by Jamie Hawke
“Yes.”
She rolled over and pressed against me. The firm armor over her chest reminded me that we weren’t quite as close as maybe I would have liked in the moment, but she wrapped her arm over my chest and I felt like I was in heaven.
Even with my mind reeling with the idea , sleep took me again, only, this time it was different. Something other than Aerona was holding me—a hand, on my neck, choking me! The arm was gray and sinewy, leading up to a face with red eyes and slick, sharp teeth visible as the thing snarled.
I pulled away, spinning to see a creature with patches of white hair, dark skin, and those red eyes. It moved for me, but when I stood and growled, it turned and ran off. Only then did I see that it wore rusted armor and old robes that looked familiar, similar to the old days of Avalon.
My eyes took in the darkness, rock shelves and hanging trees starting to become visible, and the sound of a distant river. For a moment I even thought I could make out the Heart of the Mountain again, only it was as it had been before my actions. Then it was gone, and I seemed to have turned around, except every time I turned my head, I was looking at the same damn tree—a stump, really, with one lone arrow in its side.
Each step toward the tree echoed as if I were in a large, empty chamber. I knelt, inspecting the arrow. Intricate carvings filled the shaft, the type it didn’t make sense to work on unless you knew you would get your arrow back. Before my eyes, the carvings started to glow, forming runes. They drifted up and off the arrow, forming a misty face that hovered in front of me.
“Glitonea,” I said, recognizing her. “You’re locked in the house…”
“I am,” she said, voice distant. “But why? Don’t you know, Jericho, that you and I should be on the same side in this war?”
My silence was answer enough to cause her to snarl, but then she was pleasant again, even smiling.
“Jericho,” she continued, “I am one of the Nine Ladies. Ancient beings with power beyond your comprehension. I know much about this world, and much more than your gargoyle friends. They would have you believe I’m evil. Well, I’m not. I’m the one working to make the world a better place, but it so happens that my methods are beyond their comprehension.”
“And what methods would those be?” I asked.
Her smile widened, but before she could answer, the runes faded and she was whisked away, remnants of light moving through the darkness like fireflies, until they were gone completely.
In their place stood an army that I hadn’t previously noticed. Dark figures, white hair, similar to the first I had seen. Drow, no doubt. But they weren’t the same as they had once been. They were more decrepit, more… evil?
My internal voice said to get out of there, told my legs to run. Neither worked, and suddenly the Drow were on me, clawing and drawing glowing blue blades to strike. In a flash of light, I knelt and fell through the ground, mind trying to come up with answers, focusing back on the runes in my house and suddenly seeing patterns although not understanding them. One movement, and everything froze—I was in translucent rock, able to reach out and touch it, and yet not.
Knowing I had control now, I told myself to wake.
With a jolt, I was back in bed, Aerona stirring at my side.
“Where… was I?” I asked.
She shook her head, unable to answer me. “I’ve only seen glimpses of it once before, when a dark force tried to wake me, to pull me from my place of stone in Avalon. If the others were taken, not able to hold out as I was, they might be there.”
“Well… fuck.” I sat, hand to the back of my head where a dull pain had started. “I don’t want to go back there.”
“There’s a reason it’s connecting us to that place.” Aerona had her hand on my chest still, eyes focused on mine. “We need you to. Please. I need you to.”
My mind raced with the images I’d seen down there. Had it been down?
“Where was I?” I asked.
Aerona shifted, hand on mine. “You were with the enemy that you exiled when you used the Liahona and separated Avalon from this world, so long ago.”
“No.”
I stood, going to the window and staring out, watching as the light blue at the edge of the horizon signaled the coming sunrise. Soon they would be stone, and the idea that I had to go into that place again would be gone, at least until the next night.
8
Steph entered to find me staring at the statue of Aerona. This relatively petite gargoyle statue, standing at the edge of the bed with arms crossed, a scowl on her face. A scowl meant for me, while I stared out at the sunrise and waited for her to turn to stone. I felt like an ass, which was why I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her.
“How did it go?” Steph asked.
“You knew?”
“We discussed it, but I don’t know anything other than what she told us.” Steph approached, but stopped a couple paces away, apparently sensing that I wasn’t myself.
“I want to know what she said,” I told her.
“Only that Rianne spoke of this. Someone arriving, and how Aerona would be able to harness the connection. That the dream magic was more powerful than the runes, and that this would be instrumental in helping us to defeat the enemy.”
“Maybe we go back to Rianne and get more answers. If she’s able to see so much, why do I feel like I’m grasping in the dark?”
“You know it doesn’t work like that.”
I nodded, eyeing the statue again, then her. “The others?”
“On the roof. They wanted to feel the sun on them as it came.”
“Sure.”
My mind tried not to focus on the images I’d seen, of that army of fallen Drow. We made our way up to the roof because I wanted to look out at the city, to see the sunrise hitting the National Cathedral on one side, the hint of the Capitol we could just make out on the other. I walked along what was once a rooftop garden, stopping next to the statues of Kordelia and Ebrill. They both stood tall and proud, hands at their sides as they looked out at the city. I could almost imagine they had never woken at all, that their waking and my adventures with them had been a dream.
