Carlotta and the Krius Scepter (Carlotta Series Book 1) (17 page)

30.
              
Nevin

It was late into the evening when we heard the elevator doors open. Brian and I took up our positions on the couch. We’d repositioned it so that immediately behind us was the open door to the balcony. The coffee table was in front to our left and chairs were carefully positioned on the other side of that. Being prepared is vital in any successful enterprise.

I looked at the small devices fastened to the walls. They looked more like air conditioning than threats. Flipping the switch on the remote to ‘on’, I was relieved to see the green glow of the LED. This was not meant to be much of a fight. It couldn’t be with the Krius sitting on the coffee table for all to see. I cradled the remote in my hand so it couldn’t be seen and held my thumb lightly over the red button.

I heard
The Don
as the men approached. He was supposed to stay downstairs, not come up with them. Typical mafia, they’d been just like that during prohibition, always bringing a gal a drink when she hadn’t asked them to.

“She said there’d only be a few of you. Must be difficult, dealing with a girl that’s always one step ahead.”

“Thank you for showing us up here,” Nevin snarled. “We can handle it from here.”

The Don
laughed good-naturedly. “You’se boys can’t handle a woman like her. She’ll have your hides.” He stuck his head round the door and I wasn’t surprised when he blew a smoke ring at me. “We could have taken them; Vinnie could have taken them on his own.” Then he was gone and Nevin stood framed in the door.

He was about to say something when he saw the two halves of the Thampthis Box on the table and the Krius between them. They Fey can’t make their eyes light up, but I would swear that I saw his glint.

Peter appeared behind him with a couple of other Fey following. Judging from the way their hands strayed towards the breast pockets of their suits, it was a fair guess that they were all armed. I was mildly disappointed. No Fey would have bothered to carry a gun in the old days. Blades were so much more practical and had the advantage that they never ran out of bullets.

“We have come to negotiate, Cear Lotha. Since you have left the Krius in plain site, I suspect you are ready to cut a deal.”

I do like an intelligent man. I’d have been let down if he hadn’t reached the conclusion I’d wanted him to on seeing the box. Stage dressing is vital if you want to put someone off their guard. Right now, Nevin was thinking that no single Fey, no matter her reputation with an inexperienced lad, were going to stop him getting the Krius with it sitting on the coffee table in front of him.

“I am always ready to listen to rational arguments.” I waved my hand in an imperious manner. “Would the Council care to sit down?”

Nevin strode across the room and sat in the chair opposite me. Peter looked around the room warily, but he didn’t see anything that bothered him enough not to follow suit. The other men shut the door behind them to guard against attack from that direction and positioned themselves to either side of their charges with their backs against the wall. With a nod to each other they took out their guns, but they didn’t point them at us. That was a welcome mistake.

Nevin leaned forward towards me and the Krius. The temptation to take it must have been strong, but I had positioned the table and the chairs so that he would have had to get up to reach it. Getting up would have been a signal to all of us.

“Cear, the world’s in a terrible state, global warming, the destruction of the rain forests, and the raping of the oceans. If we can fix that with the Krius, shouldn’t we?”

“Humans have never worshipped you as a god, have they?” I locked eyes with the fool and he gave a quick shake of his head. “I’ve been made a god many times and it never worked out well. What makes you think you could do a better job?”

“What choice do we have? Millions are starving, the oceans are rising and freak weather has become the norm across the world. Better me than Peleus.” He put a lot of feeling into his voice and I had no doubt he meant every word. Fools always do.

“Peleus believed he was ordained to the role. What’s your excuse?”

“Let’s work together, you and I. We can make the world a better place.” I caught that lie easily in the way his eyes shifted from mine as he spoke. There was no place in Nevin’s utopia for a goddess with a better track record than him.

“I’ve met most of the madmen,” I said conversationally. “Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and so many before them. They all suffered from the same delusion, that they know what’s best for the rest of us and they’ll give it to us whether we want it or not. I would never have trusted the Americas Council to you two if I’d have known what kind of men you are.”

Nevin looked stunned. “What’s that got to do with you?”

Typical of a man to ignore all the insults and go for the statement that questioned his right to hold power.

I smiled. “You never did read the small print did you? I created the Councils and I have the right to dissolve any or all of them.”

“Historical nonsense,” Peter said angrily. “You’d never get away with it.”

