“We were trying to avoid using the seals. Are they certain this is a good idea?” Menolly said.
“I have no idea. I don’t seem to know anything anymore.”
“Are you sure the idea will fail?” Chase asked. “I’m not trying to make waves, but maybe they’re right?”
“How should I know? They aren’t going to tell us every detail, I could see that right off.” I paused, catching my breath. “Sorry, I’m just a little on edge. The problem is we don’t know if this will work. That’s why I want to talk to Grandmother Coyote. My instinct is screaming that it’s going to upset the balance even further, but I want her take on it. Maybe I’m just paranoid.”
“But suppose the plan backfires and makes them stronger? There are too many potential disasters here,” Menolly said.
Morio played with his cup of tea, tapping the china lightly with one fingernail. “I think they’ve miscalculated the power of the demons. Think about it,” he said when we looked at him quizzically. “They’re just coming off a successful war. Both of them are feeling strong and victorious. Suppose it’s gone to their heads?”
Delilah coughed. “Somehow the thought of a win going to Queen Asteria’s head like that seems ludicrous, but I suppose even she is fallible.”
Trillian cleared his throat. “There’s another possibility. Suppose they’re afraid of the newly risen Fae Courts and are worried that the Triple Threat might join forces with the demons? Or even that you three might join forces with the Triple Threat? You’ll notice that neither Titania nor Aeval was invited to their little tête-à-tête. Or Morgaine, for that matter.”
I stared at him. “You really think they’re afraid we might start handing the seals over to the Earthside Fae Courts?”
“What better way to ensure that you continue taking them back to Otherworld than to invent an even greater need for Asteria to possess them?”
“Then you think this is a ruse?”
He hesitated for a moment, thinking, then shook his head. “No, I don’t. I think they believe what they say. But, like you—I feel it’s a double-edged sword. However, I don’t dare say anything. Svartalfheim is still suspect in Otherworld since we uprooted the city and ran out of the Sub Realms. There’s too much to lose by openly questioning their motives. And if I go to King Vodox with my concerns, he’d know about the spirit seals and that’s something you really don’t want happening.”
“He makes a point,” Rozurial said. “With the revelation that you girls are related to Morgaine, perhaps their fear has grown stronger.”
“But our father is related to her, too—” I stopped. “Oh. Do you think that’s why Tanaquar is sleeping with him? To keep tabs on him and, by doing so, find out what we’re up to?”
“Tanaquar did whatever she had to in order to win the war against her sister. Blood ties aren’t sacred to her. You can be sure if she had Lethesanar in custody, the Opium Eater would lose her head before she could blink. With the Fae Queens of Earthside reigning over their courts again, it potentially jeopardizes Tanaquar’s sole reign as the Queen of Fae.”
“But what about Queen Asteria? Is Tanaquar afraid of her?” Delilah asked.
“No,” Trillian said. “Asteria’s not the threat—she’s the Elfin Queen and the elves and Fae don’t play in each other’s sandboxes. But consider this: We have three newly crowned monarchs over here. What do you suppose would happen if Tanaquar’s people decided they want to go back to the old system—the Seelie and Unseelie courts—that was in place before the Great Divide?” Trillian finished his soup and pushed back his plate.
“But that’s ridiculous. She has no reason to worry,” Delilah said, starting to clear the table.
“I’ll get the dishes, girl. You have enough to think about tonight,” Iris said, taking the plates from her.
Vanzir leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “No, it’s not ridiculous. Trillian’s right. The more authority a leader has, the more fearful they grow of losing it. Don’t forget the amount of power it took to rip apart the worlds. The Fae lords behind the decision sure as hell aren’t going to want to face the newly empowered Titania and Aeval, and they certainly won’t be welcoming Morgaine to the mix. Remember, they dethroned them, stripped Titania of her sanity, and turned Aeval into a popsicle. That sort of diplomacy isn’t easily forgotten. Suppose they’re afraid that Titania and Aeval want to repay them in kind?”
