I wasn’t sure who I was communicating with, but I didn’t like whoever it was. The ego was strong, so strong that it felt overpowering. “Until you let go of that power, until you surrender yourself to it and submit yourself to it, you’ll never be strong enough to withstand it. Power over corrupts. Power from within compels and strengthens.”
And again, a shimmer in the vast pool of darkness. I followed the spark, letting it lead me on.
“I do not submit! They told me that I was taking too much for my own. But I will not kneel to another, nor bow, nor supplicate myself.”
I was getting bored of hanging out here. Was the voice right? Was this it? Had I been cast into an amnesiac state and dropped in some realm of limbo? And speaking of “I”…who was I?
“I may not know my name, but I know this. Until you learn to bow to greater power, you will never truly command.” A flare caught my attention and I began to follow it. The voice was growing fainter.
“Come back—you put me here, you owe it to me to stay! Don’t leave me here…” And then the voice vanished, as if snuffed out like a candle flame.
Without warning, a rushing sensation catapulted me out of the blackness.
“Camille? Camille? Wake up! Camille?” A sharp sting on my cheek brought me round as I struggled to sit up. I blinked, aching like a son of a bitch. As I looked around, I saw Gulakah’s body lying there next to me, lifeless. With a groan, I let Smoky lift me into his arms.
Shade was helping hold up Morio, who looked like he’d been through a soot storm. As I glanced down at my hands and feet, I realized I looked just as bad. Roz and Vanzir were sprawled out on their backs on the ground. Scrambling, I pushed against Smoky’s chest.
“Put me down—they’re hurt!”
Smoky grumbled but let me down, and I raced over to them, every bone and muscle in my body aching. As I knelt between them, the smell of their blood filled my nose, and I realized that Vanzir was okay, but Roz looked bad.
“Smoky, you’ve got to get him back to the house. The rest of us need to get into that compound and finish off the demons there. Halcon has one of the spirit seals!” I glanced over at the body of Gulakah. “Should we cut him to pieces or what? I don’t want any of this resurrection or reanimation crap going on.”
“Let me take Roz home, then I’ll be back to fetch you and Morio. Shade, take care of the corpse.” Smoky gently gathered up Roz and vanished.
I helped Vanzir sit up, and, after a moment’s disorientation, he was able to stand on his own. His hands were covered with blood, his palms roughed up, but he looked relatively okay, although his clothing was splattered with gore and I had the feeling most of it was from Gulakah.
“Did we really defeat him?” Vanzir stared at the body in wonder. “I can’t believe we killed a god.”
“It was mostly Camille and Morio,” Shade said. “Camille…at the end, took him out with the spell she and Morio were casting. We thought we’d lost her for a while there. Her body was okay, but her soul went wandering.”
Went wandering…that was one way to put it. I closed my eyes, only to see the dizzying expanse of blackness again, and quickly opened them. The overpowering ego of the god stuck with me. Even at the end, he couldn’t admit that he’d let himself get out of control.
Even the gods can die…Pentangle must have known that he wouldn’t back down, that he wouldn’t change his ways. If he had been able to admit his failings, the Hags of Fate might have let him live, but he’d upset the balance. The Ocean of Anger was too great and was feeding too many ghosts. I wondered how long it would take for the pendulum to swing back to the middle, for the spirits to realize they were free and depart.
And yet…and yet…
“Do you think we were right, to kill a god?” It still seemed overwhelming, and egotistical, even though we’d been charged with the task. Or rather, I had been charged with it.
“We were right to kill someone working for Shadow Wing, who destroyed a lot of innocent people in our city, and who was responsible for enslaving and impoverishing a number of others.” Vanzir shook his head. “Don’t let yourself dwell on it. You did the right thing.”
I looked over at Morio but said nothing more. Something had changed with that spell, like Morio had said. I didn’t know what, just yet; I couldn’t pinpoint the feeling, but something had shifted inside. But Vanzir was correct—we had no choice. Gulakah was a nasty motherfucker, and we had to take him out, god or not. Maybe it was just the thought that we had actually been able to kill him that made me uneasy. Power was potent, and power could corrupt so easily if allowed to get out of hand.
