“Where in the Twixt?” But he had a feeling he knew what she was going to say even before she confirmed his suspicions.
“To the site of the massacre. But wait!” She held up her hand to stop him as he began to call forth another portal. “Please don’t go alone! They’ll expect you to do that!”
Caliban paused, his whole body tensed in painful indecision. He wouldn’t be doing Minerva any good if he fell directly into a trap – and he wasn’t doing his sanity any good by not following after her immediately.
Violet gritted her teeth, and added, “And please don’t kill my sister, your majesty. She’s not herself. I promise.”
Caliban processed her words, but ignored them. They were part of a plea that would be dealt with later. There were more important things to deal with now. He needed –
“Your majesty!” Titania’s tinkling, chiming voice was raised in alarm, and had a powerful edge to it that one would not expect from a fairy. He turned to see her running toward them with none other than his brother, Avery, and Avery’s wife, Selene.
“Where’s my sister?” Selene wanted to know.
That’s what everyone wanted to know. Cal met Avery’s gaze. Unspoken messages galore passed between them. They were headed into unknown dangers. A queen’s existence was on the line. And because of that, an entire realm’s welfare was as well.
There were three fae royalty grouped together now. “Good enough,” he said aloud, knowing that the two words would silence any further protest from Violet. He raised his hand once more, calling forth the portal that he’d let drop before.
Violet stepped back and out of the way, but Titania came forward and gently laid a hand on Caliban’s arm. “I’m coming as well, my lord.”
Cal glanced at her. “Suit yourself.” He finished opening the portal – and stepped through.
His brother and his sister-in-law followed closely on his heels. Titania brought up the rear, and the portal swirled shut behind her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I could have attempted to use your body once it had died and your spirit was free of it, but I have to admit, this is fresher.”
Minerva continued to stand still where she was, her eyes glued to the unnaturally skinny and tall man, and his white face that resembled the visage of “Odo” from Deep Space Nine.
“Your sister escaped from me. She accepted her place as queen, and once she had, she simply became too powerful for me to subjugate.” He opened his arms and shrugged like Jack the Pumpkin King. “However, you have yet to accept who you are. You have doubts. As is made ever more obvious by the fact that you ran away from your king to come here.”
At long, long last, maybe fueled by the mention of her sister in danger, or perhaps simply because she’d had enough time to stand there like an idiot, Minerva numbly came out of her stupor and asked, “Are you the Slenderman?”
The tall, thin man laughed. It was a pleasant, utterly normal laugh. “I can see why you might think that. However, the name of a current mortal horror trend is an inconsiderately limiting label, if ever there was one.” He straightened, and became very still. Minerva watched as his form shifted, going from solid to incorporeal. He was still there, but composed of varying degrees of darkness, as if chimney smoke and empty space had taken elongated, humanoid form.
“Just as Mr. Rushmore can tell you how gargoyles are composed of stone that has absorbed magic, and Mr. Pitch can confirm the Shadow People are composed of shadow that has absorbed magic, there are fractions of space and time beyond human comprehension that do the same. Call them black holes. Call them dark matter. Perhaps label them as neutrinos, or even dark neutrinos. Maybe they are all of the above.”
He spoke to her from this smokey darkness as if he still had lungs and a mouth.
“In essence, this is what I am.”
Minerva inhaled sharply and back pedaled as the shadowy slender man suddenly rushed toward her, moving with abnormal and unpredictable speed. She hugged herself and dropped to her knees, and then there was a flash and sizzle.
She looked up to find the Slenderman rematerialized, but now he was closer, and this time, she could tell that his eerily smooth features were not happy. Between him and herself, there was a bubble of sorts. It was a force field.
With stark certainty and quite a bit of shock, she realized that it was a force field she’d thrown up herself, without even meaning to do it. She’d absorbed Caliban’s magic during their lovemaking, and this was one of his abilities. She’d simply reproduced it.
“You might just make the perfect vessel, after all,” he said softly. “At long last.”
“You don’t want this body,” Minerva said, finding with even more shock, that she had the ability to speak so well. She straightened, coming to her knees and meeting the Slenderman’s bizarre gaze head-on. “It’s far too sensitive. And you have no idea what the upkeep is like on a female form. I would go for a guy if I were you.”
He chuckled. “As a matter of fact, I do know what a female form requires. In fact, my last form was female. And she will be mine again, if all goes according to plan.” He seemed to drift for a moment, his gaze leaving hers, his form slipping into the shadows behind him. “If she would only awaken.”
Minerva pushed herself to her feet. They felt strange, sort of prickly and painful, and her legs were weak. But she managed to make it upright, though she lost a bit of her breath when she did so. The force field around her pulsed in and out, stronger and weaker, threatening to disappear. She prayed it wouldn’t.
“Who was she?” she asked, because she wanted to buy herself some time. And also because she was actually curious.
“No one you would know,” he told her. “But she was magnificent. A goddess unrivaled.”
A goddess. Minerva felt a flush of odd and totally inappropriate pride. It was muted by the horror of her living, breathing reality, but it was still there. The monstrous force before her had once inhabited the body of a god. And now he thought Minerva might suffice as a vessel too. Who wouldn’t be proud of such a thing?
