“Very good,” Mercedes said, once she’d handed Rand his three squares and she clutched the remaining four. “I believe you both know what to do next?”
I glanced at Rand as I remembered the previous two occasions on which we’d reanimated creatures of the Underworld. Yep, I knew what to do now, and it was the hardest part of the whole process.
“Focus, focus, and then focus some more,” I muttered. Rand chuckled and I glanced up at him.
You’ll do fine. Don’t worry, Jolie.
I didn’t have the chance to respond before Mercedes took my hand and Rand’s and then closed her eyes. I allowed myself one more drawn-out look at Rand then followed suit.
“Yes, focus,” Mercedes began. “Empty your thoughts and try to concentrate on the emptiness within your mind, on nothing.”
I tried but focusing on nothing is basically impossible—well, for my mind anyway. In fact, I was concentrating on the blackness of a void when remnants of my conversation with Christa and her sexual issues started sneaking into my head—images of furry, leopard handcuffs punctuated my thoughts until I wanted to scream. I clenched my eyes even tighter and instead was met with the image of John dressed like a pirate and muttering “Aye, where be the warmin’ liquid?”
“I can’t do this!” I opened my eyes in an instant, hoping I hadn’t been permanently blinded by the images in my mind’s eye.
“Jolie.” Mercedes’ tone was that of a teacher reprimanding an unruly child.
“Focusing on nothing is just dumb,” I spat out, afraid to close my eyes again lest the sexual pirate John make another appearance.
“Let me try,” Rand said to Mercedes. Not waiting for her response, he pulled my other hand from hers. He faced me and, taking both my hands in his, smiled down at me. “Close your eyes.”
I did and felt like I wanted to cry, I was so overwhelmed with the need to tell him I was the woman with whom he’d bonded. It suddenly seemed like a very good idea—maybe Christa had been right when she said he’d be happy to know the love of his life had been me all along. In fact, maybe he’d be so thrilled, we could put this monarchy stuff behind us.
“Focus with me, Jolie,” he whispered and began massaging my hands with his much larger ones. His energy seemed to reverberate through me, encompassing me in a cocoon of power. “You’re surrounded by darkness—night is all around you. Picture that darkness, Jolie. It’s limitless. You can’t see where it begins or where it ends.”
Rand’s voice flowed through me, seeming to reach out to every molecule of my body and soothe me, blanketing me with his calming baritone. And suddenly I could see the darkness, I was enveloped by it. I felt Rand shift and my hand was engulfed in Mercedes’ much smaller one. Her power rippled up my arm. With Rand’s on the other side, I felt like the middle of a power sandwich.
Then I heard something faint—the smallest sound of chinking metal against metal. I opened my eyes. I was still surrounded by darkness, only the moon’s glow showing me that I was in the midst of a battle. All around me creatures fought—the sounds of their screaming and cries of pain thick in my ears. Beyond me stretched flat grassland, for miles, with only a few groves of trees interrupting the otherwise monotonous green. On my left side, I noticed a few enormous stones, some standing and some on their sides. Beyond them were small rocks piled high atop one another. There were rows and rows of them, creating circular patterns that I immediately recognized as the Clava Cairns—the Scottish burial mounds.
We were in Scotland, then, near the battlefield of Culloden, fighting against Bella. I glanced around me in shock, suddenly worried I might be in the line of fire. Then I remembered that in this altered state of reality, I was a ghost; nothing could hurt me.
Recalling that I was here to find the ten people whom we were to be reanimating first, I glanced over both of my shoulders, wondering where the hell Mercedes was. Rand never seemed to be able to transport himself whenever I went on one of these reanimation excursions, so it wasn’t a big surprise that he was absent.
But I was surprised that I didn’t see Mercedes anywhere. I glanced down and noticed I was clutching all ten scraps of fabric in my right hand. I didn’t remember Rand or Mercedes transferring them to me—not that it mattered now. Obviously I was on this mission alone.