Smoky appeared again, and he took hold of Morio and me, and—leaving Shade to deal with the corpse of the god—we vanished into the Ionyc Seas, back to the mansion, where Halcon Davis waited.
Halcon Davis was waiting for us, all right—or at least his body was. By the looks of things, Menolly had gotten to him, and he was very, very dead. I glanced around. Shamas was leading a group of officers and volunteers from the Supe Community to sort out the people who lived here now. The Fae women were huddled on a sofa, looking worn out but more alert than they had been when Gulakah and I had vanished for the Netherworld.
I walked up to Syringa. “Your husband is waiting for you. He misses you.”
She blinked, looking confused. “How much time…what day…”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I took her hands in mine, sitting down beside her. She was lovely, ethereal, and her energy sparkled like a beckoning rainbow. I could see how Halcon had picked her out of the pack.
“Thursday? I went to a meeting for the…” She paused as someone wheeled Halcon’s body past us. “Oh. Him…”
I jumped up. “I need to search his body before you take it—”
“No worries. I have it.” Menolly came strolling up from behind. She patted the pocket of her jean jacket. “First thing I did when I took him down was strip it off his weasel-necked body.”
“Why do you think that Shadow Wing didn’t tell Gulakah to confiscate the spirit seal from Halcon?” It seemed to me that he’d want his demon general to have it.“I think Shadow Wing might have been worried about Gulakah growing too powerful. He was, after all, a god. And Gulakah was using Shadow Wing for his own agenda, so he probably was playing along for a while.” She shrugged. “We’ll never know for sure, but…”
“You’re probably right. So, anything else on Halcon’s body we should know about?”
“No. Nothing else of value, but I’m sure when we search this mansion, we’re going to be finding all sorts of useful information and items. Halcon Davis was the one storing the money. Gulakah didn’t care about cash.”
I nodded, thinking of how many people Halcon had had time to fleece. If he’d found the spirit seal around the date he disappeared, he’d had well over a hundred fifty years to con people out of their savings and goods.
“I dread going through here. It’s going to take a long time.”
“I’m asking Roman if I can set a group of vamps to do it—Erin can watch over them. They’ll behave and not filch anything if Roman commands it.” She gave me the once-over. “You okay? You seem strangely quiet.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Syringa. Delilah was talking to her now. Looping my arm through Menolly’s, I walked her away from where the others could hear and quietly told her about what had happened in the Netherworld, after I’d slammed into Gulakah with the Greater Asa Mordente spell.
She let out a low whistle. “The realm of the dead can’t be easy to hang out in, not for someone with as much life in them as you have.”
“That’s just it…it wasn’t easy, but it was…intoxicating. If what Morio said is right, and I’m to evolve into one of the Moon Mother’s sorceresses, as well as her Dark Moon High Priestess…can I handle the power? Can I handle the responsibility? The thought of it frightens me. What if I lose myself?” My head throbbing, I looked for a chair.
Menolly bit her lip. “I doubt it. Not you. But all I can tell you is this…there’s no going back. None of us can go back to the way things were. We have to go forward. Who knows what the future will bring. Maybe Shadow Wing will win, but for now, he’s lost another battle, and we have another spirit seal, and that’s what they call, I believe, having a good day.”
Weary, aching through my entire body, and not sure what was going to happen next, I smiled and nodded. “Let’s go home and find out how Roz is doing. I can’t handle cleanup tonight. Let the others do it.”
“That’s my girl.” Menolly leaned up and kissed my cheek. “You may be my big sister, but sometimes, it’s okay to lean on others. I know you learned that lesson, but just…make sure you remember it.”
We turned toward the stairs and, with Delilah joining us, headed on up to our cars. The night was dark, the sky misty, and we were standing on the eve of Beltane.
Chapter 19
Beltane. I woke up early, along with Morio. Trenyth had made the journey over to our house when we’d called him up on the Whispering Mirror to take possession of the spirit seal, so it was safely back in Elqaneve, though how safe the Elfin City was, with the impending war, remained to be seen.