“I gotta tell ya,” she said softly. “I think you’re out of my league.”
“Oh no, love. It’s very much the other way around.”
It wasn’t the Slenderman who spoke this time; the voice was new. But it was one she readily recognized. She and the Slenderman turned as Caliban, Titania, Selene, and the man Minerva assumed must be the Seelie King, Avery, stepped out of the forest lining and into the clearing.
Minerva had no time to greet them, or to so much as acknowledge their arrival with a single word or gesture. There was not even a full second of space between the split moment that the four of them appeared – and the very next instant, in which the Slenderman evaporated into that incorporeal miasma of darkness again and sped toward her.
This time, he zapped past her shield like it wasn’t even there, making her wonder just for a heartbeat, why he’d bothered pretending it had stopped him the first time. And then he was inside her, and everything changed.
*****
“Nooooo!”
Caliban was jerked roughly to a stop, and he hadn’t even realized he’d been running. His arm was nearly yanked free of its socket as Avery grabbed him from behind, locking both arms in a fierce grip. Avery knew how to use his fae magic to aid in his strength; he was just that kind of man, preferring hand-to-hand combat over spells and subtlety.
In this case, it was fortunate for both of them. Caliban’s mind spun erroneously out of control, as before his eyes, Minerva changed.
Her eyes were closed; her head had tossed back when the entity entered her form. An unfelt breezed seemed to circle slowly around her, lifting her from the ground. Her already fair skin became even paler, and inch by inch, her silver blonde hair went from white to yellow to brown to black. The silver dress she wore did the same, switching shades one after another, until the gown hung from her in tattered draperies of pitch darkness.
At last, she opened her eyes, revealing that her indigo b
lue had been replaced with the color and vibrancy of coal.
Avery’s arms slid free of Caliban’s, releasing him. He was no longer struggling, but frozen in place, watching in helpless horror as the woman he loved was subjugated by a monster.
She smiled an unlikely smile and settled that dull black gaze upon Caliban. “As usual, the kings are too late.” Her voice was her own, but as dulled as her eyes, the fae beauty taken right out of it. “Do you have any idea how far behind you are? I’m so many steps ahead of you, I can no longer feel you on my trail.”
“Why don’t you enlighten us?” Avery asked. He seemed to be the only one of them capable of speech. Caliban was too busy. His mind was cut in half. Part of it was dying inside. The other part was feverishly scheming.
The Minerva entity tilted her head to one side and gave Avery an admonishing look. “Now, what fun would that be?”
“I wish you would get the hell out of my sister’s body,” Selene hissed at the entity through gritted teeth of rage.
A white light began to emanate from the air around Minerva, and for a moment, the entity’s power and Selene’s wish were nearly a visible aurora borealis, like ropes of electricity that struggled with one another.
Caliban held his breath. Would it really be so easy? Was all the planning he was doing in his head even necessary?
But then the electric ropes snapped, the aurora dissipated, the white light disappeared, and the entity laughed. Now its voice was different. It was deeper, and it echoed slightly. “Nice try. But all you’ve done is remind me how powerful my host is. Thank you for that.”
At once, a rush of hard power filled the clearing, slamming into Caliban and the others like a brick wall. He felt his body bruise in two dozen different places as the wind was knocked from his lungs, and his form went flying. For a split second, he wondered what he would slam into. And then he pulled himself together, used a bit of his power, and blinked out of the air to return to the entity.
This time, he reappeared standing behind Minerva, feet planted firmly, eyes burning so hot, they felt they were leaving scorch marks in his face.
“You’re right,” he told the entity – who spun around in the air to face him. “She is powerful. But that power comes at a price.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When he and Minerva had made love, their magic had mingled. She now possessed a part of his, and he a part of hers. He had no idea how long that would last, but it had lasted up to now, and that was all that mattered.
He used his share of her power then and there, pulling it all together in a mass of nearly combustible magic that swelled within his chest to the point of pain. And then, as he noticed his brother and the others approach once more behind the entity that now faced him, he muttered a single wish, making sure to word it just right.
“I wish that Minerva would now know fully the terrible destruction she caused in the Massacre Between Realms.”
Because he possessed a piece of her within himself, and because he simply knew his queen to the deepest levels, he knew that her immense Wisher power came at the price of immense empathy. The more you felt, the more you truly understood, and the more willing you were to fix what was wrong. This empathy was the fuel of Wisher power.
The problem was, there were so many things that could not be fixed, but were felt anyway. The mortal realm was full of them: countless battles, rapes, diseases, tortures, disasters.
Minerva was different from her sister. As the dark side of the moon, she was more powerful. That much was clear to Caliban now. She did not have to cast spells in vengeance to work her magic, nor did her more powerful magic contain itself in the time of her transformation. She would always be able to cast it, and it would always be strong.
But the empathy she felt for the worlds around her was part of the price she would continue to pay. And that was the part he was depending on now.
