of rogue casters that can help us find her. I don’t know much more than that.”
“East?” Lucidia said, a pit forming in her chest.
“Yeah.”
“Reykon, you need to stick to main roads. Human roads only. Are you on a main highway?”
“No. We’re playing it safe by going with side roads.”
“Everything in the east is overrun with Fausta’s agents. There’s nobody left for hundreds of miles.”
Another pause sunk in the air between them. “You’re sure?”
“Entirely,” she said, her voice sounding small.
“God, this is getting bad. I’m sorry about your people.”
“Me too, and I’d rather not have your ugly mug added to the list. Just get back to the road,” she said. “You’ll have to go the long way.”
“Damnit,” Reykon yelled.
Lucidia felt the same way. “I’ve gotta go. I’m heading west. Darian had a secret network of transportation pools, and one of them was buried under the catacombs of the winter fortress. My money’s on his nexus off the coast of California.”
“Got it. Good luck,” Reykon said.
“You need it more than I do, brother,” she replied grimly.
Reykon hung up and Lucidia shaded her eyes with her hand, stepping towards the line of cars by the airport hangar doors. Just as she started walk
ing, her phone rang again, and she let out a rumbling sigh of irritation. “What?” Lucidia growled, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder while she fumbled for a carjacking tool in her bag.
“It appears I am in need of your assistance, Lucidia Draxos,” Darian’s silver voice sounded out from the other end. “How soon can you make it to my location?”
Reykon
Reykon stretched his sore muscles, stiff after being in the car for so many hours. He put his sunglasses on and stepped out of the car, feet crunching on gravel and leaves in the sparse parking lot.
“You sure this is the place?” Reykon asked, narrowing his eyes in skepticism. Foxborough, Massachusetts was a small, historic city nestled in New England. Reykon had been under the impression that there was a place in the city where casters congregated, but apparently that assumption had been wrong. They’d actually gone past the city, to the Gilbert Hills State Forest Park. Well, the sign said park, but it just looked like any other forest to Reykon.
“This is the place. Trust me,” she said.
Reykon followed her, locking the car and keeping up with her brisk pace.
“You won’t need that,” Noomi muttered, glancing around the forest.
“Huh?”
“The car,” she said, taking a fork onto a gravel trail that cut straight through the dense growth. “We’re leaving it.”
“Where exactly are we going?” he asked, his tone rising in intensity.
“I told you, the rogue caster’s den.”
“Right, and that’s where, exactly?” he huffed angrily.
“It’s hidden.”
“Noomi, tell me where we’re going, right now. I don’t like not knowing the situation.”
She let out an angry sigh and trudged left, her pace quickening. “There’s an ancient rock formation that the humans think is some primitive form of worship. They call it the prayer seat.”
“But it’s not?” Reykon guessed.
“No. It was part of a failed caster experiment that had to do with imbuing inorganic materials with energy sources. Because there’s still a well of energy tied to the rock, humans walk by it and get goosebumps, or whatever they think is so ‘holy’. But rogue casters use them as batteries, or portals.”
“We’re going through a portal?” Reykon snapped.
“Yes. I didn’t tell you because I knew that was how you’d react,” she admitted. “Do you want to find Calliope and Robin or not?”
Reykon fumed, walking behind her, anger building up in his chest.
For casters, portal magic was dangerous. There was always a risk that what went into the portal might not make it all the way out of the portal, and for non-casters, that risk was even higher.
“You transferred me into a genie lamp,” she grumbled. “That’s dangerous, too.”
“It’s different. There’s like a five percent transmutation rate with them. Portals are what, eighteen?”
“Yeah, eighteen,” Noomi mumbled.
“Higher?” Reykon snapped.
Noomi gave a dismissive wave. “It all depends. But I’ve done this a million times and I’ve never had a problem with it.”
“You’re a caster!” he growled.
“You will be fine. I’m very good at this, okay? It’s the only option we’ve got.”
They trudged through the woods for nearly twenty more minutes, as Noomi took each turn expertly, peering through the woods for indicators or signs, or something else that was entirely lost to Reykon.
As they neared a clearing, the hair on Reykon’s arms prickled, and his scalp tingled, a warm buzz.
“What the…?”
“It’s the energy,” she said. “I told you.”
“Well I can see why the humans would be intrigued,” Reykon admitted, staring at the large rocks.
He’d expected something… grander. Something with a little bit of artistic flair. But really, they just looked like a bunch of boulders that had been dropped into the same area.
Noomi cracked her knuckles and jogged down the crest of the trail, Reykon kicking it into high gear to keep up.
“Alright,” she said. “Just give me a second.”
She planted her hands on each boulder, scowling for a moment, before mumbling to herself and moving onto the next one.
Noomi made her way around nearly all of the boulders, slowly pressing her palm to each of them and shaking her head.
“Everything alright?” Reykon asked impatiently.
“Calm down,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Found it.”