The boy was looking tense and he might give them a clue with his body language if I didn’t calm him down. However, I was enjoying it too much to end it right now. And I still needed to find out what they’d done with Peleus. “The constitution of the Council says that I, or a couple of other Fey who are sadly dead, can dissolve the Councils if we feel they aren’t doing their job. But in practice you can only do something like that if you have the power to follow through.”

Nevin and Peter relaxed at my apparent acceptance of the Council’s status.

“Have you killed Peleus?” I asked Nevin sharply.

“Yes,” he stated without hesitation and I knew then that Peleus still lived. Damn. Nothing left to do but to bring this farce to a close. I repositioned my itching thumb on the button; even I can get tense.

“Well, gentlemen. I’ve considered your kind offer and decided that you are power mad idiots not fit to be in charge of anything. I hereby dissolve the Americas Council as is my right under Clause One. All that’s left is for me to pass sentence on you for your crimes.”

Nevin and Peter looked at me in astonishment. The two guards began to raise their guns as I pressed the button. The silver mist net on the ceiling began to fall. Brian and I somersaulted back over the couch.

This left us facing the balcony and we used our momentum to dive over it using the top rail as a pivot to swing us back towards the building as we fell. In the few seconds that this took, the net caught the guards. Nevin and Peter moved as fast as us and ignored the Krius, running for the balcony. They knew that if we were leaving the room in a hurry they had to get out of it as well. As my head dropped below the floor of the balcony I pushed the green button.

For a second I was falling out of control before I caught one of the ropes Mike had installed the day before. They ran from the bottom of the railings across to the window in the next room along. I swung on the rope urgently to get clear of the debris to come.

Above me, the silver paint bombs exploded from the corners of the room. The force of the blast was enough to shatter the windows, and glass and paint spewed out into the night. Two large dark shapes followed the debris over the balcony. They began to fall the long, long way to the ground.

Brian was a little ahead of me on the rope. We hung a couple of yards to the left of the balcony safe from the debris.

“Why aren’t they changing into birds?” he asked as the two bodies continued their plummet to the ground. “Did the blast knock them out?”

“Silver prevents us shape-shifting.”

I felt no remorse as the bodies splattered onto the road below. Wanting to rule the world isn’t a crime, but getting close enough to actually achieve it should be. The Earth would be a better place without them.

It was intoxicating holding onto a rope so far above the world. The lights of the city spread out below us. Car headlights looked like strings of moving pearls in the low density smog of the city.

“It’s pretty,” Brian told me. I had a great desire to kiss him after he said it. There aren’t that many men prepared to dive from the top floor of a skyscraper on the off-chance they can catch a rope before the blast from a bomb hits them. There are even fewer men who, while hanging from said rope, would pause to admire and comment on the view. This boy was a keeper.

“Perhaps we should go back inside?” I suggested. Me, a romantic killjoy? I really must be getting old.

It didn’t take us long to shimmy along the rope and climb up to the window. Brian was in front and as soon as he reached the top he spun around to sit on the ledge with his feet dangling over infinity. He offered me his hand, but I was enjoying the climb and ignored him. I reached the top and joined him. This time we looked up to the moon and stars.

He put his arm around me and we kissed. I began to wonder if it was technically possible to make love on the window ledge without falling off. While falling off would be far from fatal, I didn’t want to lose the ability to shift until I was certain the danger had passed. Reluctantly, I shelved the idea and we stuck to the kissing, though my hands may have strayed.

Eventually we came up for air. Someone might notice the bodies below and come to investigate. While tidying up was a task well beyond us, I needed to recover the box and the Krius. Even that might be tricky as they’d be covered in silver paint. If necessary, I’d get Mike up to do it for me.

When we got out into the corridor we made our way cautiously back to the room we’d been in. Thankfully the door was still closed despite the blast, so no silver paint had escaped into the corridor.

I turned the handle and stepped away quickly as I opened the door.

One of the guards staggered into the corridor and collapsed. He was covered in paint and still had some of the net on him. Smoke rose from his scorched skin.

“He’ll live,” I said as I stepped around him and looked in on a scene from a glittery hell. The other guard writhed on the floor against the far wall and silver paint dripped everywhere, except—and I have to admit to my complete surprise at the development—except for a large circle around the Krius, which was completely free of paint.

I stepped back and took a running jump into the room, using the coffee table as a brake. Picking up the Krius, I turned back to the door.

