“Solan.”
Amunet looked back up. Ahriman’s eyes were glowing a bright silver. It was the sharp edge of a killing blade drawn in the sun. It was a mirror, one to her own wrath.
“This is the Time King’s doing,” said the handsome and terrible man.
Amunet bared her white teeth. “Show me Cronos!” she screamed, stretching out her arms, her hands palms-up. The circle of blood burst into bright red flame; black smoke rose toward the ceiling in billowing clouds of death.
Amunet’s vision flashed, and within that flashing vision, she saw faces. Twelve of them, all beautiful.
When the vision ended, it ended with such ferocity, she was thrust forward. Her breathing was ragged. She closed her eyes and curled her hands into fists in the carpet. “He has taken Helena and hidden her beyond my sight.” Behind her closed lids, she felt her eyes heat up and knew they were as bright and hot white as her husband’s. “And like the coward he is, he’s gone with her.”
“What of the queens?” asked Ahriman. He was naturally concerned about the women. It was prophesied that only the Thirteen Queens would be capable of defeating a “great evil.” Amunet was under no false compunctions that the great evil in question referred to her and her family.
Hence, there had been an order to things, a “To Do” list, so to speak, upon awakening. Find her son. That was the first order of business. Find Helena and make certain she made the appropriate choices. That was second. And third was to kill the queens. Just in case.
But now Amunet was seeing her goals in a different order. “He has squirreled them all away like nuts for the winter,” she hissed. “He thinks to save them.”
There was a brief silence before Ahriman turned and left the now dead circle and made his way to the window of the large hotel suite. “Is that so?” he asked softly, more to himself than to her.
His magic had prevented the alarms from going off when the circle had caught on fire, and that same magic moved before him now as if it were a servant bowing and scraping to prepare his way. The window opened before he reached it, and a gentle breeze invaded in from the daylight outside.
Down below, Amunet could hear the traffic of the city moving to and fro like blood cells in the massive, shining veins of the living creature that was society.
“Then let us bring winter,” said Ahriman beautifully. “If we cannot go to the enemy, we shall make the enemy come to us.”
He raised his hand and flicked his wrist. The sounds of traffic came to an abrupt change. She heard the screeching of tires, and the crunch of metal on metal. Seconds passed, and the shift was made whole by the punctuating cacophony of human screams.
Amunet rose from her place within the circle and joined him at the window. She leaned over the sill to look down at the street; her body’s stature demanded she do so in order to achieve a good view. The hotel was on a block corner. The intersection below was a blocked artery at society’s heart, the disease of wreckage causing the blood flow to back up behind it. All around, humans milled and reacted like tiny white blood cells, trauma sending them skittering.
Vermin. That’s what they looked like to Amunet.
“Hurry back, Time King,” whispered Ahriman as he focused on a helicopter flying overhead. It was marked with a cross on its tail; a hospital chopper most likely ferrying a patient from one location to another for more intensive care. “Or the world you’re trying so hard to save won’t be worth saving.”
Ahriman flicked his wrist once more. His eyes flashed white, and the helicopter took a nose dive, its tail spinning wildly out of control. It spiraled downward, sending the human rats scurrying. At the very last second, the aircraft suddenly lifted out of its impending, disastrous dive.
But then it flipped upside down. And hovered in place, twenty feet above the street.
That was certain to get someone’s attention.
Beside her, Ahriman lowered his hand, then turned slightly and smiled down at her. “Freak accidents,” he said softly. “No one ever knows why they occur.”
She returned the smile, feeling genuinely better. The enemy had absconded with her flesh and blood and his fated queen and there was no way to reach them. But the traffic accident below would draw the authorities. And more importantly, the helicopter hovering upside down without explanation would then gain media attention.
Which would no doubt gain the attention of the Kings.
In turn, the Kings would know how to reach one of their own – William Balthazar Solan. Otherwise known as Cronos, the Time King.
And then Cronos would bring back their son. Helena would make their son whole. And finally, peace would come to the human realm. No woman would ever again know the agony of a man’s senseless lust and abuse. No families would ever again be torn apart by such a thing. No one would be taken, kidnapped, abducted and stolen away to be used again and again by callous, apathetic hands that tore and rendered and hurt.
There would be no abductors. There would be no families.
There would be no men.
In the end, Amunet and those she loved would see to it that justice was finally served. Fate would be done. Death would reign supreme once and for all.
“You always know how to cheer me up,” said Amunet softly as her own king laced an arm around her waist and drew her in close. Warmth and the scent of expensive cologne washed over her, and she sighed.
He tenderly kissed the top of her head. “Always.”
Chapter Thirty-five
“Come to me, little flame,” said the dark voice.
Pi awoke in a fire world, the small elemental confused. The fire bed he’d gone to sleep in felt different now. This… wasn’t his normal fire. This was wrong. Fire wasn’t supposed to burn.
There was something he needed to remember… something about shadows maybe….
But when he did remember only a moment later, it was already too late. The tiny elemental who had been friend and messenger to Kings and Queens, slowly stopped flickering and went completely still. There, at the center of a fire bed of blue conflagration, the elemental swayed like inanimate seaweed in the ocean’s dark.
