Tempest Reborn (4 page)

‘But not by killing Anyan?’ I asked skeptically.

‘Obviously not,’ Ryu said, giving me a level look. ‘Think about it, Jane. The Red and the White have been killed about a million times. Has it worked?’

I couldn’t help it then. I looked down at my own plate and voiced my worst fear. ‘But they’re in real bodies now,’ I said, my voice small. ‘Maybe that means they can really be killed.’

Instead of agreeing with that idea, Ryu openly scoffed.

‘That makes no sense. If anything, now we know how little a body, even their own bodies, means to the Red and the White.’

Looking up to meet Ryu’s eyes, I felt another rush of excitement. ‘Iris said the same thing. I mean, she didn’t, but sort of. I mean, she brought up the idea that we had to figure out what the Red and the White are. Like, are they bodies, or souls, or spirits, or whatever.’

‘They have to be the latter,’ Ryu said. ‘It’s the only explanation. It’s why they could communicate, even when they were supposedly dead and cut up, with the people they manipulated. It’s why they could enter Morrigan and Anyan. We never thought of it that way because they would always come back to their own bones, their own bodies. But they’re not things, they’re … woo-woo things.’ Ryu wiggled his fingers in the air when he said ‘woo-woo’, like a person imitating a ghost.

‘So if we kill Anyan or Morrigan…’ I started.

‘All we do is release the spirits again, to find another host,’ finished Ryu.

To my embarrassment, tears rose in my eyes. I was definitely making up for my not crying immediately after everything happened, by crying at everything today.

Ryu’s hand again found mine over the table.

‘We will get him back, Jane,’ he said.

‘Why do you care?’ I asked, snuffling. I couldn’t help it. He was being so good to me, and after everything that had happened between us, I didn’t understand why.

‘For a few reasons,’ he said, withdrawing his hand and leveling a serious look at me, so that I knew he wasn’t just being friendly. Ryu was also strategizing, and for once I was glad to be on the receiving end of his ceaseless Machiavellian manipulations. ‘First of all, I’ve become a leader, too, just like Nyx. I’ve learned a lot about myself these last few months. I realized how selfish I’d been with a lot of things, including with you. So no matter how I felt about you and Anyan at one time, I have to put aside those feelings for the good of our people.
All
of our people. If the Red and the White aren’t stopped, everything we know will come to an end. All life may come to an end. I can’t let my own pettiness stand between me and that reality.’

Wow
, I thought. He really had grown up. I don’t think I could have thought that clear-headedly, if I were he.

‘Not to mention, how can I live without Anyan?’ Ryu asked, giving me a broad wink. ‘He’s the Moriarty to my Sherlock, the Road Runner to my Wyle E. Coyote, the Tom to my Jerry.’

‘But you’re both good guys.’ He acknowledged my compliment with a smile and a small nod in my direction.

‘Finally, I owe you, Jane.’

‘What? You don’t owe me, that’s ridiculous.’

‘No, I think I do. I did love you, you know. But I loved you in the wrong way. And I know I hurt you because of that.’

For the umpteenth time, I blinked back tears. This time, however, they were the good kind.

‘Ryu, you’re a better person than me,’ I said, meaning it.

‘Nonsense. Although that does mean a lot to me.’

We ate the rest of our meal in companionable silence, and then we even ordered pie.

‘So how long are you free from your duties?’ I asked Ryu as we ate our desserts – cherry pie for him, pecan for me.

‘As long as you need me. Nyx really is capable of running things without me, especially now. Everyone’s basically paralyzed, waiting for the next appearance from the Red and the White. Makes ruling easy. Oh, and Daoud will be here tomorrow. Camille is now running things in Boston, although she sends her regards.’

‘The old gang,’ I said with a smile.

‘Yes, the old gang.’

And right then, I knew we had a shot. Because I did have a gang. I had a massive, incredibly smart, incredibly loyal, and incredibly loving team of people whom I could count on.

People who just might make getting Anyan back possible.

So I briefed Ryu on what we had, in terms of our own strengths, and what we knew, which was very little. I also promised to show him the labrys later. I hadn’t taken it out since I’d gotten back, partially because I knew I’d think of Blondie when I did.