I was glad that wasn’t the case, though. No matter how bad it all got, I wouldn’t give up any of this for a second. Even the horrible dream place was leading me somewhere, I was sure of it. We had one of the Nine as our prisoner, an invitation to some event by Galahad himself, and a strange area with runes in the floor to explore.
That would be our next step, the runes, but first I turned to Steph and eyed her. Her outfit was now a more conservative skirt and blouse taken from my aunt’s collection, and the effect was that she looked less like the witch she was and more like a high-class member of society.
“You’re making me nervous,” she said with a laugh. “What?”
“Just… you’re gorgeous, you know that?”
A glance away, and I stepped up to her, taking her hand in mine. “When you broke free from the curse, you didn’t have to stay with me.”
“It’s weird,” she admitted, “how we met. Most people meet at a bar or online, maybe through friends. We met because I was under a curse meant to steal your power or to use your power to get access to the Liahona, I guess. Hell, the stories we’ll tell our—”
“Oh, shit.” I pursed my lips, glancing down. “Kids? Are you…?”
“Pregnant? Goddess, no!” She laughed. “I was going to say friends, but then started wondering what sort of friends we’d have or would be able to tell the truth to. But damn, the way you reacted!”
“I just—I was getting ready to start college, not have kids.”
“You can’t seriously think I’m ready.”
“No, I mean, I didn’t think about that.”
She shook her head. “Trust me, not anytime soon. But the way you keep sticking that thing around, who knows what’ll happen.”
I glanced over at the gargoyle statues, wondering. “Yeah, maybe we pick up some condoms when we’re out today?”
“Might be a good idea. Breakfast?”
“Please.”
We started heading out, and as we went I couldn’t help thinking about what she had said about friends. “So, if I start hanging out with a buddy, I mean, like meet a guy and we’re hitting it off—”
“You coming out to me?” she asked. “Nothing wrong with that if you want to try it.”
I laughed. “No, sorry. Not my thing. What I mean is, that whole friend thing. I wouldn’t be able to tell him about this, huh?”
“He’d either think you were crazy or end up getting involved. I’m not sure which would be worse.”
“Life is going to be a bit different going forward.”
I held up a hand and went off to use the bathroom, and soon we were on our way again, hitting up a corner spot with a killer breakfast burrito. Bacon and eggs for her, chorizo for me, and I had a horchata as well. It was bliss, and for a moment I could almost believe we lived a normal life, were just another couple waking up early for breakfast in D.C.
“Definitely Mt. Fuji,” she said, when I asked where she would go if all of these worries were gone and we could do whatever we wanted.
“Why?”
“I’ve always heard how magical it can be, climbing at night and getting to the top in time to watch the sunrise. Can you imagine?”
I frowned. “And Ebrill? The rest? I wonder if they’d even see the sunrise, or if they kind of fade out before that, you know?”
“Good question. Like you said, though, that’s if circumstances were different. Still, maybe we’ll find a way in that direction someday, find a nice little ryokan near Hakone lake, one with outdoor hot springs we can all enjoy,” she leaned in, “in privacy.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said, already imagining us out on a starlit night, the shoji-screen doors lit up behind us as we all made love. “Maybe…” I frowned, wondering how it would work. “I don’t know, but maybe there’s a way to create a similar atmosphere at the house?”
“As you get more powerful, there’s not a lot you won’t be able to do, I imagine.”
The slightly older woman to our left looked up from her laptop, stared at us, then returned to whatever she was working on with a smirk. Apparently, she had taken that in a manner not intended.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, grabbing two coffees for the road.
We made our way to the corner, where we stood watching people walk past. Steph eyed them over her coffee, then noticed me looking at her. She grinned, took another sip and said, “You need to stop it.”
“Just can’t get over all of this,” I said.
She nodded. “I get it. Can you believe these people are going to school, work, whatever... without a clue about what really goes on all around them?”
“It’s crazy. And not long ago, I was one of these ignorant assholes.”
“Fuck you too, pal,” a man in a suit said, shoving past me. He bumped my shoulder, causing coffee to slosh out and nearly get on his suit. As he walked, he glanced back, glared and a car nearly hit him when he stepped into the street. That resulted in a new tirade aimed at the driver of the car, and left me arching an eyebrow at Steph.
“See, assholes.”
“What came first, the prick or the asshole?” She winked.
“You’re implying I’m the prick?”
“Well, you said something about assholes, which he overheard and replied to, so…”
“Fine,” I held up my one free hand in surrender. “You win. Now, I guess we better get back. The runes have me wondering, especially now since…” I trailed off, realizing I hadn’t told her everything about the dream.
“You saw something, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “She was there. Glitonea. And somehow, it had to do with the runes.”
“Shit, Jericho. Come on,” Steph was pulling me along, the urgency that had somehow been lost on me now returning with a vengeance.