As if exposed to the shifting filter of a camera’s lens, the elemental’s flame slowly turned from orange-red to a blue so deep, it was black at its core. The light from within it went out.
“That’s done,” said the voice. “Now dark flame, you will deliver a message for me.”
Pi was no longer Pi. But the dark flame served another purpose in its undead existence, and when its new master finished delivering his orders, Pi faded away to do his job.
The man who had so easily killed the elemental rose to his full height and gazed steadily into the dark blue flames of the shadow fire.
“I’m guessing the fire is cold, and that was what did the little guy in?” asked a woman from behind him.
“On the contrary,” the man replied easily, quietly. “Darkfire is very, very hot. It has to keep an entire Shadow Realm from freezing, after all.” He shook his head. “The fire destroyed him nearly at once. He was burned alive in his own element.”
He knew all about the Darkfire that kept the Shadow Realm from destruction. It was how he’d known to steal a bit of it now for his purposes. It was one of the few things that could kill an elemental. Contrary to logic, water did nothing to fire elementals. Neither did cold nor wind nor even earth. They might temporarily snuff it out, but the end result was akin to transporting them against their will. They would only re-form somewhere more fitting. No natural element could alter another; they were separate, but eternal. It took the unnatural to do what he’d done.
He turned to face his companions. There were two.
One was a tall man with black hair and black eyes, a strong jaw, five-o-clock shadow, and an expensive dark suit. The other was an adorable petite blonde woman with shoulder-length curls and honey colored eyes. Freckles dotted her nose and cheeks.
The woman smiled proudly at him from where she sat nearby on the arm of th
e leather couch in the hotel sitting room. “Now we wait,” she said.
The tall dark man in the suit, whose ancient name was Ahriman but who’d been known by his enemies as the Entity, addressed them both as he moved to join the woman and slipped an arm around her tiny waist. He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead and then turned his attention on him. “On another note, it looks as though fate has dealt you a healthy hand in your second incarnation. I’m impressed.”
The woman chuckled. Her name had always been Amunet. That was the thing about these two Travelers. Their names never changed. They were simply that old, that powerful. They had long ago learned to control what species of form they were reborn into, and now names held little meaning for them as well. The only reason Amunet’s sister’s name had ever changed when she was reformed was because the old witch liked trying new things.
“It’s our second son’s spirit shining through,” Amunet said proudly, beaming. She looked over at him as well. “We chose well in you.”
The man who had once been Arach the king of dragons, then the Traitor, then the Nomad vampire, pondered that. He felt strange in this second incarnation, truth be told. There was very real, very ancient power swimming primordially through his body. And there were even physical details that were identical to his last transformation. But some things felt very different, too.
There were thoughts and memories swimming through the seas of his mind that fought to rise to the surface. He caught vague impressions of them, dark leviathans beneath the water’s surface. But he couldn’t quite force them to emerge.
Not that it bothered him enough to stop him from doing his job.
Amunet shook her head, grinning appreciatively. “Ahriman is right. You should have no troubles finding a worthy mate dressed in that skin.” She tilted her head to the side and asked, “What is your vessel’s name this time around?”
In response, the man smiled a brilliant white smile that was just as sharp and deadly as it had always been. “Abel,” he replied coolly. And that was the strangest thing of all. Because despite his past incarnations, he could swear that’s what his name had always been.
Chapter Thirty-six
Thanatos the Phantom King had been back in his realm for several hours, by mortal standards. Time moved differently on the Phantom plane, otherwise known as Purgatory. It stretched out to accommodate the never-ending arrivals of spirits of those who had died unnatural deaths. Those spirits were called Anime, and it was Thane’s job to process them.
It was a job he’d had since the invention of murder and in all honesty he was now pretty sure that he sucked at it. He was pretty sure he’d always sucked at it. The true leader of his realm, the one who had actually been good at this job was his wife, his best friend, his Queen. Siobhan.
And she wasn’t here.
It took a certain amount of empathy and patience to calm a restless spirit and send them on their way. Until Siobhan had entered his life, Thane had simply assumed that Purgatory was meant to hold Anime and that this was their natural habitat. You die an unpleasant death? You get sent here. End of story.
But Siobhan had been dealing with these deaths and those who’d suffered them for some time now. And the fact was, no one was supposed to exist in Purgatory. It was a place of transition, of reconciliation, where spirits went to figure things out. And then they were supposed to move along. Purgatory was meant to be a fork in the road and not the road’s destination. He knew that now.
For thousands of years, millions, Thanatos had simply “welcomed” in the wronged and told them to make themselves comfortable. But then Siobhan had come along and shown the spirits a depth of empathy and kindness that had pretty much blown Thane away. And rather than remain here in Purgatory, the spirits she interacted with continued to wherever it was they truly belonged.
He'd been doing it wrong all this time.
And now that she was gone again, he was sure to fuck things up just like before. There was an enormous part of him that wanted to take a hiatus. He wanted to put a “Gone Fishing” sign on his proverbial door and let the spirits back up until Siobhan was there to deal with them properly. The Queen of this realm was so much more adept than the King, it was ridiculous.