Grief for her death was something I couldn’t deal with at that point, so I’d just bottled it up and stashed it somewhere deep inside. It probably wasn’t too healthy, long term, to do stuff like that, but it got me through the short term.

When I was done talking, Ryu looked speculative as he put money down for the check. I had to let him pay, as I had no cash. I actually had no wallet, passport, purse, anything, since it was all still back in London with my backpack.

I made a mental note to ask the creature about that, forgetting the creature was actually in my mind. So as soon as I had the thought, I felt a feeling of confirmation run through me, and I knew I’d probably return home to a backpack full of dirty clothes.

‘Well,’ Ryu said as we made our way toward the Sty’s double doors. ‘We don’t have a lot to go on, but maybe that’s a good thing. The fact is, everything we know about how to take care of these monsters hasn’t worked. So we have to think up something entirely new.’

I nodded as we pushed our way into the warm spring evening.

‘That’s the next step. Find somewhere to start—’

My sentence was never finished as an explosion rocked Ryu and me off our feet. Protected by our instinctive shields, we bounced harmlessly off the ground. But when we clambered to our feet, mage balls at the ready, we saw that the glass fronts of all the surrounding stores were blown out. Cowering humans, most of whom I knew even if they couldn’t recognize me through my glamour, peered up in fright from the Sty, and fury kindled within me.

When the next blast hit, we were ready, and I easily contained it within my shields. I also got a lock on our targets, lurking in an alleyway kitty-corner from where Ryu and I stood.

Beautiful blue eyes met mine from a waxen face, and I strode purposefully forward.

It was about time I dealt with Graeme, once and for all.

Morrigan had definitely sent her big guns, as well as a few little ones.

Besides the rapist-incubus, Graeme, who wielded a fair bit of mojo, there were two goblins launching themselves across the street at us. They were the little guns, and Ryu and I flicked them aside with a negligible release of magic.

While we dealt with them, however, Graeme sent another massive blast of magic from a set of charms he held. They were like the magical version of grenades – supercharged, probably by Morrigan herself – to be utilized later by whoever carried them.

Since I was a woman, and better at multitasking, even as I dispatched my goblin I circled the charm’s blast with a heavy blanket of damp air. As I did so, I pulled more moisture out of the drenched Maine atmosphere, until the blast was cocooned in water.

[Do as Nell taught you,] came the creature’s voice in my head. Even as it told me what to do, it showed me, and I smiled.

Some of my first lessons from the gnome had been about recycling power. So, when I did things like create a mage light, instead of letting it fizzle out when I was done with it, she taught me to reabsorb the power.

And this charm was really just a massive, fuck-off powerful mage light.

I went deep in my power, grounding myself as I opened my channels to shunt off all that crazy force. Feeling the foreign power whoosh through me, I immediately boomeranged it back at where I knew Graeme was hiding between the fire station and the post office. It came out like a blast of light, clipping the corner of our fire station and blasting away a third goblin that had launched itself from the shadows.

I moved to the right, still streaming that power, until Graeme’s alley no longer hid him. He took off running, screaming something incomprehensible, but I felt an answering pull of air power above me.

Harpies, I thought grimly, knowing that Kaya and Kaori must be near. Ryu shouted, pointing upward. Dark shapes darted above us and then a single, magically charged feather came drifting down – but this one had the punch of a missile from a B-52 bomber.

It landed at our feet, and I shielded it even as we separated, throwing ourselves away as we amped up our own individual protections. It exploded in a riot of magic, blowing out the front of the fire station. Our dazed local firefighters – volunteers mostly –poked their heads around a corner, and I begged the creature for help. Like marionettes with their strings cut, the firefighters slumped to the ground, put to sleep by the creature’s power.

And that’s when I got pissed. It was one thing to attack me, but it was another thing entirely to attack the town of Rockabill. Morrigan was hitting way too close to home.

Graeme was holed up in the front piece of the restaurant a few doors down from the post office. He must have thought it was a good place to hide, but he was wrong.

Because that building – owned by Stuart Grey’s nasty parents – was the one building I didn’t mind destroying.

‘Take the harpies!’ I shouted at Ryu. ‘I’ll take Graeme!’

