A Mermaid's Ransom (35 page)

Twenty-eight

"PROTECTORS of the Fen.
You're sure that's what they said?"

Lex nodded mutely. They'd brought her to the Citadel in Machanon, the third level of the Heavens. From the parapets, she could see Eden in the distance, and focused on the rainbow that was always there, though sometimes its position shifted or the colors sparkled at different intensities.

Using the mark, her empathy, the crushing emptiness inside of her that gnawed, a terrible emotional hunger, she kept reaching out as far as she could for any sense of him. Once, a long time ago, she'd had a brief crush on one of her father's Legion captains. She'd been eleven, but she remembered how it had felt, realizing he would only ever see her as a child. While she could look on it now with the indulgence of an adult, she remembered the relentless agony of unrequited love to a girl just discovering adult feelings. This was that, multiplied by a thousand. She wondered that she could even breathe.

Her father caught her shoulders, turned her away from the view. "Alexis," he snapped in a voice that should have made anything tremble, even herself. From a far distance, she noted how tight with worry his face was.

You kill him, she dies.
Mina's words.

Evil will answer for murder.
The Fen protectors.

Her life might be about to be cut short, but that was hardly important. What was important was for the pain to end. She couldn't bear his pain. If he was destined to die, she hoped they did it quickly, and did not torture or restrain him. She couldn't even think of that. Her body jerked, a near convulsion that was somehow comforting.

"Alexis," Jonah repeated. This time the thunderous tone sent a tremor through the Citadel walls. Clouds began to darken above them. Several of the Legion glanced up and Alexis vaguely noted Raphael murmuring to Marcellus. The captain nodded, glanced at David, who stood at Raphael's shoulder, and was gone. The healer drew closer.

Jonah's grip was painful, bruising. So powerful. She'd thought he could protect her from anything. She'd therefore longed for adventures, the occasional thrilling brush with danger. This was the reality of it. Blood, violence, the fear in her father's gaze that he might lose her. The same fear she nursed about Dante. This was the type of violence and fear her father had faced for well over a thousand years.

She wanted to tell him she understood, but even now, she probably didn't. How could she understand the vast nature of his losses, what he'd seen, when just a brief exposure to the Dark One world and the idea of losing Dante, someone she'd barely met but had bonded with so quickly, made her feel like curling up and dying?

Marcellus had returned, and suddenly there was a very different presence amid all the angelic auras around her. Her mother, accepting a cloak to wrap around her now human form. Alexis was aware of her speaking to her father, and then she stepped in front of him to face her daughter.

"Alexis," she said sharply. "If you want to save him, you have to help us."

Help Dante. Save him.
She could save him. Anna had saved Jonah. The daughters of Arianne . . . they were always called to do extraordinary things. They
could
do extraordinary things.

Alexis blinked, and her hands shot up, clutching Anna's forearms. She struggled through that bereft feeling. "Help him? We can help him?"

"Yes." Anna's brow furrowed, and she touched her daughter's face. "I know it hurts, dearest, but you are very strong. Push aside the emotions, whatever it is that is interfering with your ability to think. Stop thinking about what might happen, and focus on what
can
happen. We need your help. Pay attention to your father. Use your filters. Get them back."

Alexis remembered other times when, learning to control her gift, she'd gotten lost just like this, overwhelmed by everything around her, her filters cast aside, like tools she didn't know how to use. But she
did
know how to use them, even with the new factor of the vampire's mark. Though it was like tearing dried cloth off a bloody wound, such that she let out a desolate cry that startled the angels, she lunged for that self-control inside of herself, pulled the filters back to her as if through quicksand, an effort that brought tears rolling down her cheeks, but she did it. They snapped in place, though she panted at the effort.

Straightening, Anna turned back to Jonah, nodded. Drawing a deep breath, he knelt by his daughter, the difference in height enough he was almost even with her gaze. "Alexis, the Fen are a simple people, in a world far from this one. They don't even have writing or reading skills in their societies yet. In fact, they would remind you of our Neanderthals. What is Dante's connection to them?"

Oh, Goddess.
"He sacrificed one. He used her blood so you couldn't retrieve me until he released me. But I just saw the one . . ."

Lex faltered, remembering all that blood in the circle, blood that had been there
before
she arrived, before she saw the first sacrifice.