He was lost without her. And everyone else was too.
But he knew that if he waited, the dead really would back up. They would amass like an army just outside the gates to his realm, and he would never catch up. While they waited, they would suffer confusion and pain. The wounds they sustained in life would continue to bleed, so to speak. There would be no peace for them, not in their hearts nor in their minds.
So he would just have to do his best.
Thanatos ran a hard hand through his pitch hair and prepared to let the next one in. The last dozen had consisted of four victims of rape and murder as an act of war, three children and two otherwise healthy adults who’d fallen to the effects of a flu epidemic, and three “soldiers” under the age of fifteen. Death was as impartial as ever… but the flu was worse than usual this time around.
He mulled that over a bit as the next Anime materialized before him in his garage. This was where he always met the newly dead because this was where he was most comfortable. Here, he was surrounded by the vehicles he’d rescued from the annals of plane, train, and automobile crashes over the years. Here, he felt he was making a difference. Saving someone. Or something, anyway. Now he wondered whether he’d always preferred it here because it was actually the only difference he really was making. These really were the only things he was saving.
The Anime wavered and then solidified. Sort of.
“Pi?” Thane asked incredulously, taking a knee beside the tiny flame. It was see-through, but aside from this difference, the small elemental looked as it always had. Like a piece of fire brought to life.
“My lord!” said Pi respectfully. He greeted all of the kings this way when he appeared in their hearths. But Thane felt a yawning pain in his chest at the sight of the little guy here in his realm. Because it could only mean one thing.
“Pi… what happened?” he asked softly, bewildered.
“I’m so sorry my lord. I had no time to react before the Darkfire burned away my life force. Now my mortal body, such that it is, is working for the Triad. It’s off to deliver a message to one of them right now!”
“What is the message?” asked Thane, his attention at once focused.
“I don’t know,” said Pi, and the little see-through flame seemed to shake its head. “I was only around long enough to hear one of them say he had a message he wanted delivered. And then… I was here.”
The elemental appeared to look around at his surroundings, and though Thane immediately wanted to leave and rally the forces – the Triad was awake and on the offensive – his heart panged for the flame that had been friend to so many of the sovereigns of the Thirteen Realms.
“So, this is where we go, huh?” asked Pi softly.
Thane shook his head. “No, Pi. You need to move on to the Origin Plane. There, you may be reborn.” The Origin Plane was where all elementals were born. It was also where they went when they died.
Pi seemed to perk up at this news. “You mean like the Nomads?”
No, thought Thane. You won’t remember who you are. You’ll just start over as someone else. He wanted to lie. He wanted to assure Pi that everything was okay. That it was fair. That all you worked for and earned and grew to love in your lifetime actually meant something. But that just wasn’t the way it was. “No,” he finally said with a single shake of his head. “Not like the Nomads.”
Pi hesitated. The dancing of his flicker slowed. “You mean I won’t be me anymore, don’t you?”
Pi was a very young elemental as elementals went. They aged so very slowly. Time moved differently for the rocks and the wind. But even as young as he was, he was quick. He always had been.
“I’m sorry,” said Thane softly. He meant it with all of his heart.
“Can I stay here?” Pi aske
d, just as softly.
There was no way Thane could turn down a request for asylum from an Anime. And he wouldn’t have refused his friend anyway. “Of course, little one.” Thane rose and held out his hand, gazing steadily into it as his wife, a practiced warlock, had taught him to do. A small fire appeared several inches above his palm and remained there, burning without any visible fuel source. That was magic.
“Hop on,” he told the little flame.
Pi crackled excitedly and popped out of existence where he’d been floating to reappear bouncing restlessly in Thane’s hand.
“You can stay in the kitchen hearth until I find a place more suitable for you,” he told the elemental as he left the garage through the kitchen door and made his way to the fireplace that divided the kitchen from the dining and living room beyond. It was a simple design and a simple house with few decorations. He and Siobhan liked it that way.
Thane waved a hand at the fireplace, which was not currently burning. It leapt to fiery life with fresh crackling flames, and Pi once again vanished. It took a moment for him to get acclimated in the new fire, but once he did, he came to the forefront of the conflagration and Thane could swear he was smiling. “Thank you my lord!”
“Pi,” Thane said as he once again knelt beside the little flame and grew serious. “You can stay as long as you like, and this kingdom is vast. Fires burn in various places throughout, and now that you are an Anime, you will naturally be able to locate them all. But… you cannot leave here.” He shook his head. “Your form will dissipate and be lost forever the moment you try.”
It was several seconds before Pi responded, but his tone was not the dejected sound Thane had expected to hear. Instead, it was upbeat and grateful. “I know!” he said, bouncing to and fro. “Now go! I don’t know what message my dark flame is supposed to deliver, but I’m positive it isn’t good!”
Thane stood and hid a smile. He had been deeply saddened by Pi’s sudden passing. He’d been missing him before the little flame was even gone. But now it appeared he wasn’t gone after all. And it made him wonder… if anyone ever really was.