“She found a way into my dream,” I argued. “It’s not like she’s breaking out.”
“For all we know, that could be the same thing.”
Damn, she had a point.
I drank the coffee faster than I would have liked, considering how hot it was, but paused briefly to pull my hand free and dip into a corner store. A moment later, I was back out with a box of condoms, holding it high with a grin. She shook her head, reminding me how silly that had been considering our situation. A group of young college girls walked by, giggling, further making me feel like an ass.
Then again, what did I care? Ensuring I didn’t create any little gargoyle or witch babies anytime soon was high on the list of priorities as far as I was concerned.
Soon we were back, my coffee cup on and condoms on the kitchen counter, and we were pounding up the stairs and going right for Glitonea’s prison room. We paused at the door and shared a look of worry as we caught our breath.
“Wait,” I said as Steph reached for the door. Instead of going that route, I created a slit for us to see through, then several more, while converting the material between to thick glass, only a couple of holes for us to be able to converse through.
Glitonea stood in the middle of the room, light swirling around her nude body, runes lit up. Her eyes were closed, brow furrowed. After a moment of this, she cursed loudly and slammed herself into the small area we could see, staying there with eyes toward us.
“What the fuck do you want?” she demanded.
“To slit your throat,” Steph growled, but then took a step back with an apologetic glance my way.
“And you?” Glitonea said, eyes darting over to me, glowing a slight green around the edges of her pupils. “Would you see me dead, or…” She slid up along the glass, apparently floating or sticking to the wall, I couldn’t tell, until her breasts were pressed against the viewing slits. “Is this more to your liking?”
“Let’s cut this bitch,” Steph muttered, then turned around, hand to her mouth. A shadow darted about her.
“You need to leave,” I hissed to Steph, then went to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “She’s getting to you, somehow. Go.”
Steph nodded, hand in a fist, and looked at me with dark eyes, mouth moving as if about to say something mean. Instead, she briskly trotted off, leaving me alone outside this room with one of the Nine.
“Quit it,” I said, waving my hand and making the viewing points change so that only her face was visible. “Whatever you’re doing to Steph, and whatever you’re trying with me. It won’t work.”
“Is that so?” she floated away from the wall, hovering there. “And here I was thinking you thought me helpless, hopeless… Silly man.”
“I’m not here to test you,” I said, and then stepped forward, letting the walls wrap around me, engulfing me so that, when I released the wall in front, I was in the room with her.
“What then?” she asked, eyeing me skeptically.
“You offered yourself to me before…” I let the words linger.
She held out her arms, completely nude, and a sight to behold. Those runes covered her entire body, it would seem.
“Turn around,” I commanded.
“I like where this is going.” She spun, hands on the wall, and stuck her ass out as if I was seriously going to take her right there. If not for my team and the way they took care of my horny post-teen needs, I might have been damn tempted. Instead, I used my transmorph ability as I had with the spell book, committing her body—but actually the runes on it—to a sort of mental scanner, as I did with the front.
“Do whatever you want to me, big…” Her words trailed off as I stepped back, replacing the wall. A shout of frustration and surprise followed me out of there, but I was gone, already pacing down the hall to find Steph.
“What—” she started, but I had her arm in mine, creating a walkway down. “The runes?”
“The runes,” I replied, and we descended.
“But why?”
“I have new pieces of information I can use.”<
br />
The screen floated near my head, only visible to me, already moving along her body, taking the runes and mapping them out on a grid that didn’t require the image of her flesh. As much as it was a nice sight to behold, I didn’t need it.
I had my team, and now I had a mapped-out display of her runes, one I could compare with those down below. One way or another, I was going to figure out how to use this other form of magic.
9
Walking into the foundation area where we had discovered the runes carved into the floor earlier, I was hit by how much colder it felt before. This didn’t make sense for being in D.C. in the summer, let alone an insulated area like this.
But I had a good idea why.
“Glitonea,” I said, glancing around, eyes setlting on a dim, blue glow from around one of the stone pillars.
“How, though?” Steph asked.
I shook my head. “Beats me. A different sort of magic, right? I mean, if I can use my transmutation magic when the ‘magic’ is shut off, and the magic that shuts it off is rune-based, it would make sense that other rune-based magic could still work. At least in a certain way.”
“That last part gets me. Has to be limited, because otherwise Glitonea would be out by now.”
“She’s that powerful?”
“Jericho, she’s one of the Nine.”
“Right.”
We rounded the pillar to find a wispy blue light rising out of the ground. It cast glittering reflections on the surrounding pillars and ceiling above like a blue sun on water. Steph’s eyes met mine and I knew what she was thinking—this wasn’t good.
My eyes darted about, mind playing tricks on me with the light and shadows. At any minute, someone would jump out and try to attack us, I was certain of it.
Steph approached the light, muttering, “This isn’t good. It shouldn’t be here… Why is it here?”
“Certain runes have been activated,” I said. “This place, it had to have been made as an area that could amplify magic, or maybe as a backup for Gertrude in case other magic failed.”