In contrast to her earlier catatonia, now she couldn't bear to be frozen in one place. Pushing off from the wall, she walked rapidly along the parapets, needing air, needing open space. Alexis rubbed her brow. Dante had been planning his escape for twenty years. At what point had he discovered he could make a dream portal work with humanoid blood? How many failures had he had, seeking the right combination of magic and sacrifice? And then there was the rift through which he sent his Dark Ones to retrieve them. Perhaps he'd further strengthened that opening the same way.

"He may have sacrificed dozens of them," she said dully, staring out at the blue sky. Her mother was beside her again, her father a silent presence a few feet away. "They'll hurt him, then they'll kill him."

"Not if they know an innocent's life is bound to his. Not if these protectors are like us." Marcellus spoke now, moving to join them. "We can promise them that he will be imprisoned here, subjected to the punishments of Hell for however long is necessary."

Alexis closed her eyes. "He was willing to go back and stay in Hell until he learned how to be safe, how to get along in our world. So he wouldn't hurt me or anyone else by accident. We talked about it, just before he was taken."

But you can't imprison or torment him. You just can't.

"If these protectors are like us"--Marcellus turned his attention to Jonah--"can you petition them for an audience on his behalf?"

David, leaning against the turret, straightened then, eyes thoughtful. "There's wisdom in that, Jonah. They are kin, in a sense, though we don't know much about them beyond their function to protect the Fen. I can see if Mina can figure out where they are and communicate with them, find a way to their world."

The pavilion shuddered, a breeze gusting across the battlement, rippling feathers and lashing Alexis's hair across her face. She pulled it back in time to see the angels scatter with the ease of long practice, making a space for Mina to arrive in a flash of fire. Unlike the other angels, David had not moved. She materialized so close to him, several of his feathers ignited. He gave her a deprecating look, dousing them with a pinch of his fingers. She responded with a saccharine baring of her teeth, then turned to Jonah. "Already done. The one who fulfills your role in the Fen world is named Seneth. I've explained there's an innocent's life at stake, her life bound to Dante's, and he's agreed to hear your petition. If you wish to offer one."

Alexis stared at Mina. "There's more. You have more, but you don't want to say it in front of me."

"I'm sorry," the witch said briefly, then she looked back toward Jonah. "Dante's sentence has already been declared, though it will not be executed until after our petition. They had a word for it I can't pronounce, but apparently it's a ritual death, accomplished by incremental dismemberment. Portions of his limbs will be cut off each day, one portion for each life he's taken, until even the stumps were gone, and then his head will be taken and his body burned." Mina paused. "A method that can kill a vampire or a Dark One."

Alexis knew her mother's steadying presence was behind her, but she couldn't feel the hands touching her shoulders, or register what lay behind the expression Jonah sent her way.

"If your petition is not successful, there is a way to save her life."

That brought everyone's attention back to the witch. "I've figured out how to cast a lock around Dante's life essence. For time's sake, understand it this way. I'd be enclosing him in a bubble, but a very powerful, eternal bubble. If his life is extinguished inside of it, I would basically strap down the binding, lock his remains in a be-spelled container. The energy outside that containment would be unaffected. In essence, the binding he put on Alexis would not realize he's dead. Ever. As long as it held, and I am certain I can spell it to hold for her normal life span, even if it matches Jonah's."

Mina looked at Alexis then. "It's still important to make a petition. If they will not release Dante into our care, we can at least ask for the opportunity to impose this spell upon him, so that he will not take your life when they take his."

"No." Alexis spoke through stiff lips. "I won't allow it."

Mina arched a brow. "I wasn't asking your permission."

One way or another, they all wanted to imprison or hurt him. Even if he died, he'd still be trapped, a soul unable to free itself, unable to become anything else. The fragile leash on rationality broke, knocking down her filters. Dismemberment, death, isolation. She couldn't bear it. She wouldn't. "Then I will finish it here. I won't be the reason he's forced to suffer."

Her emotions, all the feelings around her, whirled inside her mind and heart, but at the center of that hurricane was an eye of deadly calm. Beyond thought, lost in feeling alone, Alexis picked up the dagger some obliging angel had left next to one of the whetting stones, focusing every corner of her mind, heart and soul on what she was going to do.

Alexis. No.

She froze. It was faint, so faint. But it was
him
.

Then it was gone as her father knocked the weapon from her hands, and yanked her attention from anything else as he lifted her up against the turret, slamming her against stone hard enough her head bumped. His thunderous visage was inches away from hers, and she'd never seen anything so frightening, not even in the Dark One world.

"Don't you
ever
consider doing something like that to your mother," he grated out. "Not ever."