“Brian, it’s untouched. Even the box is unharmed.”

Brian said nothing and I couldn’t see him from where I stood.

“Brian, is everything okay out there?”

Brian stepped into view. The knife held to his neck didn’t comfort me, nor did the sight of the man wielding it.

“Hello Cear, it seems we meet again.”

Peleus made a motion with the blade and blood began to well from Brian’s neck.

31.
              
Apocalypse

“Stop,” I shouted and Peleus moved his blade away from Brian’s throat. The wound appeared to be only superficial and I breathed a sigh of relief. Peleus was naked and aroused, which suggested he’d reached the Penthouse by shifting. Brian had more to worry about than having his throat cut from the way that Peleus’s thing was throbbing.

“Give me the Krius.” It was almost a plea.

“Release the boy and I’ll think about it.”

Peleus laughed cynically. “You’re known for your trickery, Cear. Don’t think to try it on me.”

He had a point. I sighed. “So how do you want play this, Peleus? If Brian means enough for me to give you the Krius in exchange, I won’t agree to anything where you might kill him once you’ve got it. If Brian means nothing to me, you’re already dead and I’m just playing with you. You can’t shift again for hours and I can. I could shift to vampire form and kill you in seconds.”

Never try logic on a crazy man. I thought I might calm him down, but my words had the opposite effect.

“You can’t change fast enough to stop me killing him and you’ve always had a soft spot for the young. You’re weak, Cear. You don’t deserve to own the Krius.”

He was spot on with the last point. Not only did I not deserve the damned thing, I’d never wanted it in the first place.

However, I was prepared to trade the Krius for one good reason. None of us had managed to make the thing do anything at all, and I was sure I could kill him before he had the time to figure it out. All I needed was a way to get Brian out of the line of fire.

I held out my palms to Peleus in a gesture of surrender.

“We can find a way.” I reached to pick up the Krius and he shrieked in anger.

“Don’t touch it. I knew you were trying to trick me. Once you hold that you could kill me with a thought.”

Okay… Peleus had reached new levels of paranoia. He wanted me to give him the Krius without touching the Krius. Great.

“Move away.” He gestured across the room to where the second guard still moaned. I looked out across the room with some trepidation. I was wearing trainers, but the soles weren’t thick enough to fully protect me from the silver. This was going to hurt.

I stepped carefully beyond the circle of protected space trying to avoid any pools of silver paint. It was a little like walking across broken glass, damned painful, but endurable. The temptation to shift to vampire was immense. I needed to change before the silver weakened me too much. Even though it wasn’t touching me, it was still having an effect. However, I knew that shifting now would result in Brian’s death.

Peleus shuffled into the room impervious to the silver paint that stuck to his feet. He held Brian an inch or so off the ground with one arm while the other held the knife to the kid’s throat. I envied the kid for being off the ground. When they reached the table, Peleus hit Brian on the head with the hilt of the knife and he slumped onto the table moaning. Peleus took the Krius as he let go of Brian and turned to face me.

“Too late, Cear. It is mine.”

I would have shifted then and killed him, but he began to glow. The Krius was working for him and I was too stunned to react. Why did it work for him and not for any of the rest of us? That struck me as unfair.

“I will spare you for now, so you may live to see my works as your God.”

Peleus became bigger as if someone had magnified him. He stood at least ten feet tall. Then he rose slowly into the air and through the ceiling as if it wasn’t there.

The room seemed somehow darker and duller without his presence. I shook my head to try and get rid of the urge to worship the bastard. First thing was to check on Brian.

The Fey are a tough breed and Brian was already recovering. I checked his head and throat and neither injury was serious. Picking him up, I carried him across the room to the corridor beyond. As he sat on the floor and shook his head, I pulled my trainers off my feet, being careful not to touch the paint. I sighed with relief as the pain faded away.

“What happened?” Brian asked, as well he might. I’d seen it and still couldn’t believe it.

“Peleus took the Krius and became a god. I think he’s up on the roof.”

“How come it worked for him and not for us?”

“I’ll be sure to take that up with the manufacturers if we manage to survive the night. Are you fit to travel?”

Brian nodded and winced at the cut on his throat. He’d probably end up with a scar because we didn’t have time to find a plaster. Still, men with scars are interesting, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. A girl could appreciate a man with a battle scar.

