Junk magic, p.36
Junk Magic, page 36
Damn it! I hadn’t even been here fifteen minutes, and things were already falling apart. “Do you have a phone?” I asked.
“Are you listening to me?” Sophie demanded. “You left, and then it was like you fell off the Earth or something. Cyrus has been going crazy. He called HQ, but they said you weren’t there. You didn’t seem to be anywhere—”
“Phone?” I asked Jen, because I knew she had one.
“—and then the news broke about Neuri. Is that true? You have to be batshit to come here if so—”
Jen handed over her phone and I punched in a number, while holding up a finger to stop the torrent of conversation from the girls.
To my surprise, it worked, and then a familiar voice came on the line.
“Don’t hang up,” I said.
“Oh, God. Not you again.” Caleb sounded almost tragic.
“Are you on the way?”
“Yes! Yes, I am on the way! And I’m fine, incidentally, not that you asked. Just a mild concussion—”
“And they let you out of the infirmary?”
“I didn’t ask for permission!”
He seemed stressed, so I cut the pleasantries. “How many are with you?”
“Two, Jacobs and Singh, why?”
“You’re going to need more. Twelve war mages picked me up last night—”
Caleb started cursing.
“—and I don’t know how many more might be compromised. You can’t go in there with three—”
“If I ask for more, I’m going to need authorization—”
“So, get it.”
“—from the old man! Who is already on the warpath after hearing what you did. And by now he’s had time to read my report. It’s why I scarpered before the bastard could find me—”
“Scarper back. Tell him what I said—”
“And he’s going to believe you?”
“Maybe not. But he’s old school—he’ll have to check it out. And he won’t let you go in there with your ass hanging out.”
“And when he asks where you are? What the fuck am I—”
“Tell him the truth. That you don’t know,” I said, and hung up.
“You guys have an interesting relationship,” Sophie said.
I was about to respond, but Jen’s third slave had just returned, and was whispering something sibilant and awful into her ear. I didn’t understand a word, but she apparently did. She looked up, biting her lip.
“It’s starting.”
“What is?’ I asked, wondering if I wanted to know.
“The thing.”
The girls took off, clambering over the hairy mountains of Lobizon’s finest, who were making noises but hadn’t yet come around. We didn’t stop to help out, or to assist a couple of room service types on the other side, who were looking unconcerned except for the fact that they couldn’t get their cart past. I followed the two well-dressed troublemakers back to the main hall, and discovered that something was happening in the big ballroom.
Or one of them, anyway.
There was a row of large rooms with unusually bland décor running down one side of this wing of the hotel. They’d been recently redecorated, part of the major refurbishment currently going on, because instead of eye searing patterns and colors, they were a tasteful beige and white. And the only bling in sight were glittering chandeliers and sconces.
It looked like the Council had taken over all of them, probably for security reasons, but also to accommodate the mass of people here for the first day of the session. That was also probably why the separators had been removed from the individual rooms, each of which could accommodate hundreds of guests. Leaving one massive rectangle that was teeming with a crowd of thousands.
But things were going down in this one.
What things, I couldn’t see, because of the crowd attempting to get in through the huge, double doors. I could have forced my way inside, but that would have made too much of a spectacle. But being polite wasn’t doing me any good, because we’d basically stopped moving while still being in the hall.
The room was already packed out, it seemed, and nobody was interested in giving up their place. So, I had no clue what was going on, except for the fact that somebody was yelling. A very familiar somebody.
“Fuck,” I said with feeling, and began being more aggressive in my attempts to worm through the crowd.
“Wait. Come this way,” Sophie said, and started pulling me in a different direction. It worked because she currently smelled like cat, something extremely unusual in this setting, which had people unconsciously drawing away from us and a few sniffing the air in disgust. And because we weren’t headed inside any more.
“Wait. Where are we going?”
“Where Jen and I were before you showed up. It’s a great vantage point.”
I hoped so, because where we were at the moment was a narrow set of stairs, obviously meant for the help. There was almost no light in here and I could touch the sides without spreading my arms. But it was short, only half a dozen flights, so maybe three stories up. And when we burst out of the top, it wasn’t onto another floor, but onto a rooftop.
A rooftop made almost entirely out of glass.
There was a narrow walkway around the sides, I supposed for repairmen, but the whole of the center were glass panes in a vaguely golden hue, or maybe that was the light coming from the room below. And it had a triangular top, extending up another story or so for dramatic effect. Part of the remodel, I supposed, as this room had had a normal ceiling the last time I checked.
But this one was better, and not just because it looked more impressive. But because it allowed me to see the trainwreck happening below perfectly. And to hear it, too, thanks to the drug coursing through my veins. Not that either of those things was helping, only I didn’t know what would.
Because Cyrus was standing in the middle of a circle of wolves, half of them in human form and half with their fine clothes shredded around them, about to get ripped apart.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
But it seemed that there was some kind of plan, because Cyrus raised a hand holding a large golden medallion on a red, black and yellow ribbon. I couldn’t see the face of it, but I didn’t need to. It was the badge of office, the symbol of the bardric, and made like a necklace so that he could wear it in either form.
“You see it?” Cyrus asked, turning in a half circle to show it off to the thousands of onlookers. And there were thousands, and not just in the large circle around him. People with cell phones had done like me and tried to get higher, including standing on chairs or climbing onto other people’s shoulders, uncaring about the elegant venue or their fine clothes.
