Mercy (36 page)

He didn’t know what to expect when he gave her the pocket watch. Amethyst enflamed eyes told him the possession took, and she didn’t whittle away the body the way Krishani did. He blinked, trying not to think about the thousands of other bodies he tried to stuff her into, all of them dying within seconds of her possession. Maeva was unique, her heritage stretching to the Lands of Immortals. She wouldn’t crush the life out of the body when the Flame awakened, her DNA ensured that.

She moved into a crouch, keeping her eyes on him, and rose to her feet, dusting herself off. “Am I a prisoner?”

“You’re a guest,” Tor said, watching her carefully.

“Can I go home?”

“Do you really want to go home?” He wasn’t stupid; he knew what kinds of humans she grew up with. The last time he saw Gord, the man was by himself at Big John’s, fishing like he didn’t have a missing daughter.

The girl seemed at a loss for words. She looked at her hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

Tor uncrossed his arms and rounded the couch. “Cossisea and Klavotesi will find you.” He glanced at her alarmed face. She was disappointed that he knew what he was talking about.

“Michael.…”

“Krishani,” he corrected, gesturing to the couch. “Sit, we have a lot to talk about.”

She looked like she was about to fall over and he wanted her to sit down before her strength gave out. Reluctantly she rounded the couch and sat on the far end. He turned to the bookshelf and took a Phoenix Egg in his hands, trying to seem casual about something so powerful. He neared the other end of the couch and stopped.

“What do you want to know?”

Maeva shook her head. “I don’t know where to begin.” She let out a breath. “Am I crazy?”

“No.”

“Do you live here alone?”

A faint smile touched Tor’s lips. “I have my guardians, Black Magic and Necromancer.”

“Do you … do you work with the others?”

His eyes tightened. Krishani was one of their pawns, the Vultures being controlled by Darkesh. He didn’t want the boy anywhere near Maeva but the moment he saw her, the damage was done. Tor wasn’t going to stop the prophecy, even if the way things were made it impossible for it to come to pass.

“They want to imprison me just as much as they want to imprison you.” He didn’t need to tell her what else they planned to do, with her fragile mental state she was bound to react the wrong way.

“Why?”

“Because …” He thought about the First Era, when she was a very different kind of girl, with a sort of inherent capability. She didn’t have a doubt about who she was, or what she had to do. She gathered the Ferryman, the crowns and the chalice, facing the Valtanyana and their hordes of beasts. A shower of amethyst meteors preceded her where she walked, and when she joined hands with the Ferryman, a supernova erupted. Tor hid on the other side of the lake until it was over, and while Tempia suffered, the Valtanyana were reduced to dust and ashes, ashes he kept in the shimmering white stone palace on Avrigost.

Maeva frowned. “It is one of those things you can’t tell me because I have to remember it on my own?”

Tor tilted his head to the side, curious about who had told her that. He could divulge all the secrets of her past to her, but none of them would make any sense unless she remembered them. “No, it’s not like that. I imprisoned them once and they want revenge.”

“Can—can they … die?” She looked terrified, all self-contained. Tor was surprised she didn’t ask how or why she ever became part of this war. All she wanted to know was if she could win. The look on her face said she knew she couldn’t.

“No. But things change.”

“Why are you being so upfront with me?”

“Don’t you want these answers?”

She bit her lip and glanced at the television, the picture a bit too dark to make out amidst the sunlight outside. “I do … but Mich—Krishani … he didn’t tell me a lot.”

Tor stared at her, her worst mistake clouding his own judgment. The Second Era was a tragedy, what happened to her, what she did to the former Ferryman. Betrayal was the highest evil. They called it treason on Earth, and punishment for it was severe. But her betrayal hurt her most. Krishani, despite his fate, was the strongest Ferryman he’d ever known. He didn’t completely lose himself in the hatred and the hunger Vultures suffered from.

“I suppose Krishani had his reasons for not helping you remember.”

She met his eyes, something incomprehensible in them. “And you?”

“I’m not so kind.”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Are you really going to help me?”