The Great Divide had been a chaotic, bloody, world-shaking event. While little was remembered among humankind—what records there were had been destroyed—Fae on both sides remembered it clearly, though from different vantage points. Aeval, Titania, and Morgaine held little love for anyone who’d had a hand in the eons-old war.
“Enough talk,” Menolly said. “We don’t even know where the next seal is, and there’s nothing we can do tonight about this new change in plans. Meanwhile, we have a cemetery full of undead waiting for us.”
I reluctantly pushed myself out of my chair. The rain was pounding harder than ever and it was going to be cold, muddy, and nasty out there. “Why don’t you go talk to Wilbur while we gather up the supplies?”
“Good girl. I’ll be back with our boy in ten minutes.” Menolly slipped out the door as the rest of us set about gathering everything we needed for the fight. Or at least, everything we could think of.
Morio stuffed Rodney in his bag and I grimaced. “No. Please tell me you’re not bringing him.”
“Sorry, babe, but we might be able to use him.” He gave me a quick kiss. “Cheer up. If he gets too obnoxious we can feed him to the zombies.”
I rolled my eyes. I might be a priestess now—something I’d wanted all my life—but this was turning out to be the worst September I’d had in ages. And listening to Rodney’s crass standup routine was the last thing I needed tonight.
Wilbur, who looked like a defunct member of ZZ Top and smelled like he hadn’t touched a bar of soap in a month, agreed to come along. When I found out, I suggested taking two cars.
“There are too many of us to comfortably fit in even Chase’s behemoth SUV.” At least, that was my story and I was sticking to it. I made sure that Wilbur traveled with Chase, not in our car.
By the time we pulled in to the Wedgewood Cemetery, it was pitch-dark. While the Moon was just past full, the clouds were so thick they obscured even the faintest glimmer of her light.
The rain was blowing horizontally, whipped sideways by the wind. I pulled my capelet close around my shoulders. The unicorn horn was home, in a safe place along with the cloak. Sacrificing the Black Unicorn had drained it of every single ounce of energy and I wouldn’t be able to charge it until the next new Moon. I didn’t like separating the cloak from the horn. It just seemed wrong.
Delilah and Menolly flanked me as we headed in. Wilbur followed, Trillian and Morio on either side. Rozurial, Vanzir, and Chase brought up the rear. As we approached the gates of the lighted graveyard, the first thing I noticed was that a number of the lovely old lamppost lights had been broken. It seemed the living dead weren’t too keen on sunshine or lamplight.
“Can you feel it?” Menolly asked, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Feel what?”
“The dead are walking.” Her eyes narrowed and turned bloodred, and when she smiled, her fangs were showing. “Nasty dead. Not vampires, not the dead who think, but zombies and other creatures that exist to kill and devour. I can sense them, like a hive of droning insects with no thoughts of their own.”
I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes, reaching out. And there they were, just as she’d said. A mass of squirming maggots, a swarm of ants, hungry—looking to feed. And there was something else. Something behind the energy, almost like . . . Shivering, I opened my eyes.
“They’re in the older part of the cemetery. But behind them, the magical signature of the energy—it’s demonic. I sense Demonkin at work here.”
Wilbur spoke up. “I can sense the dead underground, too, the ones who haven’t been touched by the magic yet. If we don’t do something, they will rise. Someone cast one bitch of a spell here, and it’s not just aimed toward specific graves. Whoever’s behind this is using a conduit of energy—like feeding medicine into an IV drip.”
“Shit,” Delilah said. “The ley line.”
I stared at her. “Stacia Bonecrusher. Ten to one it’s her. She’s feeding her magic directly into the ley line that runs through the Wedgewood Cemetery. The line connects to Harold Young’s house—or the remains of it and that’s where we found the goshanti devil. The line also connects to the Wayfarer where the portal is, and to two rogue portals. And if she’s messing around with the ley line, then—”
“She might be able to fuck up the portals.” Delilah paled. “What if she’s got the third spirit seal? The one Karvanak stole from us? Wouldn’t it increase her powers and let her make a shambles of things?”