Before I could think another thought, it was as if some unseen force suddenly pushed me forward. I found myself walking, then running straight ahead, aiming for two men who were thick in the heat of battle. One was a were, and I could feel his ability to shift radiating off him. The other was a vamp. The were was fighting a losing battle against the vamp and I could see his skin beginning to ripple—he was preparing to shift.
My palm started to burn. When I glanced down, a dark green piece of cloth had begun to tremble as if there were a tiny creature burrowing underneath it. I watched as a light built from underneath the fabric until it engulfed the entire square.
The dark green material began to roll into itself like one of those fortune-reading fish and I realized it was singling itself out—it had been the object that pulled me toward these two men. And that was when it dawned on me that one of these men was about to die and I had to intervene in order to bring him back to life. I just had to figure out which one …
No sooner did the thought cross my mind than the vamp lunged at the were before the were had the chance to shape-shift. The vamp caught the weaker man in the throat with fangs that glinted in the moonlight. I felt myself lurch forward, and just as the vamp tore away from the were, flesh hanging from his teeth as blood pulsed from the open wound, I grabbed the were’s hand. And instantly he was gone.
As soon as I made contact and the were disappeared, I felt something ricochet through me, something that felt like my magic separating from me. I fell back and hit the ground, panting as my heartbeat raced in my chest. This had never before happened when I’d attempted to reanimate someone—it was like touching an electric fence, almost as if my magic had misfired. But if that were the case, where had the were gone?
I glanced around, realizing that all of the swatches of fabric littered the earth beneath me. Suddenly afraid the vamp might attack me, I jerked my neck up but then remembered I wasn’t really there and was, therefore, safe. The vamp glanced down at the ground beside me and then turned around and disappeared into the throng of fighting soldiers. He didn’t act as though he’d just watched his enemy disappear in front of him, so I had to imagine that in his parallel universe, the body of the were was still lying in the blood-soaked earth.
I forced myself to my knees, trying to shake off the headache that nagged at me. I grabbed the pieces of cloth I’d dropped on the ground and stood up, waiting for the next piece of cloth to lead me to my next creature, all the while still wondering if my first attempt had been successful.
I didn’t have to wait long. A piece of pink cloth began to quiver while a dull, pinkish glow emanated from it. I felt compelled to turn to my right so I allowed my feet to follow, to bring me through the throng of fighting soldiers. Once on the other side, my eyes immediately fell upon a woman, a fairy, who was on the ground, battling a creature I had little experience with—a demon. It had the body of a man but a long red tail extended from its backside … like a coiled snake ready to bite, the barbs in the tail had embedded themselves in the fairy woman’s thigh as she wailed in pain.
The creature had her pinned on her stomach, its gargantuan mouth biting into the nape of her neck as she begged for release and blood soaked the dirt beneath her. The demon ripped its barbed tail from her thigh and reeled it around like a fishing line, only to embed it into the fairy’s side. The woman yelped in agony before collapsing, just as the demon prevented her from falling against the ground by wrapping his arm around her middle. With one hand, the creature fondled her breasts and I realized the bastard planned on raping her before killing her.
So I did what any woman would do—I ran full bore at the demon and kicked him in his gut. And of course, it didn’t faze the d
emon at all because I was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. Instead I just flew right through the demon and landed on my ass. That was when the ugly realization dawned on me—I might have to witness this creature having its way with the woman before it killed her. After all, the only window I had to reanimate her was at the point of her death. And that reality sickened me.
I stood up and turned around to face the demon as I watched Odran hurl himself into the creature, prying it off the fairy woman with a roar that would scare Satan himself. Odran then lifted the demon above his head WWF style and threw the ugly bastard about ten feet into the air. Then, bringing his hands out in front of him, Odran magicked a lance in a split second. In a flash the demon hit the ground and Odran wasted no time impaling the demon with the lance, straight into its gut. The creature groaned as a forked tongue snaked out of its mouth; then it collapsed in a dead heap at Odran’s feet.