Tor moved from the couch, heading down the hall and grabbing his keys. “I’m going to awaken you. I don’t know if you’ll consider it help.” He pulled the door open effortlessly and stepped onto the porch. Maeva was right behind him, grabbing the door.

“Where are you going?”

Tor gave her a funny look. “I told you, I work at Big John’s.”

Maeva let out a breath and a laugh at the same time. “I didn’t think you were serious.”

Tor winked at her and closed the door, locking it with a snick so she couldn’t escape. He glanced at Black Magic, a silent agreement passing between them as he headed to his Tempo.

O O O

Pux couldn’t get a hold of Elwen. He stayed up all night eating almost everything he had in the fridge, dialing Elwen’s phone every five minutes. He couldn’t go get Kaliel and she didn’t show up and he was suffering a full-blown panic attack when the phone finally rang and he dived for it, practically ripping it off the kitchen wall.

“Hello?” Elwen sounded confused.

“Elwen!” Pux exclaimed, thankful that some form of technology worked. Talk about boring, the computer didn’t work, television, video games, cell phone. The longer he stayed in feorn form, the more things went on the fritz. He was lucky the landline still worked.

“Pux?”

“Where the hell have you been? Krishani died and Kaliel was on the road somewhere and I have no idea what to do and I needed you and you wouldn’t answer the phone.…”

Pux heard the keys hit the counter; a briefcase fell on the floor. “I was working.… He’s really dead?”

“I promised him … she was on her way here. I talked to her late last night.” He twisted the phone cord around his arm squeezing it tighter until his fingers went fuzzy. He couldn’t break a promise, it was actually impossible as a feorn, but he couldn’t go running around Earth either.

“Where is she now?”

“I. Don’t. Know! That’s why I called you, I told her you’d go get her.” He didn’t want to scream at Elwen but he seemed so calm and Pux wasn’t calm. He was full of stupid human food with preservatives and he’d thrown up three times. He was hungry and sweaty and shaking. He couldn’t stop thinking about Cossisea and Klavotesi. What if they showed up? What if they took her? He had no way of knowing and it scared him so much. What would they do to her?

“Calm down, Pux,” Elwen said after a long pause, his voice deathly quiet.

Pux wanted to scream more but he stopped and unwrapped the phone cord from his arm, resting his forehead against the wall. “I can’t be calm. She’s my best friend.”

“She’s with Tor.”

Pux’s eyes widened. “High … King … Tor?”

“Yes.”

Pux couldn’t think straight. Morgana used to laugh about it, like it was some silly joke. She had another name for Tor.… Merlin, someone that helped the fallen King resting in Evennses. He blinked, shoving away the past. “I don’t understand.…”

“You don’t want to go against him do you?”

“No … but …” Pux felt so small. He slid down the wall, his animal legs curled to his chest. Tor stood against everything the Valtanyana was, but what was he doing with Kaliel? He blinked, thinking about what she was—not the girl he knew, but the Amethyst Flame.

Fear hit him.

“Go home, Pux.”

“He’s going to—”

“Tor can do whatever he wants with her. She’s no longer your concern.”

“But …”

“Go home.”

Pux gulped, and pushed himself to his feet, looking past the kitchen at the coffee table. He didn’t want to watch Kaliel cause another apocalypse. It was bad enough having to watch it the first time. Apocalypses weren’t pretty. They took away everything in existence and buried it under sheets of snow or rivers of fire. It made everything ache with incomprehensible pain, and if you lived, you lived to see the ashes it left behind and the corrupted world that rose from those ashes. Living in post-apocalyptic times were the worst he’d ever suffered, scrounging on scraps while the Land repaired itself. The only thing he learned from apocalypses was that nothing came back beautiful.

“Fine.” He slammed the phone onto the receiver and crossed the floor, swiping the pendant off the table and disappearing from the apartment.

***

Chapter 34
The Past

Christian owned a lot of music Maeva didn’t listen to. After he left, Necromancer returned, perching on the back of the couch, her green eyes following the other girl everywhere. She skimmed through the bookshelves, hordes of science fiction and fantasy novels, nothing newer than the eighties. He had a small stack of CDs on a shelf by the laptop, artists she didn’t listen to. She thought about contacting Grace, but she didn’t know what to say. Her life was upside down. She was being hunted by The Powers That Be, all because they wanted revenge against her … and Christian.