“Holy crap!” Menolly whirled around. “Could she be trying to use the ley line to rip them open or twist them so that they open into the Sub Realms?”
“Who knows what the hell she’s up to?” I stared bitterly at the headstones before heading for the older part of the cemetery. The others followed. “We have to disrupt this Halloween party of hers and then figure out how to put the kibosh on her ability to access the ley line. Right now, it seems like she’s experimenting to see just what she can do, but it won’t be long before she branches out.”
As we came to the iron gates cordoning off the oldest graves, Menolly stepped forward to open them. Iron still bothered her, but she would heal from it a lot faster than Delilah and I could hope to. She swung the gates open, her hands singeing from the burn of the metal, and we darted through.
And there we found them—the living dead. There were at least twenty of them, wandering around like the random monsters on a Diablo game. Joy of joys. Most were bone-walkers—bare skeletons. A few were mummified bodies. But all of them were searching for victims. Baleful lights filled their eye sockets. As I gazed at them, I felt unaccountably sad. They’d led their lives; they went to their ancestors; they should be left to rest.
I suddenly understood Chase’s repulsion to my suggestion. But I also knew that the souls that had inhabited these bodies weren’t here. We were fighting shells. Dangerous shells, yes. But nonetheless, they were mere husks. It would have been worse if they’d been possessed while still alive and in their bodies.
Wilbur and Morio stepped to the front, and Morio took my hand. Delilah and Menolly edged back to let us have room for our spell casting.
The rain cascaded down, plastering my hair to my head, streaking my face and chilling me to the bone. A bolt of lightning crashed overhead as the dance of the storm played from cloud bank to cloud bank, thunder rumbling so ominously that my teeth chattered.
Morio closed his eyes and I could feel him summoning the dark power. The power of the grave. I fell into synch with his breathing, and as he began to chant I focused the power he was building.
“Return to dust, return to the grave, return to the night, return to the earth, return to the depths, return to the Mother, return to the womb . . .”
Wilbur fell into a cadence with him and held up his hands, palms facing the wandering group of bone-walkers. A chill ran down my spine. Just by the tone of his voice I could tell he was more powerful than either Morio or me. FBH or not, this man knew his magic and it had changed him. A gray-green energy flared in his aura, creating a nimbus of power around him, and he began to gather it, sucking it in through his breath, focusing it out through his hands, aiming it toward the skeletons.
“Dust to dust, return to the ground, cease your wandering, strip life from that which has no life, return to decay . . .”
I blinked, sinking into the energy, ignoring the droplets that trickled down the back of my neck. The compulsion to move was strong, and I began to stride forward, a trail of energy linking me to Morio.
One of the skeletons came at me and I held up my hand. A brilliant light shot out of my palm, hitting the skeleton and engulfing it in flames of purple. The creature opened its mouth and shrieked, then fell, clattering into a pile of old bones. Morio walked behind me—I could feel him in my wake.
Wilbur was doing something. What, I couldn’t see. I was focused on directing the energy that Morio and I’d invoked between ourselves. But I heard another shriek and it wasn’t my doing. I flashed my hands again, and again the purple light engulfed two more skeletons. They fell into dust. And then, Morio shouted, breaking the energy.
Whirling around, I saw that he was being attacked by a zombie. He let out a low growl and began to shift into his demonic form. I glanced around, quickly ascertaining my position. I was in a battlefield of living bones and had incoming on the left—a pair of the bone-walkers was headed my way. I scrambled for the dagger I kept strapped to my thigh.
At that point, Wilbur shouted and I glanced in his direction. He, too, had been taken by surprise. A zombie trundled out from behind a nearby bush, attacking him from the rear.
At that moment, Delilah leapt into the fray, leading the others, her dagger, Lysanthra, raised high. The blade was singing her name, singing her battle cry. And then Menolly raced past me, bowling over one of the skeletons as she ramrodded it to the ground, skidding in the wet grass.
And the fray was on.
CHAPTER 18
