What is this thing? I marveled.
I drew my arm back, taking the ax from where it hung in the air before me. But instead of falling to the ground with a thunk as my arm lost to its weight, like I thought would happen, the ax seemed to weigh nothing at all.
[Now give it some power,] said the creature. [Make it yours.]
I concentrated, somehow knowing exactly what the creature meant for me to do. It was like the weapon itself was whispering to me. I shut my eyes, letting my shields absorb Phaedra’s attacks, as I opened myself to both my power and the labrys…
Voila, I thought, as I opened my eyes to discover that I held in front of me a weapon made of both pure energy and steel—something to rival Blondie’s own fearsome sword.
Phaedra’s attacks stopped, and she looked at me with horror.
I took a few admittedly awkward swipes with the ax. I remembered Ryu elegantly dueling with Jimmu, the naga prince, at the Alfar Compound.
I’m not quite that elegant, I thought, as I chopped away with my new toy. The good news was that Phaedra, at least, was looking even more vexed than I was.
“I’m full of surprises,” I informed the little Alfar, as I took a step toward her, brandishing my new weapon. “Which you should keep in mind, as I repeat myself: We don’t have to do this.”
Phaedra pulled hard on the earth, creating her own forest-green sword.
“Yes, we do,” she said, twirling her own weapon elegantly. I frowned.
Add ax-fighting lessons to the list, I thought wearily.
“Why keep going, Phaedra?” I asked, trying to stall her. While the labrys felt great in my hand, and my body was singing with power, I still didn’t want to have to fight the little Alfar. “The creature’s not going to kill for you,” I said. “What part of ‘it’s not a weapon’ are you not understanding?”
Phaedra shook her head. “It does not matter whether it will kill for us,” she said. “Merely waking it will destroy that which we most want destroyed: you, the barghest, your baobhan sith, and hopefully all the other traitors still squatting in that compound.”
“How are they traitors?” I asked. “It’s your master who killed the true king.”
“Orin was no king. He was a puppet. The weakness of such leaders is what has brought down my people.”
I pursed my lips. “Actually, no. Did you guys not get the part about magic and babies?”
Phaedra looked at me, confused. Our subsequent conversation must have been private, even if the creature had shared its memories of that day. Phaedra hadn’t the truth about magic and fertility.
“It’s your magic that does that. The no-babies thing? It has to do with how strong you are, with the mojos. How much you use it.”
“Again, you lie,” she spat out.
“Do I?” I asked. “Think about it. Nahuals, magically your weakest people, still manage to procreate. Alfars, magically your strongest, are almost entirely barren. Everyone else gets filled in somewhere on that spectrum.”
Phaedra shook her head, either in denial of my words or denying she’d even heard them. She beefed up her shields and took a step toward me, her sword a blur as she did some fancy ninja moves.
“Besides,” I said, wondering why on earth I had thought “take the weapon” was a good idea, “you don’t even know how to free the creature. It’s already awake, so that can’t be the answer.” I was trying to distract her while I thought to the being in question.
Um, a little help here, I thought. About the whole “ax-fighting” thing.
[I am here to help you,] it told me, and I felt a wave of reassurance—both my own and the creature’s—wash through me. Phaedra’s next words, however, were not so reassuring.
“You little idiot,” Phaedra hissed, as she pointed with her sword above my head. “Of course I do. Do you never look up?”
Will you keep an eye on her? I thought. [Yes,] the creature replied, as I beefed up my shields so I could turn around.
Shit, I thought. For sure enough, several feet over where the eye peeked out of the rock, there was one last glyph carved into the stone.Undoubtedly the glyph that freed the creature from its prison, taking the rest of us with it.
“So you understand why it is that we must, indeed, ‘do this,’ ” Phaedra said, giving me her favorite cat’s-ass smile. “You are standing in between me and your imminent demise.”
That I am, I thought, even as I realized something. “But you’ll be destroying yourself too, you loon,” I said.