In his gaze she glimpsed a pit of darkness as vast as Dante's. The darkness her mother's love kept in check. But her own darkness rose, an abyss she hadn't even known dwelled within her. As she gripped his shoulders and met him fury for fury, it welled out of her in a terrible voice, raw and enraged. "He is mine. I won't give him up. I won't let you sacrifice him for me. I won't let him be tortured or imprisoned. He is
mine
."

It went far beyond romantic possession. He was a part of her, something vital she had to protect and safeguard to keep her own soul intact. A part she might conversely destroy her own soul to keep safe.

Recognition flickered in Jonah's gaze, as if he'd just caught a startled glimpse of himself in a mirror.

"Jonah." Anna was at his side, her gentle hand on his silver wrist guard, her face stark with pain. "Stop this." Looking around at the assembled, she met Mina's eyes briefly. "You will go and tell this Seneth our position. Jonah will do everything possible to gain Dante's release. But if he is unsuccessful, Mina must be able to cast her spell."

Reaching over Jonah's arm, Anna drew her daughter's reluctant eyes to her. "Dante would not wish you to die with him. You've already told me he risked himself to keep you safe. Control your feelings, Alexis. You must continue to
think
, no matter how much you fear for him. We love you. We're your family. We will get through this together, whatever happens. All right? Can you believe in us that much? We are not your enemy in this."

Alexis swallowed, closed her eyes, feeling her father's grip ease. For once, though, their love didn't bring her the comfort she wished it would, and she couldn't bring herself to fully trust her mother's words. Because she always knew their feelings.

"All right," she whispered, though the mistrust in her heart was as painful as knowing her life would likely end, one way or another, in the next few hours.

Twenty-nine

SENETH had mandated that only three angels, the witch and the affected innocent could come. Mina went very few places without David, though it was always unclear whose stipulation that was. Jonah, of course, would come to speak on their behalf, and Marcellus was chosen to accompany him as the third angel.

As Mina prepared the circle for the dizzying transport to the Fen world, Alexis stood apart, trying to do as her mother had said and which she knew was wisdom--steady her mind for what lay ahead. But when Anna came to her, took her hands, she found it hard to meet her mother's eyes and not draw away from her touch. Anna tightened her grip on her forearms, however. "I need you to listen to me, Alexis. I know it's difficult for you right now. Can you listen to me? Don't just say yes. Let me see you focus."

Dutifully, Alexis struggled, bringing her mind out of her worries and fears to center on her mother's blue eyes. "I'm here, Myel."

Anna gave her a searching look. "All right. No matter what terrible thing happens over there, above everything else, I need you to remember one thing. Trust your father."

The angel who, more than any other, wanted Dante dead. But Anna's nails dug into Lex's flesh. Her blue eyes were sharp, the core of steel showing itself.

"Do you understand me, Lex?
Trust your father
."

All she could manage was a nod of acknowledgment, no more. Mina had begun to speak the words to open the rift and she gave Anna an impatient glance, warning her that her time to step back was drawing close. With one last look, Anna turned from her daughter to Jonah. Lex didn't hear what her mother said, but she saw Jonah's glance flicker toward her, then back to his mate. His gaze softened, though the hard set of his mouth didn't ease. He nodded, and her fingertips brushed his lips before Anna stepped out of the circle casting.

"This is going to be bumpy," the seawitch said. "It will work, but there was no time to make it pretty. Clasp hands."

Jonah closed his fingers over Alexis's, meeting her look briefly. Mina took her other hand, then David and Marcellus finished the circle. Lex had one more quick glimpse of her mother's face before Heaven disappeared, and she was in a whirlwind.

Mina was right. It was like being caught in a tornado with flying debris. But the unexpected made it even worse.
Hellfire.
Even as she was spinning out of it, she heard startled cries, because of her forced transition.

Just like the Dark One world, this world only accepted her merangel form, so she landed on a grassy knoll off balance, her clothes ripped and torn by the emergence of her tail, her wings flapping madly, a cross between a wounded bird and flopping fish.

She swore in a way that would have made Clara proud, but got herself aloft, hovering off the ground so her tail didn't drag. The only garment the transition had left her was the bra whose straps she wore crisscrossed all the time for just that reason. It was a little provocative for mixed company, particularly company that included people whose modesty requirements she didn't know, but it was better than nothing.

Forcing herself to get oriented, she took in her surroundings. The knoll overlooked a valley, dotted with trees and large, shaggy animals that were a cross between cows and buffalo. The sky was blue, vi brantly clear. In the distance, she saw small structures that might be huts, or tepees such as nomadic peoples used, but other than that, it was all nature. Grass, flowers, trees, sky and wind, bringing the smell of water, perhaps a nearby river or wide stream. It was like looking at preindustrial Earth.