She thought about Steph, but talking to Steph meant talking about Michael—Krishani, and thinking about him hurt. She didn’t know what Tom was going to do, if they would hold a funeral, if people at school would show up. Would Tom do a eulogy? Krishani didn’t like hospitals or graveyards, or churches, what kind of funerals did Vultures have? She ran her hand along the shelf, frowning at the Celine Dion, Enya, Bon Jovi, and Billy Idol assortment. She missed her Ani DiFranco cassette, Adele, Florence and the Machine. She stopped on an artist she’d never heard of, Emma Shapplin.

Krishani wasn’t dead.

He was, but he wasn’t. Whatever he was, icy cold tendrils whipped her cheeks, sending shivers through her as the Vulture stumbled out the door. She couldn’t breathe and forced herself to stop thinking about him. She pulled out the Emma Shapplin CD and took it upstairs, Necromancer on her heels. Christian stocked the room with everything she might need, and it was creepy.

She went over to the boom box on the dresser and popped in the CD, haunting opera melodies coming to life. The music was sad and beautiful, tugging at her emotions and making her feel lightheaded. Necromancer jumped on the dresser and scratched at the first drawer. Curiously, Maeva pulled it open, incense, tea lights and matches inside. Necromancer meowed in her familiar syllables and she pulled out a stick of incense, placing it in the holder on the dresser, something Grace never would have let her have in her room. She lit the stick, heady smoke spiraling into the room. Snapping the drawer shut she took the cat in her arms and put her in the hallway and shut the door.

The music was breathtaking. She laid on the bed her feet on the pillows her arms spread out as Emma Shapplin’s mesmerizing opera voice filled the room. Each song was a dark and twisted adventure. Maeva felt like she was inside the music, emerging from a lake and landing on a sandy beach. She passed narrowly through the trunks of two trees growing so close together they touched at the base, and wound down an eerie moonlit path until she emerged in a meadow with thick knee high grass, the sky a blanket of brilliant stars above her.

She opened her eyes as the song changed, the memory so crisp she felt like she was actually there. She flexed her fingers and took a deep breath, inhaling incense and letting it out slowly, like she had been taught in choir practice.

She sunk into the trance, letting herself fall until she was in the meadow, staring at the stars. It felt weird; like it was a place she could reach out and touch in her mind. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, if it was a memory or some kind of out of body experience but it felt good and after everything that had happened all she wanted to do was be somewhere that felt like home.

She sat and quickened her pace through the grass, a large cabin rising in the distance. The thing was massive, three stories high, one block wide, two blocks thick. It seemed to continue forever to a tree line, and there wasn’t anything special about it, brown logs, a wraparound porch, and small steps leading to the front door. The grass fell away in a small circle around the steps and she tested out sitting on them, staring at the stars.

A loud bang sounded at the door and her eyes snapped open, the four-poster bed around her, and burgundy veneer above her. Everything about the house left her mind and she sat, feeling groggy, the CD turning over to the first song. She wanted to listen more, and explore but the door bounced again and Maeva opened it, looking down at Black Magic, the cat with the smooth tail and yellow eyes. He glared at her like he would have bashed down the door if she hadn’t opened it and unlike Necromancer, when he took off the down the hallway he didn’t trot. She followed, finding Christian at the front door in blue jeans and black shirt, hands behind his back.

“Ready?” His eyes watched her as she descended the stairs and nodded, following him outside. It was dark, Christian’s house being in the middle of a forest. Spruce and birch trees spaced out against a tangle of leaves beyond the porch. He went around back, leading her to a large fire pit, alive with bright orange flames. She smelled lake water, and it warmed her.

His backyard was protected by tall evergreens, parting narrowly for a long wooden dock. She thought she saw the outline of a motor boat but wasn’t sure. The ground was dry mud, covered in nettles and crunchy orange leaves. She assumed they were from the previous year. He neared the bonfire and Maeva noticed a rickety set of khaki painted stairs, the porch only a small platform compared to the one at the front of the house. The back porch light was on but when Christian passed it, the light went out, leaving his face cast in the orange glow from the fire. He pulled the pocket watch out and held it out for her, his eyes blazing into her.