Long ago, humans believed that “possession” of a human by a demonic force could be cured by making the human vessel so uncomfortable, the demon would have no choice but to leave it. They would then torture the “possessed” human mercilessly, sometimes to the point of death. It was utter and sheer nonsense, of course, completely unnecessary, and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment for nothing. Torture, plain and simple. What humans at that time considered possession actually amounted to no more than physical sickness, fevers, mental illnesses, and in some cases, a misplaced desire for attention.
However, Caliban knew good and well that no entity with the desire to possess another being would ever stoop so low as to do so with a mortal. Hence, no human to date had ever actually been possessed, no matter what history had written down.
Still, humans happened to be right about one thing. It was a combination of lucky guessing and the simple human, psychopathic desire to cause suffering to another, but the fact was, they were right about needing to make the vessel uncomfortable.
Sometimes, even the psychopaths earned a win.
If Caliban’s wish worked, and Minerva suddenly knew the full extent of the damage she had caused when her power got away from her several nights ago, the entity that possessed her would suddenly be overrun with so much pain, it would suffer sensations it had never before suffered.
So he cast the spell and hoped.
The black in Minerva’s eyes retreated for a moment, and Caliban saw a hint of blue flame. His hope swelled.
But then she closed her eyes and a furrow appeared in her forehead. The breeze around her that lifted her up and blew through her hair, picked up in fury. The ground began to clear as debris tumbled and skittered away. The trees at the edge of the clearing rocked back and forth in strong agitation.
Cal felt something abrasive brush against his aura. It was painful and dark. Even darker than he was.
The wish was working, and the knowledge that Minerva was inside there somewhere, suffering pain that he’d given her, was cold and unforgiving. It gnawed at his insides, making them raw. But he didn’t stop there. Now was no time for any show of weakness. He pressed on with the second part of his plan.
For some reason, cold iron had no effect on Wishers, which was one of the many mysteries they’d never had a chance to figure out, because most Wish Fae had been destroyed long ago. However, while he’d been granted Wisher powers, Minerva had been saddled with those of a Tuath, and Tuath fae were very much affected by iron.
He didn’t have any of Minerva’s wish magic left, so Caliban used a bit of his own magic to contact his brother mentally.
We need iron. Now.
Avery didn’t bother responding. Instead, he nodded. Then he turned to his wife.
He must have spoken with her in the same manner, because Selene curled her hands into fists, and her ice blue eyes began to burn like Minerva’s. She squared the entity with a look of pure, searing hatred, and said, “I wish you were wrapped in iron chains.”
The chains appeared like whips in the air, tentacles of menacing metal, covered in cuffs and spikes of cruel, inescapable design. They floated on either side of the entity, flailing and glowing.
The entity looked from one side to the other, and real fear erupted on its features.
The chains struck like a living animal, fierce and terrible. They slammed into Minerva’s form, causing Caliban’s gut to clench so hard, he fell to one knee. They wrapped around her, just like the coils of a whip hugging tight, and Minerva’s flesh began to smoke.
She screamed, and a wail of unimaginable pain echoed through the Twixt. Cal’s heart skipped, stopped beating, and started back up again.
“Oh gods!” he bellowed. Avery once more held him back. Cal hadn’t even known he was struggling to reach her. He felt a wetness on his cheeks.
“Hold him!”
Someone else was there. Flashes of light erupted throughout the clearing. The smell of fae magic filled the night like star dust and witch’s brew. There was the sound of running, and there were more shouts.
But overriding it all lik
e the dying cry of a monstrous beast was the ear-splitting sound of the Unseelie Queen being cooked alive.
Caliban felt a hundred hands on him. Their grips bruised. He was even bleeding. He tasted it in his mouth, felt it on his upper lip. And then he looked up, to peer through the haze of blurry eyes, and watch one final, telling flash of light.
This one was black. Black light. It was unmistakable, and there would have been no other way to describe it. Minerva’s writhing, wailing, sizzling, screaming form finally flashed – like dark lightning.
And then she fell.
At once, the chains were gone. But not far from her still, fallen form, a miasma of evil churned and bubbled and stretched out, until it had once more assumed the shape of a sickeningly tall and thin man.
This man stepped forward from the shadows to stand over the unconscious Unseelie Queen. “A pity,” he said softly, in the most unnaturally normal voice. He shrugged. And sighed. “But it was worth a shot.”
Caliban watched as the thin man stepped back into the shadows – and vanished altogether.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cal crawled on hands and knees to his bride’s side. She lay prone, and so still, he wondered if she were breathing. A very large part of him was afraid to check. It didn’t dare check.
Her clothing had been singed and melted, and parts of it were obviously burned into her body. The smell of cooked meat permeated the space near her. Caliban heard crying, and realized that despite his pain, it wasn’t him.
It was Selene. He saw her in the periphery of his vision as she crashed onto her knees beside him.
“What have I done….” It was the softest, most desperate whisper.
But it was Caliban who had done this. It had been his idea. “Give me a blade,” he choked, his voice all gravel and pain. He’d saved his brother once by giving Avery his blood. Maybe it would work for Minerva, despite the fact that she was neither Tuath nor officially the queen. She had not yet mentally accepted her place at his side. She’d run from him.