The three angels had automatically moved into a circular flanking position facing outward as they came through, their feet barely touching as they used their wings as well, spreading them out to make it more difficult to make the two women a target. But after gauging their surroundings, the three settled back to the ground, folding their wings to allow her to see the delegation awaiting them.

She recognized the winged creature in the front, the one who'd told her she was unwise to help Dante. Since his stance was practically a mirror of Jonah's, she surmised he must be Seneth. His cheekbones were so sharp he looked almost foxlike. His dark, upwardly tilted eyes didn't have whites as well, another indication he and his kind were cousins to the angels.

Two more of his fellows flanked his right and left sides, but a whole group of them waited twenty feet or so behind these three. Then she realized they weren't there to overwhelm their own delegation. They were guarding Dante.

She bit back her cry only because Mina's hand closed on her wrist, nails digging in like Anna's, only Mina's nails were more like talons in their sharpness. "Be still and say nothing yet," Mina murmured.

They had him bound to a pair of timbers that had been lashed in an
X
form so his arms and legs could be stretched out upon them. What held him looked like irradiated barbed wire, cinched in tight and spiraling across his limbs, all the way from the joining corner of his thumb and forefinger, down his forearm and to his shoulder. His legs were the same, from foot to thigh. He'd been stripped, so she saw how the wire's razor points dug into his flesh. Fresh rivulets ran over the tracks that had dried on his limbs, chest and abdomen, giving him a macabre appearance. The
X
was propped up in a vertical position by scaffolding.

Because he'd been hooded with a thick hide covering, she couldn't see his eyes, though a hole had been cut for his mouth. A hard fruit had been thrust into it, his fangs embedded in the orb. Strings of beads, locks of hair, bracelets and scraps of brightly dyed cloth and ribbon had been hooked on the barbs over his suffering flesh. More were threaded through the silver collar.

Dante, we're here. I'm here.

His head tilted, and she saw a frisson of tension run through his muscles. As he moved, every weapon of the dozen guards was drawn. They faced the
X
as if they expected Dante to snap his bonds and split into an army.

Her reaction didn't help ease their watchfulness. As she opened the door to his mind, intending to use that connection to steady herself, she found a chamber engulfed in flames. The blast knocked her mind over, scattering her thoughts. Mina's hands closed over her arms, steadying her, but there was no escape from the raging, murderous fury Lex experienced. It was a bestial hatred, mindless destruction like the Christian version of end of days, Armageddon, the coming of the Beast.

She knew there was no devil, at least not that kind. However, the soul could accept evil and become what others feared, the stuff of nightmares. She fought to lock down her filters against it, even suspecting that his third mark made her far more vulnerable to his emotions than anyone else's.

"Let him go," she gasped. "Release him, please. You're making it worse."

Instead, Seneth turned his sharp gaze to Jonah. "He can torment the innocent with his mind?"

"He's not . . . tormenting me." She snarled through the maelstrom, though she could hardly blame them since it looked exactly like what they thought. Even the angels, knowing, looked unsettled. "I'm . . . an empath. I can feel what . . . he's feeling."

She'd inherited the ability of angels to understand and speak in any language, but did Dante know what they were saying? Or had lack of comprehension only added to his mindless rage? As she struggled for control, a movement to the right took her attention from the terrible display. Unlike humans, who lived in doubt of angel existence, the Fen apparently knew their protectors. A small group of them watched impassively from a grove of trees. All males, they carried spears, and had their hair adorned with more beads and long leaves twisted into ornamentation. They looked like wood spirits. Long blue and red streaks marked their faces and bare chests. From their ordered phalanx, it was obviously a tribal council of some kind.

Closing her eyes, she used force of will alone to slam down her filters. Getting torn open from the inside wasn't going to help Dante. With tremendous effort, she managed the magic and gradually the filters shut out the worst of it. Not wanting to do so, but testing herself, she looked toward him again. This time she noticed the beads embellishing Dante's torment were more delicately carved. Her gaze roved over the items, compared them to what was on the Fen males, and the terrible significance came to her. What hung on Dante belonged to females. Or had belonged to them. He'd said female blood was best for his magic. The Fen had turned him into a shrine to their murdered wives, sisters, daughters and mothers.
Oh, Goddess. How many?
And did she want to know?