“Do we have a plan?”

“Go up to the roof and, if Peleus is still there, find a way to stop him without getting killed, if at all possible.”

Brian looked me in the eyes. “You should have taken him at the door and let me die.”

I nodded because the boy was right. I’d blown it. “I thought I had the situation under control,” I told him. “Arrogance has always been my biggest flaw.”

I took the remote from my pocket and pressed the blue button. The electronic door leading to the stairs clicked and whirred before opening. In some of the scenarios I’d projected in the fight with Nevin we ended up fighting on the roof and I’d wanted easy access. In any case, you use what you have and this was safer than using the elevator.

I’ve often thought that the movies have reached a point where they can do anything with special effects. What I saw when we got to the roof convinced me they still have a long way to go. Peleus stood near the swimming pool and he was now fifteen feet tall, maybe taller. Above him dark clouds massed around a circle of clear sky with the moon at its centre. Thunder rumbled in the distance and there was a lot of sheet lightning, but not a drop of rain.

Projected onto the clouds, if that’s the right word, were scenes from around the world, fully three-dimensional it was as if you could have stepped into them. The scenes were rotating around the sky so that Peleus could stand in one place and see them in turn without moving. As each scene came into view he changed them, and he changed the world at the same time; I could tell.

The Fey have an affinity with the Earth. It was one of the powers we would have needed if we had become the race the magicians intended. We can taste the taint in the air from pollution and feel the rain forests scream in pain as they are torn apart. Worse, we know when the ecological balance has been broken, as it has been for some considerable time.

“See, Cear Lotha, I cleanse the air,” Peleus rumbled, his voice now deeper than the
Grand Canyon
. And he did. I felt the air change, the carbon dioxide levels reduce and the toxins vanish. Not just around me, but everywhere. I breathed in air as pure as it had been three hundred years ago. It tasted wonderful and I sighed.

“I cleanse the seas.”

In the visions above us the seas changed. A hundred billion pieces of plastic and detritus vanished from its depths and fish appeared from nowhere. I felt lighter and happier as another part of the balance was restored.

“I rebuild the forests.”

Rain forests grew from the remnants that remained. In the visions above us we saw farmlands engulfed and towns destroyed as waves of vegetation swept them aside like a tsunami. In
Africa
, land became fertile and the deserts shrank as the forests created by Peleus paid no attention to logic or climate. Of course, they were changing the climate by their very existence and again I felt the balance of life on Earth restored. It felt so good that I wondered why I had opposed Peleus and Nevin. How could doing this be wrong?

Peleus was twenty feet tall now. I wondered how much longer the roof would hold his weight. The Krius was beginning to look like a toothpick in his mighty hands. His still rampant manhood looked like the kind of thing a bad girl might dream about. Lightning flashed above us and still the scenes changed.

“Time to cleanse the vermin,” Peleus said and a sense of foreboding flooded over me.

It is impossible to explain how I knew what was happening, the scenes were changing so fast and yet I knew. One in three people were removed from the Earth. Ceasing to exist as they walked, talked, and made love. He started in the
Far East
but the wave of invisible death rippled out in all directions.

Men, women and children vanished as the wave passed through them. If Peleus was using logic to choose his victims, it was beyond my abilities to see it. I thought it must be random.

The wave took no account of population density or the pressure on resources. New Zealanders and Australians died just as surely as those in
Hong Kong
as the wave swept over them.

I should have acted. But I stood frozen to the spot, overwhelmed by the magnitude and the callousness of his actions. This was the place where
logic
rightly fails and what is
right
becomes more important. This was why no one who wanted to use the Krius should be allowed near it. I was responsible for this. I had allowed the murder of a billion souls to save Brian.

The lightning struck the top of the building. Chunks of concrete fell and the building shook beneath my feet. The wave of death reached
North America
and neared the city.

“No!”

Brian shifted into a hawk and flew at Peleus’s massive head. The Hawk looked like a sparrow compared with the size of its target as it aimed for Peleus’ right eye. It shrieked in triumph as talons struck dead on target.

Peleus stumbled and then swatted the boy away as though he was nothing, the hawk somehow managing to stay in the air and making ready for a second strike. Peleus projected a wave of energy that blasted Brian far into the sky and out of sight.

It was Brian’s sacrifice that spurred me into action. I shifted into Vampire form and launched myself at the overgrown bastard.