Lover Enshrined (62 page)

Suddenly, she couldn’t stop the words falling from her lips. “You are so right. This is
not
working. The purpose of us is to serve the Scribe Virgin, but there’s got to be a way of doing that while honoring ourselves.” Cormia looked across at Phury. “If we are her Chosen children, doesn’t that mean that she wants the best for us? Isn’t that what parents want for their young? How is this . . .” She looked around at the all-pervasive, stifling white of the bath. “How is this the best? For most of us, it’s more like a deep freeze than a life. We’re in suspended animation even though we move. How . . . is this best for us?”

Phury’s brows went down. “It’s not. It’s fucking not.”

He wadded up the long cloth in his hands and slammed it to the marble floor. Then he grabbed the Primale medallion and tore it off his neck.

He was going to step down, she thought, both elated and disappointed for the future. He was going to step down—

Phury lifted up the heavy weight of gold, the medallion swinging on its length of leather, and she lost her breath completely. The expression on his face was one of purpose and power, not of irresponsibility. The light in his eyes was about ownership and leadership, not ducking or shirking. Standing before her, he was the whole landscape of the Sanctuary, all the buildings and the land and the air and the water: He was not of this world, but the world here itself.

After a lifetime of watching history unfold in a bowl of water, Cormia realized as she measured the medallion being held aloft that for the first time she was seeing history made right in front of her, in live time.

Nothing was ever going to be the same after this.

With that emblem of his exalted station waving back and forth under his fisted grip, Phury proclaimed in a hard, deep voice, “I am the strength of the race. I am the Primale
. And so shall I rule!
”

Chapter Forty-nine

On the outskirts of caldwell, in the temperate summer night, the Brotherhood was gathered together under a fat, heavenly moon—and wondering what the hell was going on. As the Escalade pulled up next to their tight group, John was amazed to be among them. Popping his seat belt free, he got out as Rhage shut the SUV down. Blay and Qhuinn fell in side by side, and together, the three of them walked over to the Brothers.

The meadow up ahead stretched out between a collar of pine trees, the grass marked by stands of goldenrod and the occasional frothy-mopped milkweed.

Vishous lit one of his hand-rolls, the scent of Turkish tobacco drifting over. “Fucker is late.”

"Easy, V,” Wrath said under his breath. “I will relieve your ass if you can’t stay tight.”

“Fucker. Not you, him.”

“Butch, chain your boy, would you? Before I muzzle him with a goddamn pine tree.”

The glow came from the east, starting out small as the flick of a lighter, then growing big as the sun. As it gathered in the forest, the light was filtered by trunks and branches, and John thought of the nuclear bomb test films he’d seen in school, the ones where the trees and everything were leveled flat after the great burst of illumination.

“Please tell me that shit isn’t radioactive,” Qhuinn said.

"Nah,” Rhage replied. "But we’re all going to have tans in the morning.”

Butch put his arm up to shield his eyes. “And me without my Coppertone.”

Except none of their weapons were drawn, John noted. Although they were tense as cats.

Suddenly, from out of the trees came a man . . . a glowing man, the source of the light. And there was something draped over his arms, a tarp or a rug or—

“Son of a bitch,” Wrath breathed as the figure stopped twenty yards away.

The glowing man laughed. “Well, if it isn’t good King Wrath and his band of merry-merry happy-happy. I swear you boys should do kiddie shows, you’re so fucking cheery.”

“Great,” Rhage muttered, “his sense of humor’s still intact.”

Vishous exhaled. “Maybe I can try to beat it out of him.”

“Use his own arm to do it, if you can—”

Wrath glared at the two of them, who shot him back a pair of
who-us?
stares.

The king shook his head and addressed the lit figure. “Been a while. Thank God. How the hell are you?”

Before the man could answer, V cursed. "If I have to hear all that Keanu Reeves,
Matrix
, ’I am Neo’ kind of shit, my head’s going to explode.”

“Don’t you mean Neon?” Butch shot back. “ ’Cause he reminds me of the Citgo sign.”