When Odran and I turned to the fairy woman to see if she was all right, she was already dying. Why, I had no idea, but her eyes had gone slack and I could see the pulse in her throat slowing. I had to wonder if the barbs on the demon’s tail were poisonous—or maybe just poisonous to the fae. But at the moment I couldn’t be concerned with poisonous barbs. I did what I’d been trained to do and dived down, touching her just as Odran lifted her into his colossal arms. And she disappeared.
And the same exact feeling of electricity pounced through me as soon as I made contact with her. Only now it was accompanied by a sense of weakness, of exhaustion. I leaned over and panted, bracing myself against the ground on all fours. I felt like I’d just sprinted at top speed. I felt like I was going to throw up.
I pushed the feeling aside and rolled onto my butt, forcing myself to sit up. Whatever the hell was wrong with me, I had more creatures to reanimate, eight as a matter of fact. And how I was going to get through eight more was beyond me.
After what felt like an eternity, I was left with one scrap of fabric in my hand and one creature left to reanimate. I’d already reanimated four weres, the fairy woman, three vamps (which was a curious subject because I’d never been sure that the undead could be reanimated considering they weren’t alive to begin with), and one witch. And to say I was tired was an understatement. With each reanimation, the feeling of electricity coursing through me was stronger, and after each session I was left weaker. Yet I had no choice but to continue forward, to get through the list of ten.
I took a deep breath and glanced down at the final piece of black cloth in my hand. It glimmered into a subtle glow and vibrated as I allowed it to lead me to my final rescue for the day. That was when I made the mistake of glancing to my right and seeing … myself. It was like I was having an out-of-body experience as I just stood there, watching myself. I glanced down at my legs as if to make sure I was still standing there and not some ethereal being, but no, I was still me, still corporeal.
I couldn’t say I heard or felt anything at that moment. Instead I thought I was mired in quicksand, unable to pull myself away from the visual unfolding before me. Gwynn, wearing an expression of agony mixed with pure rage since I’d just cremated her lover and creator, Ryder, pulled back her arm and rammed her blade into my gut. I watched myself fall as my gaze moved down my body to the hilt of the dagger. My eyes revealed only disbelief.
Sinjin stood by my feet and in an instant he was on Gwynn, ripping her head off, not even watching as she exploded into dust before him. Instead his eyes were riveted on me with an expression on his face I’d never seen before—something that looked like terror.
Mercedes was also there, standing next to Rand. But all I could focus on was Rand—as he held me and tears bled from his eyes, Rand crooning to me and begging me not to die.
But I did die—I knew it now as well as I’d known it then. And watching yourself die is the most macabre, bizarre feeling in the world. I literally just slouched in Rand’s arms as he dropped his head against mine and sobs racked his entire body.
I watched Mercedes lean down, place her hand on my forehead, and close her eyes. Instantly my eyes blinked open, wide with confusion and panic. My chest rose as the breath of life filled my lungs. But I couldn’t even focus on myself, not when the smile on Rand’s face was the most glorious, beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
After watching myself die and Mercedes bring me back to life again, I somehow managed to seek out the last creature on the list, a witch, and brought her back to life, albeit absentmindedly. I mean, I was still reeling over the fact that I’d just witnessed my own death and was sort of in a haze.
Then I observed a bright flash of light followed by a moment or two of total darkness. I must have passed out because the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground outside, my face and cheek up close and personal with the rough dirt. I rolled over to find Rand and Mercedes leaning over me with concerned expressions while the ten recently reanimated creatures looked on in what appeared to be shock, something we had in common.
Surprisingly, I had managed to reanimate all ten creatures in one day, and I’d never felt worse. I was exhausted, but more than that, I still felt nauseous. When I asked Mercedes where in the hell she’d been during the reanimations, she’d replied rather dismissively that this was my gift, not hers … WTF?
Of course, I was quick to point out the fact that she’d played the part of the Energizer Bunny well enough when I died on the battlefield and she subsequently brought me back to life. Her reply? Reanimating me had only been possible because I was part of the equation—I had to wonder if that meant that if I had been someone else, I’d be pushing up daisies right about now.