“Are you familiar with rituals?”

Maeva tried to stay calm but her heart galloped; memories of the day she took Krishani to Big John’s stuck in her head. He was going to end her and it was going to hurt. “No, I’ve never done a ritual.”

“Take the pocket watch,” Christian instructed.

It felt cold to the touch the way it always had, and familiar, like it was something from a past long before this life. She looked at him, questions on her lips. He seemed so normal, everything about his house, his life didn’t resemble what she expected. Maybe Rob—Pux was right, the good guys only won in movies. She wasn’t sure what awakening would do to her, and so far the method didn’t ring any bells.

“Dangle it, like a pendulum.”

She did as she was told and Christian knelt, his hands behind his back.

“Speak in an even, soothing voice.”

“What am I doing?”

He blinked and she knew he was thinking about how novice she was. She blushed, giving him a sheepish smile and dangled the pocket watch like he told her to. “You’re putting me in a trance, which is what I will do to you when I awaken you. It’s only fair I demonstrate first.”

“Oh.” She thought it was nice, seeing as how she was trying not to be scared out of her mind, or broken into a thousand tiny shards from losing Krishani. No matter what she did to distract herself, the heaviness on her chest wouldn’t go away. It was a constant dull throb inside her, held at bay by a makeshift dam. Hit the trigger and it would come crashing down, reducing her to nothingness.

“How do I do this?”

“Continue speaking, talk about the pendulum, talk about feeling tired. Don’t change the tone of your voice.” He put his hands behind his back and focused on the pocket watch rocking back and forth.

Maeva felt funny. “Watch the pendulum …it’s gold and smooth, and comes with a long chain, and has weird looking symbols on the inside, and I got it in the hospital when I was in a coma, when I was really tired, and I couldn’t wake up.” She stopped, Christian seemed mesmerized. It was something about the way he seemed stoned. She’d seen kids at school with that look and it usually meant they were tripping on something. She didn’t know there was another way to achieve that affect. Christian didn’t really tell her what to do once he was under and didn’t give her instructions on how to bring him back so she stared at him for a while, keeping the pendulum swinging back and forth.

“Who are you?”

“Tor, the former High King of the Lands of Peace,” he answered, monotone.

She narrowed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Who are Cossisea and Klavotesi?”

He kept staring at the pocket watch. “The Ruby and Obsidian Flames.”

She frowned, not knowing what a Flame was, but feeling that sinking feeling in her stomach. Krishani said she wasn’t otherkin but she wasn’t human. During all her research she never found a thing on Flames. Suspicion clouded her. “What am I?”

“A Flame.”

Maeva dropped the pocket watch. She blinked a few times, embers from the fire crackling into the air and wafting towards her. She bent to pick up the watch, noticing the glassy look in Tor’s eyes fading. He slumped forward and came to realization.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“What are the Flames?”

Tor smiled wide. “Ahh … you are asking the right questions.”

“Are they—?” She meant to ask if they were her kin but the word sounded funny in her head. It was from an old way of speaking, reminding her of Shakespeare and Dickens.

“Yes.”

“And they work for The Powers That Be? They’re … against me?”

Tor hung his head and glanced at the porch, the light flickering on. “I never said remembering would give you solace.” He held his hand out, gesturing towards the back door. Maeva froze. “We need to continue this in the Sanctuary.”

Maeva’s eyes widened. She envisioned the small white door and beyond it, a creaky set of stairs and some kind of torture chamber in the basement. Pain lanced across her temple and she bolted, her legs taking her around the house and crashing into the forest. She didn’t care if night surrounded her, she’d find the road, call for help, hitchhike home. Lake of the Woods was big but it wasn’t
that
big, and while the roads weren’t populated with a lot of traffic, she’d find someone. She’d go home to Kenora and tell Grace she was involved with some crazy people and got in over her head and all she wanted was to hide and grieve and pretend the world didn’t exist for a while.