Wrath’s head turned. “Shut the fuck up. All of you.”

The glowing figure laughed. “So do you want your early Christmas present? Or you going to keep dissing my shit until I decide to take off.”

“Christmas? I believe that’s your tradition, not ours,” Wrath said.

“So, is that a no? Because it’s something you’ve been missing for a while.” With that, the glow dissipated, like someone had unplugged the light source.

Standing in the clearing now was a man like any other . . . well, sort of like any other, given that he was draped in gold chains. There was someone in his arms, a bearded male with a streak of white running through his dark hair. . . .

John’s whole body tingled.

“Don’t recognize your brother?” the figure said, then looked down at the male he held. “How soon they forget.”

John was the one who broke ranks and ran through the long grass. Someone shouted his name, but he wasn’t stopping for anyone or anything. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, the wind roaring in his ears, his blood pounding through his veins.

The meadow lashed against his jeans, and the cool August night slapped at his cheeks, and the straining fists his hands had cranked into beat at the air.

Father, he mouthed.
Father!

John bounced to a halt and then covered his mouth with his palm. It was Tohrment, but it was a shrunken version of the Brother, as if he had been left out in the sun for months. His face was gaunt, the skin hanging loose from the bones, the eyes sunk deep into the skull. The beard was long and dark, the shaggy hair nothing but a black tangled nest except for the brilliant, snowy white stripe at the front. His clothes were the exact same ones he’d been wearing the night he had disappeared from the training center, all tattered and filthy.

John jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Easy, son,” Wrath said. “Jesus Christ—”

“Actually it’s Lassiter,” the man said, “in case you forgot.”

“Whatever. So what’s the price?” the king asked, reaching out to take Tohr.

“I like how you assume there is one.”

John wanted to be the person who took Tohrment back to the car, but his knees were knocking so badly he probably needed to be carried too.

“Isn’t there a price?” As Wrath accepted his brother’s body, the king shook his head. “Shit, he doesn’t weigh a thing.”

“He’s been living off deer.”

“How long have you known about him?”

“Found him two days ago.”

“Price,” Wrath said, still looking at his brother.

“Well, here’s the thing.” As the king cursed, the man, Lassiter, laughed. “It’s not a price, though.”

“What. Is. It.”

“We’re a two-for-one deal.”

“Excuse me?”

“I come with him.”

“The fuck you do.”

The man lost any levity in his voice. “It’s part of the arrangement, and believe me, I wouldn’t choose this either. Fact is, he’s my last chance, so yeah, I’m sorry, but I go with him. And if you say no, by the way, I’m going to level us all like that.”

The man snapped his fingers, a brilliant white spark flaring against the night sky.

After a moment, Wrath turned to John. “This is Lassiter, the fallen angel. One of the last times he was on earth, there was a plague in central Europe—”

“Okay, that was
so
not my fault—”

“—that wiped out two-thirds of the human population.”

“I’d like to remind you that you don’t like humans.”

“They smell bad when they’re dead.”

“All you mortal types do.”

John could barely follow the conversation; he was too busy staring into Tohr’s face. Open your eyes . . . open your eyes . . . please God . . .

“Come on, John.” Wrath turned back to the Brotherhood and started walking. When he came up to them, he said softly, “Our brother is returned.”

“Oh, Christ, is he alive,” someone said.

“Thank God,” someone else groaned.

“Tell them,” Lassiter demanded from behind. “Tell them he comes with a roommate.”

As one, the Brothers’ heads snapped up.

“Fuck. Me,” Vishous breathed.

“I will so pass on that,” Lassiter muttered.

Chapter Fifty

Phury walked through the glowing white expanse of the Sanctuary, going over to the Scribe Virgin’s private entry. He knocked once and he waited, willing a request for an audience.

When the doors opened, he expected the Directrix Amalya to be the one who greeted him, but there was nobody on the other side. The Scribe Virgin’s white courtyard was empty save for the birds in their white-blossomed tree.