Noomi positioned her feet and placed her right palm on the rock, stretching her left out for Reykon.
“Hold on tight,” she grinned.
“You better know what you’re doing,” he grumbled, gripping her hand.
The rocks began to glow bright, lightning blue, and a crack sounded out through the air before Reykon felt every one of his cells rip apart.
Chapter 10 Loyalties
Lucidia
It took her a while to make it back through Cain-infested waters, only sticking to main highways and zooming over a hundred on the stolen motorcycle.
Why, exactly, after declaring independence, was she zipping back to Darian like a well-trained puppy?
Good question.
Loyalty, she supposed. Not to him, though, to the hundreds of thousands of refugees from their house. Darian was a snake, but he had an impeccable talent when it came to wading through treacherous situations, and a proclivity for making order out of chaos. Despite her past treason and her animosity born from what he’d done to Kenzo, in the current situation, he was certainly the lesser of two evils, although the actual count seemed to be looking more like four, or even five evils. And if Lucidia was being entirely honest, this whole thing was above her paygrade.
That was one of the (rare) positives in their world; although there was a great deal of slavery, when crap hit the turbine, it was the responsibility of the eldest creatures to take care of it, not the little guys. Which meant Darian had some catching up to do.
But for all his infinite wisdom, after hearing what Reykon had to say, she knew that Darian didn’t have the full story.
It was very, very difficult to pull one over on the ancient vampire, which meant whoever orchestrated this whole conspiracy went to a great deal to make it happen, and to do it well.
It was 7:30 p.m. when she pulled into the address that he’d sent to her phone. A Chinese restaurant? she thought, scowling at the sleepy hole in the wall. The sign was white with red lettering from the nineties (at least) and a crack in the display gave it a triangle of creepy darkness, like cracked porcelain.
She walked in, glancing upward as the bell rang out in a tinny ding. The box of a restaurant smelled like bok choy and teriyaki, mixed with vinyl banquet seats and Formica tables. She peered through the dim light, glancing around, not that she could picture the vampire master Darian Xander sitting in a low-ceilinged, mom-and-pop restaurant on the outskirts of Medford, Oregon.
An older Asian woman, even shorter than Lucidia, came up to her with a wide smile, and held her hand out to a door on the back wall, covered with hanging beads. Lucidia tried her best to return the smile and stalked through the tables, shooting the wooden beads an irritated glance as she parted them.
The back room was small, with a single table in the middle and pictures of families from Asia hanging around with no particular organization. A fountain sat in the corner, and three tall bamboo trees reached all the way up, their leaves fanning out across water-stained ceiling tiles.
At the head of the table?
Someone she barely even recognized.
Darian Xander sat, wearing a simple, cream button up shirt and dark jeans.
Jeans? she balked. How does he even know what those are?
As shocking as that bit was, she just about did a double take at his face. His gray skin was now a pale, fair complexion, and his burning red eyes were a deep blue-green color. His silver hair fell softly
around his face, a little dry, and not the usual glimmering mane.
“Jesus, what happened to you?” Lucidia asked sharply.
Darian smiled, his lips no longer menacing, cold, but just… normal. He reached his very human fingers towards each other and pointed to a large ring set with dark jade, and then pulled it off.
His appearance shimmered back to that unnaturally pale, demon-esque façade, now wearing his usual dark purple robes. “I had this talisman commissioned several centuries ago. I pull it out in times of need, or curiosity.” Darian slipped the ring back on, changing to his human self in front of her eyes, and gesturing to the seat across the table. “Do sit.”
She shrugged her bag off and pulled the chair out, perching on it with stiff posture, watching him.
“When I spoke to you last, you said that the next time we met, you would behead me,” he began with a small smile.
“A lot’s changed since then,” she said, lips pressing into a thin line. “For instance, at that point, you ruled a royal vampire house.”
Darian’s smooth, silver eyebrow arched. “So I will remain safe, even in such close quarters? I quite like my head just where it is.”
“Cut the bullshit,” Lucidia said sharply. “I’m stubborn, not pig-headed. How did you get my number?”
“It seemed I had just missed you when I finally made contact with Maxine. I was truly thankful to hear that you’d found her and assisted with the relief effort. She graciously passed your number onto me.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Lucidia said. “Well, I’m glad you finally decided to show your face.”
“It appears that on the topic of showing up, we both have some marks against us.”
“I was banished,” she said firmly.
“And I was in hiding.”
Lucidia let out a long breath. “Why do you want to meet with me?”
“The list of people that I am able to trust right now has dwindled quite low,” Darian admitted. “But you are still high on that list.”
She barked a laugh. “I committed treason like four times. You really are desperate.”
Darian shrugged. “Laws come and go. They are written, revised, and rewritten. Despite your disregard for those laws, you are one of the most loyal subjects I’ve worked with. And I have worked with a great deal of them. I knew that if I called you, you would be here.”