Morio and I headed out to Talamh Lonrach Oll after breakfast. Delilah was pouting because she had to stay home—but since she’d be transforming as the moon grew full later today, there was no way she could go with us.
And Aeval had specified that Morio and I would be undergoing some sort of ritual, so the others decided to stay home with Delilah. We’d hold our own celebration on the weekend. Even though Smoky and Trillian seemed a little miffed that they hadn’t been invited, they’d agreed and just gave me long kisses as I headed out the door.
As we drove out, I tried to sort out what had happened. I gave Chase a call. “So, what did they find, as of this morning?”
He let out a long sigh. “A lot of broken people. They weren’t the most stable to begin with, and being bewitched by the spirit seal made things a lot worse. I’ve asked Lindsey Cartridge if she and her group can help. Nerissa and Sharah will figure out the best way to counsel these women. It was mostly women, by the way, and before you ask, yes, some were assaulted. Most likely by the Tregarts.”
“Oh great gods, I hope none of them get pregnant. We don’t need any half-demon children running around the city.”
“That’s a possibility? I’ll mention it to Sharah and Mallen. They’re doing all the examinations.” Chase paused. “We’re also on a mad search to see if we can find any more spirit demon eggs—there are so many places where they could have been hidden, and it doesn’t seem logical that Gulakah would only bring over two. For all we know, there may be spirit demons loose in Seattle right now.”
“On that depressing thought, what did the vamps find in the mansion? I know a swarm of them were on the way over when we left.”
“The list of assets is remarkable. Halcon Davis was a multimillionaire. We’re going to have to figure out what to do with all that wealth. I’m thinking of dividing it up among the OIA, the Supe Community Council, and the Seattle Vampire Nexus, including a substantial grant for Vampires Anonymous.” He took a drink of something, then let out a short breath.
“Speaking of which…Syringa? Your Fae lord’s wife? She’s not doing very well. Physically, she’s fine, but when she realized what had happened, it…well, let’s just say she’s checked out. The body is here, but the spirit has fled, Sharah said. We’re going to have to have a soul-catcher find her.”
“You know about soul-catchers?” I had never heard Chase use that term. It rather surprised me.
“I do now, thanks to Sharah and Mallen. Anyway, I’ve got to go. We’ve still got a buttload of stuff to process, and I think it’s going to take several weeks to work our way through the mansion and the paperwork. But at least Gulakah’s dead…Thank you, by the way. What you and Morio did…”
“Hey, we do what we have to.” Suddenly wanting to get away from the conversation, I said my good-byes and hung up.
“Getting too close for comfort?” Morio said, glancing at me.
I rubbed his arm. “Just overwhelmed, and not sure what tonight holds for us. I’m afraid. I don’t know what reserves I have left.”
“More than you know, babe. More than you know.” And with that, he turned up the music as we sped along the freeway.
By evening, my spirits were back up. I was dressed in my priestess robes, and Morio was in his ceremonial kimono, and the drummers were gathered around the bale fire, their rhythms filling the air with anticipation and the summons to ritual. We’d spent the day eating and visiting. Morio had turned into a fox and let the Fae children pet him, and then we’d gone swimming in the hot springs and taken a much-needed nap. I was starting to relax and fall into the rhythm of the drums. My feet were tapping and I wanted to dance, so I moved to the edge of the fire and joined the other women who were letting the beat speak through their bodies.
The energy was on the rise—Beltane was the night of the rut, the night when the King Stag bugled for his mate. Beltane was the night when the gods fucked their brains out, when the Lord of the Forest impregnated the goddess incarnate. The Fae, usually rather reserved, let loose on this day, and all our wild, primal bloodlines came forth.
There were couples and groups fucking on the grass near the fire circle, women in the wild throes of orgasm, men rutting into them, growling, snuffling like Herne the Hunter, who lurked in the depths of the woods…like Pan—Old Shag of the meadows—who frolicked with the nymphs and celebrated the carnality of the body as it blended with the sublime musings of the soul.