The finches and canaries were out of place, and all the more lovely for it. Their colors were bright against their background of white branches and leaves, and hearing their calls, he thought of the number of times Vishous had come over here with one of the fragile things cupped in his palms.

After the Scribe Virgin had given them up for her son, the son had returned them to her.

Phury went over to the fountain and listened to the water fall into its marble basin. He knew when the Scribe Virgin appeared behind him, because the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

“I thought you were going to step down,” she said to him. “I saw the path of the Primale unfolding for another’s footfalls. You were supposed to just be the transition.”

He looked over his shoulder. “I thought I was going to step down as well. But, no.”

Odd, he thought. Beneath the black robes that shielded her face and hands and feet, the glow of her seemed dimmer than he remembered.

She drifted over to her birds. “I would have you greet me properly, Primale.”

He bent down low and said the proper words in the Old Language. Also paid her the service of staying in a bow, waiting for her to release him from the supplication.

“Ah, but that is the thing,” she murmured. “You have already released yourself. And now you want the same for my Chosen.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “You need not explain your reasoning. Think you I know not what is in your head? Even your wizard, as you call him, is known unto me.”

Okay, that made him uncomfortable.

“Rise, Phury, son of Ahgony.” When he did, she said, “We are all products of our upbringings, Primale. The constructions that result from our choices are laid upon the foundation set by our parents and their parents before them. We are but the next level in the house or paver in the path.”

Phury shook his head slowly. “We can choose a different direction. We can move ourselves along a different heading of the compass.”

“Of that I am not sure.”

“Of that I must be sure . . . or I’m not going to make anything of this life you’ve given me.”

“Indeed.” Her head turned toward her private quarters. “Indeed, Primale.”

In the silence that stretched, she seemed saddened, which surprised him. He’d been prepared for a fight. Hell, it was hard not to think of the Scribe Virgin as anything other than an eighteen-wheeler in black robes.

“Tell me, Primale, how do you intend to handle this all?”

“I’m not sure yet. But those who feel more comfortable here can stay. And those who want to venture forth to the far side will find a safe haven with me there.”

“You are abandoning this side for good?”

“There is something I need on the far side, something I have to have. But I will be back and forth. It’s going to take decades, maybe longer, to change everything. Cormia is going to help.”

“And you shall take only her, as a male does?”

“Yes. If the others find mates of their choosing, then I will accept all their female offspring into the traditions of the Chosen and urge Wrath to take their males into the Brotherhood, whether they are born here or on the far side. But I will have only Cormia.”

“What of the purity of the blood? The strength that comes of it? Are there to be no standards? The breeding was deliberate, to beget strength from strength. What if a Chosen chooses one not of a Brotherhood line?”

He thought of Qhuinn and Blay. Strong boys who would be stronger males over time. Why shouldn’t they be in the Brotherhood?

“It would be up to Wrath. But I would encourage him to accept the worthy regardless of lineage. Courage of heart can make a male taller and stronger than he is physically. Look, the race is failing, and you know it. We’re losing ground with every generation, and not just because of the war. The Lessening Society isn’t the only thing killing us. The traditions are, too.”

The Scribe Virgin drifted over to the fountain.

There was a long, long, long silence.

“I feel as though I have lost,” she said softly. “All of you.”

“You haven’t. Not at all. Be a mother to the race, not a warden, and you will win everything you want. Set us free and watch us thrive.”

The sound of the chiming fountain seemed to swell, growing louder, as if catching the drift of her emotions.

Phury looked at the falling water, seeing it catch the light and twinkle like stars. The rainbows in each of the droplets were impossibly beautiful, and as he watched the flashing gems in every fragment of the whole that fell back down, he thought of the Chosen and whatever individual gifts they possessed.

He thought of his Brothers.

He thought of their
shellans.

He thought of his beloved.

And he knew the whys of her silence. “You won’t lose us. We will never leave you behind and forget you. How could we? You birthed us and squired us and strengthened us. But now . . . now is our time. Let us go and we will be closer to you than ever before. Let us take the future into our hands and shape it as best we can. Have faith in your creation.”