Ryu gave me a startled look, since he’d not seen the evolution of Jane True into someone who took people on, rather than just taking things from buffets.

He looked even more shocked when I pulled the labrys from wherever it hid, waiting to be called.

I swept it through the air a few times, calling to its power even as I remembered my lessons with Anyan with a pang. It responded eagerly, lighting up with a savage gleam. I grinned, admittedly rather maniacally, at Graeme, and started to walk forward.

Graeme shouted gibberish again, lobbing a few mage balls at me, and out stepped … something.

I’d never seen anything like it. It was squat, about three feet tall and as wide across. It appeared to be made of … mud? Brown and lumpy, it sort of resembled a toad. Or the nasty brother that gets turned into an actual pile of shit in
Weird Science
.

Its grotesquely wide body shuffled forward on stupidly tiny, SpongeBob legs. It might have been humorous, except that with every step it took, earth power boomed forward. The ground shook like we were having a quake, and I stumbled.

‘It’s a golem!’ Ryu shouted.

I cast him a Look, letting him know I had no idea what he was talking about, even as I pulled more water out of the air, pushing against the golem thing.

Ryu lobbed a few mage balls into the air, and we heard a satisfying squawk, before explaining.

‘They’re basically walking charms, charged with the element of the person who made them. But that person has to be enormously strong.’

The blood drained from my face as I realized the implications of Ryu’s words.

The thing was using earth power. Anyan’s main element was earth. Anyan may have charged this thing.

And sent it to kill me.

Forcing down a lump in my throat, I told myself that this was inevitable. Anyan wasn’t Anyan anymore. And although I had to believe he was somewhere inside of that damned dragon, that didn’t mean he was in control.

Which meant the White did this. Not Anyan.

And I was the champion, not just Jane anymore.

So this time, when the earth golem took another waddling step forward, looking a bit like a New Zealand rugby player performing the haka, I was ready.

I pushed forward with the labrys’s power, meeting the golem’s own expenditure of energy halfway. I then arced it up, so it dissipated in the air rather than causing another tremor.

I moved forward, too, until I was close enough to see that it had a creepy version of a face. Mud eyes stared blindly forward, above a crude mud nose and mouth. Its small arms flailed as it called forth more power.

‘How do I kill this thing?’ I shouted at Ryu, who was now peppering the sky with a barrage of mage balls. We heard another noise from the heavens, this time a cry, and something fell onto the roof of the post office.

One harpy down, one to go
, I thought.

Ryu dashed over to where I stood, trying to keep the golem from taking another of those earthquake-inducing steps. He started to pour his own power into mine, but I felt him withdraw it as he gave me a shocked look.

‘Most of it’s the creature’s,’ I said, knowing he’d realized just how much force I now wielded. ‘Power’s not the issue; how do we stop it?’

A mage ball hit our shield from above, and Ryu started peppering the sky above us to keep the remaining harpy away.

‘Golems haven’t been created for centuries, so I don’t know how it can be killed. But if it’s earth, I’d assume use a contradictory element?’

I nodded, narrowing my eyes at the golem. Graeme was behind it, his lips still moving.

He must be controlling it
, I realized.

‘If we don’t know how to destroy it, we should just try to stop it,’ I told Ryu, a plan forming in my head. ‘Then we have to take out Graeme.’

‘Getting it to stop would be a good thing, yes,’ Ryu said as he scanned the skies, sending up a few more missiles.

‘I meant stop-stop, like freezing it…’ I stopped talking. Freezing it. Yes, freezing would work.

The golem was mud, after all…

Once I had the idea, all I had to do was execute it. Unfortunately, what I wanted to do took way more focus and power than I’d thought it would. So the moment I went in – seeking out all of those fat, lovely water molecules holding the dirt together and making it mud – I lost control of the golem. It took another haka-step forward, and both Ryu and I stumbled, then dove out of the way as a light pole snapped and fell from right above, threatening to crush us. I lost my grip on the golem’s water, and it took another step, even as a dark shape hurtled down from the sky at Ryu.

Graeme shouted exultantly, no doubt some command for the golem, and I decided I’d had enough.