She nodded, her eyes wide and shining. “But I will die cleansing this world of the lies spread here today.” Then she looked directly at me, beginning her ninja-sword routine again to punctuate her name-calling. “And you, you annoying… little… perversion.”
Wow, she’s willing to die just to get rid of lil old me, I thought, almost proud. I must be super annoying…
The creature chuckled in my mind. [I think you might want to get ready,] it intoned, just as Phaedra leaped at me.
My shields were strong enough that neither she nor her sword could penetrate them, but I felt the blow. The sword concentrated the Alfar’s force, making it harder to deflect than mage balls.
[And your labrys will do the same,] it said. [If you use it…]
With that hint, I raised my ax and tentatively began hacking with it. The problem was, to get anywhere with the hacking I had to pull my shields back to behind the ax. Which meant I left myself vulnerable, especially since I was quickly discovering how very little I knew about edged-weapons fighting.
When I’d nearly had my hands whacked off twice, and I’d taken about a dozen hard blows to my shields, the creature intervened.
[May I?] it inquired politely. [If you’d just open your mind…]
I did so, and the next thing I knew it felt like I was floating just over my own head. The creature had shoved me out of my own body so it could do its thang. I watched as Jane began her own offensive—much to Phaedra’s evident shock—which included some of her own ninja twirlings and a seriously fast series of thrusts and slices that had worn Phaedra’s shields down to nubs. The creature kept up the onslaught until Phaedra had retreated to the other side of the room, panting.
[Jane?] asked the creature, politely. [Would you like your body back?]
Yes, please, I thought. While it was fun watching Phaedra getting her ass kicked, I wanted to be doing the kicking, and not just my body.
[You have a plan,] the creature said, as my consciousness floated back down into my skin.
Yes, I thought. It had been obvious, really, once I was floating well above the action.
As soon as I was back in my body—which was panting for breath despite the creature having done the mental lifting—I struck while Phaedra was still vulnerable.
There was water dripping everywhere, and I let the ax dangle at my side as I reached for it. Not as a power source, but as it was—lovely, dripping H2O.
“What are you doing?” Phaedra asked, trying to build back her shields. But already there was a thin film of water between her feet and the cavern floor. I pulled harder, and the water that had been trickling from the cave walls now gushed, covering the floor. That said, I was careful to keep all of that water’s power for myself. It swirled under Phaedra’s feet, but just as if she were a magical-Tantalus, it would never quench her power’s thirst.
My plan was elegant, and a bit cruel. Unfortunately, it would also take forever to fill the whole space of the cavern, and I didn’t know if the creature liked getting its eye wet, so I wove a basket of power around Phaedra.
[Lovely,] the creature complimented me, as I began carefully neutralizing and then funneling all that water in the room, in torrents, into the prison I’d built around Phaedra. Nearly empty as she was of all other elements, and being surrounded only by water magic I wouldn’t let her touch, she could only put up a token struggle.
When she cobbled together enough strength that she managed to reach through the water at her feet toward the earth, I lifted the whole orb off the ground. The labrys helped me, cheerfully spitting power at me as I raised it—and the orb—high into the air. Phaedra sloshed about, up to her neck in water, like a goldfish won at a carnival.
“You know who taught me this trick?” I called to her, raising my voice so she could hear me over the sloshing. “You did,” I answered when she didn’t respond. “In Boston, on that pier, after you let your minions rape and kill those innocent women.”
Phaedra glared at me, clearly unrepentant.
“I should kill you,” I whispered, thinking of all the atrocities she’d committed or commanded or allowed.
[You should kill her,] the creature agreed.
“But I won’t,” I said and sighed, lowering the orb so it hovered inches off the floor. She was contained, helpless. I’d wait till Blondie found us, and then we’d figure out how to deal with the Alfar.
[You won’t dispose of her?] the creature asked.
No, I thought. I’m no killer. Then I thought back to the men who’d lost their lives attacking Anyan and me. Well, at least not this kind of killer. Not an executioner.