She couldn’t go back to Tor and all of his truth. He wasn’t nice, he was one of them—he admitted it. She wanted Krishani’s arms around her, his warmth and safety and waning strength. She was nothing without him—and Pux. Her heart caved at the thought of Pux waiting for her in Thunder Bay, worrying about where the hell she was and why she never came. She’d hitch a ride with a trucker or something, truckers were better than Tor, anything was better than the weird house and black cats. It was too serene, too comforting. She felt like a numb empty shell, all the pain of losing Krishani eclipsed by whatever magic Tor cast.

She fetched up against a tree her lungs bursting, her legs tired. She wasn’t an athletic girl; her arms stronger than her legs with all the canoeing she had to do. She slunk down in the dry underbrush, wiping the sweat off her neck, taking a moment to catch her breath. Her head throbbed like it might explode.

She wasn’t ready to know. Krishani was a part of her in every way that counted and knowing he knew her, seeing the way his face darkened when she pushed him, it scared her. She got up, walking a bit, smelling the lake and knowing it was somewhere near. She crunched through leaves and pushed through bushes, and emerged on the ledge of the water. Thick black waves lapped against the rocky shore. She glanced over the ledge, a steep jagged drop. It was too warm for May, the sky too bright, the moon a blob in the sky, not half or full or slivered. She hugged her arms to herself, torn between staying out there all night looking for a highway and letting Tor awaken her.

She slid down, piling her hands in her lap and waited for a long time, listening to crickets, birds, and water thunking against the shore. Footsteps crunched the ground and she tensed, knowing Tor would coax her back to the house, give her time to remember on her own. She’d ask him to get some of her things, even though the closet was actually full of clothes her size; she didn’t feel right wearing them. She wanted her own clothes, the blue t-shirt with the stick people holding broken hearts out to each other, the purple one about monsters under her bed, and all the other shirts she’d worn when she was with Michael. She wanted her cell phone so she could flip through pics of him, the ones she didn’t develop in photography class. She had those tucked into her mirror on her dresser, all odd angles she made for herself, not for the assignment. She wanted her life back, wanted to go to work and apologize to Rachel for all the crazy.

She brushed her hair out of her face and pushed herself to her feet. “I’m sorry … I’m—I need time.” She turned, and thick hands clamped onto her neck, pulling her into the air and slamming her hard against a tree trunk. Air left her lungs as she struggled, staring at the glowing black eyes of the Obsidian Flame.

His expression was livid and she let out a whimper unable to stop the slashing, burning pain in her head. It felt like he was digging into her mind with thin needles, uprooting memories and spinning them on a carousel. Shock rippled over her, threatening to throw her into the cold embrace of death. She choked, and clamped her hands over his fingers, desperately clawing at him to release her.

He tossed her aside like she was a ball jointed doll and she hit the forest floor with a crack. Frostbite poured into her bones, fighting against fire in her brain. Ice pressed against her skin like the winter lake, her insides like tiny briquettes. Bitter, salty tears streamed down her cheeks and landed on her tongue. She squeezed her eyes shut as a maddening carousel of memories tortured her.

Something eclipsed the pain, something bright and uncontrollable. She rolled onto her back, exploding in a shower of Amethyst Flames. On the inside it was like her veins were replaced with rivers of pure liquid fire. It traveled down her arms and pinched her fingertips, streaming into every part of her. With it came the crushing revelation of who she was and what she’d done.

And it hurt more than watching Krishani die.

She closed her eyes, every detail of their first kiss, the waterfall, awakening Avred, dying in a crescendo of Flames, waking up against him, exiled, exiled, exiled.
The weed, the weed, the weed.
The deep baritones of the Great Oak pulsed through her, as she dropped the golden box in the sand and spread the dust in the air. She scrabbled at the ground with her hands, clawing at the Vultures surrounding her. She felt Krishani’s lips against hers as he transformed, becoming something deadlier and scarier than she ever thought possible. The memories of her life as Maeva hit her like a battering ram. He hated her and loved her, and died in her arms, and died again and again. She killed him, subjected him to the worst form of torture, and he never stopped loving her.