Well, I’d just been through hell and back so I didn’t feel like arguing or digging any deeper into a subject she clearly had no interest in pursuing, so I left it at that. Thinking I definitely deserved the night off, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to learn that Mercedes had arranged for my first lesson as Queen to begin that same evening!
Worst of all, my first lesson was ballroom dancing (by default due to the fact that my other tutors weren’t available on such short notice) … blah, blah, and blah again. If I could be described in one word, it would be clumsy, so I was looking forward to this lesson about as much as a stick in my eye.
Mercedes took exactly two minutes to introduce me to my instructor, Herr Strauss. Then she promptly disappeared, saying she needed to leave me to my lessons. Really, I think she just wanted to escape Herr Strauss because he appeared to be as interesting as a wall.
“Ven you are dancing zee Valtz, you must feel zee Valtz, taste zee Valtz, and zee zee Valtz in order to love zee Valtz, yah?”
My instructor (who must have been German or maybe Austrian) had the physique of a flagpole with long, skinny legs and arms; his posture was just as rigid. He was a were but unlike most weres, he wasn’t at all burly and his skin was so translucent white he looked like he could be the descendant of a turnip. His hair looked like white straw and matched the white of his trimmed mustache to a T. He looked like a praying mantis someone had doused in flour.
“Come zen,” he said, holding out his long, scarecrow arms, motioning for me to come closer, as I responded by taking a step backward.
We were in Rand’s ballroom—yes, Pelham Manor had a ballroom, though this was the first time I’d ever been inside it. The floors were dark oak with cream-colored walls. Floor-to-ceiling windows boasted panoramic vistas that included a grove of elm trees bisected by a running creek. A carpet of bluebells decorated the grass, making it seem as though you were viewing some exquisite painting rather than the grounds of Pelham Manor. Inside the room, crown molding accessorized the junction of the walls and the ceiling; suspended from the center of the ceiling was the most ornate chandelier I’ve ever seen, its prismatic crystals reflecting rainbows all around the room.
“Like zis,” my praying mantis partner said, holding his stick-insect arms out before him as if he were blindly groping for a light switch.
I held my right arm like I was pretending to hug a tre
e and put my left arm directly in front of me, which I’m sure made me look like I was about to pull a Matrix move on him, Keanu Reeves style. The praying mantis scrunched up his face in what appeared to be disgust and dropped his elegantly draped arms down to aid my less-than-elegant ones.
“Zis and zis,” he said as he angled my arms appropriately. “Zen you follow mine steps like a box. A one ztep, a du ztep, a tree ztep, and four!” With that he whizzed around me, his feet in a perfect box step while I just observed in wonder.
“Now you,” he said. I tried my best to imitate him but as soon as I saw scrunchy face number two, I realized I’d failed.
Master Strauss didn’t get the chance to lambaste me further because we were interrupted by the sound of deep chuckling and clapping. We both turned to face the source. I frowned as I saw Sinjin emerge from the doorway, a smile of amusement lighting his handsome face.
“That is no way to teach a lady to dance,” he said, arching a brow at the stick insect who merely “harumphed” in response. Sinjin strode right past him until he stood directly before me.
“My Queen,” he said with a lascivious smile. With a quick bow he took my left hand in his and pulled me in so close, my stomach touched his groin. Then, as if the fact that my stomach against his groin was of no consequence to him, he laid the palm of his other hand flat onto the small of my back. He glanced down at me and winked before facing Herr Strauss again.
“You must hold her closely enough that she can feel your body tightly against her so that she may copy your moves.” Sinjin dropped his attention to me, and his eyes were piercing as he gazed down at me. “You must glide with her, become one with her.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t help it.
“Zir, I have been teaching zee Valtz for zirty years,” Herr Strauss spat out, his eyes livid as he folded his tree-branch arms across his prepubescent chest.