Getting a nod from Mina, indicating Alexis was back in control, Jonah stepped forward. "Thank you for hearing our petition. We are angels," he said formally. "We protect the Earth, and other parts of our Lady's universe."

"We are the Bentigo. We protect the Fen." Seneth pulled his attention from Lex, nodded. "We know you as beings of worth and truth. Your presence is welcome here." His gaze shifted to Mina. "The witch's power is not as clear, but as she is your ally, we accept her presence."

On a normal day, Alexis knew Mina would have a retort to that, but underscoring the seriousness of the situation, she remained still and silent. Seneth looked at Alexis again, more closely.

"The innocent is your daughter."

"She is." Jonah inclined his head, acknowledging the Bentigo's intuition.

"She is lucky to be alive after exposure to this creature. He has taken sixty-two females of the Fen tribe over the past ten years."

Holy Goddess.
Alexis fought to keep her face impassive, but her hands closed into tight balls at her side. A muscle flexed in Jonah's jaw, but he said nothing as Seneth continued.

"After we caught one of his foul minions, we determined it was this creature"--Seneth jerked his head toward Dante--"sending his slaves here to take the females. We could not find the rift in order to guard it, for it seemed to move each time it was opened. We also do not know what he was doing with them. But when their life essences disappeared, we knew they were dead to us."

"Did you ask him what became of them?"

Seneth looked over his shoulder briefly, his lip curling back in distaste. "We cast a Translation Spell that forces him to hear the accusations of the Fen and ourselves in language he understands. But he has not been conscious until now. When we brought him to this world, he escaped our netting. He killed several of us, and there would have been more if we'd not caught him from behind, flown him off a cliff. The drop knocked him insensible, and the deep waters below held him. He could not float, so we kept him there, below the water, bound until now. But he is a magical, dangerous creature, and we do not know his weaknesses. He is bound physically and by what magic we know. So we have not yet asked him anything."

So the collar was inert. Despite her chagrin at their losses, Alexis realized that fact with some sense of relief. Mina had said she'd only set up the protection for humans and one merangel, so the Fen and Bentigo were not included in its scope. And perhaps it only worked on Earth. The magic must have been complex for it to have such a narrow scope. Or, as Mina had implied, her intent was not to make him defenseless, but to give innocents protection.

Seneth returned his attention to Jonah. "The population on the Fen world is small. The attacks were concentrated on this particular tribe. Its female population has been depleted significantly."

The Dark Ones had likely focused on this area because the rift he'd created was here, and they would not want to linger long. Forcing herself to think it through, Lex realized the Bentigo must have the same challenge the angels did. Because of their abundance of Light energy, they couldn't enter the Dark One world in pure angel form. An angel like her father would be consumed within minutes, like a person in a vat of acid. She had survived only because of the protections Dante had put upon her. Using the blood of these females.

Her heart sank further, but she refused to accept defeat. Managing Dante's internal inferno, she opened up another thread toward the Fen, and found a different form of burning hell in the chief who headed up the council. He'd lost two daughters and their mother to Dante. The rage and grief boiling inside of him made her falter, drop closer to the ground. She realized David had moved in to support her on her opposite side, since her flagging energy was making her more difficult for Mina to hold up.

It wasn't just her energy weighing her down, though. She was going to lose here.

"My daughter saw what happened to one of the Fen." Jonah turned, then met her gaze. "Alexis."

Oh, Goddess. Don't do this, Pyel.
But his gaze was relentless, demanding she speak. He loved her, yes. But he would never hide truth, or let her do it, either.

The Fen's fury and despair, Dante's barely leashed madness and the Bentigo's piercing regard and heavy weight of expectations nearly overwhelmed her anew. Goddess, this was why her gift could be difficult. To outward appearances she often looked like a drooling, weak idiot, because the battle she fought was in her head. She couldn't afford to be drowned like a tree standing before a cracked dam.

It is your gift. Your weapon. Yours to wield, given to you by those who understand you were the proper one to have it. It is yours.

Startled, she glanced into the unusual bicolored eyes of the witch. She'd not realized the witch could speak directly to her mind. Mina made an impatient face.
If you love him, prove to us why he is worth saving. Or have you changed your mind? Do you think it might be best to let him go, seeing all of these arrayed against him, including those you love? He killed sixty-two females. Do they not deserve justice?

Lex looked at David and Marcellus, as well as Jonah, then came back to Mina. The witch cocked her head.
They are who they are for a reason. They know the difference between good and evil, and they are not often wrong, because the understanding of it is part of their blood. But it is also part of yours.