And at least one of those was running a feed to another room, because I could hear Cyrus’s voice echoed at a distance, just after he spoke.
It wasn’t surprising that there would be interest, as a vargulf at a Great Council meeting was unprecedented. No one knew what it meant, but they smelled blood in the air, they just weren’t sure whose. And neither was I.
But Whirlwind and a dozen bodyguards had just shoved their way through the crowd and into the open area at the center, so it wasn’t looking good.
“Your entire family has a death wish, it seems,” Whirlwind snapped at Cyrus. The great mane of black hair, with its ornamental white streak blazing down the side and into his beard, was shaking in anger.
That seemed an odd emotion. Annoyance I could understand, maybe even disgust, as a vargulf’s presence could be considered insulting to the council. But anger? Yet it appeared genuine, with his face flushed and those strange eyes snapping.
It made for a powerful picture, despite the fact that he was still in human form, his bulk encased in a flowing black, watered silk caftan. I couldn’t see where the tearaway seams were, as they’d been cleverly concealed, but I knew they were there. It was the sort of thing people wore when they suspected a swift Change might be necessary.
Whirlwind had come prepared to fight, but the only person it would make sense for him to challenge was Sebastian, who was nowhere in sight. I scanned the crowd, but although I recognized a lot of the people there, Sebastian wasn’t among them. I didn’t understand that—until I remembered what Sophie had said.
“How badly was Sebastian hurt?” I whispered to her.
“Bad enough that he couldn’t get out of his chair.”
So, bad-bad. Because a Were would fight with both legs broken and one arm ripped off if need be. Sebastian wasn’t injured, then; he was half dead, or he would be here. But that still didn’t explain what Cyrus was doing.
Or why the hell he was laughing!
“A death wish, indeed. Yes, you could say I have a death wish,” he agreed, grinning.
It seemed to be making Whirlwind nervous, as he cut his eyes to the side, to meet those of that bastard Farkas. Who, for once, didn’t seem to know what was going on, either. Or maybe they just couldn’t figure out what Cyrus was doing here dressed like a prince.
It was a sight to behold, and one I had never seen before. I’d met him after he and Sebastian pulled their little scam, in order to get someone competent in charge of the Were community. And by then, he had dressed like what he was: a regular guy.
But not tonight.
The ever-present western shirts and blue jeans had been replaced, not by the elegant suits that Sebastian favored, but by a flowing caftan in gold silk. It had black and gold embroidery scrawling all over it, and a neckline low enough to show off the hard lines of his chest and to almost reach his navel. Even more telling, he was barefoot, which on its own could be considered aggressive in this setting.
The whole outfit said he had come to fight, not to talk, although he did some of the latter, in a booming voice that he didn’t need, because you could have heard a pin drop in there.
“I do have a death wish,” he said. “Yours—in payment for what you have done to my brother.”
“I’ve done nothing to him,” Whirlwind spat. “And the only one who will die tonight is you, for daring to show your face—”
“Yes, I dare!” the smile was suddenly gone from Cyrus’s expression and voice. “And I have your bardric’s permission. As indicated by this.” He held up the badge of office again, in case anyone had missed it. “You tried to have my brother assassinated, repeatedly tried to remove him in the most cowardly way possible, so that you could steal his office—”
“Lies! And from a traitor’s mouth!”
“—and when that didn’t work, you took advantage of his injuries to come here, prepared to challenge a badly wounded man, who you thought you might be able to beat. It was another cowardly act, but you knew he’d have to fight, that he wouldn’t have a choice. A challenge for the bardric’s position must be answered by him or a close relation, and I was gone—”
“And for good reason! Remove this bastard,” Whirlwind told his guards. “He defiles the Council by his presence!”
“Yet he has the badge,” someone said, and I saw Sienna come forward. She managed to stand out in a room where everyone was putting on a show, but not just because of the outfit. But because of the air of quiet authority she wore like a cloak.
She was a council member, I realized, tiny clan or no, and tonight, she looked like it.
“He must be allowed to speak,” she added.
“And who are you to say must?” Whirlwind sneered. “Your tiny clan—”
“Fought off an army yesterday, one which yours . . . was not quick enough to face.”
There was nothing in her words that directly accused him of anything, but she somehow conveyed the impression that he’d been late on purpose. And the insult landed. The wolf eyes, already so disturbing in a human face, flashed and narrowed, and his lip curled.
But Sienna didn’t back down, or even act as if she’d noticed, and the room was trending her way. “Let him speak,” echoed from every corner—although less, I was pretty sure, in support of a vargulf or even a minor council member, and more about the drama. Cyrus had piqued their curiosity, and for the moment, it was enough.
“I was gone,” Cyrus repeated. “Exiled and disgraced, and you cleverly removed Lia by having her proclaimed vargulf, too, by lying to the entire Were community—”
“There was no lie!” Whirlwind snarled. “Your whore has Neuri, and now everyone knows it—”
“For that, I’m going to kill you slowly,” Cyrus promised, with a strange smile on his face.
“She has it!” Whirlwind looked around at the crowd. “Bring the bitch here and we’ll have her tested, in front of everyone!”
Some people seemed to like that idea, sending a cold chill up my spine. But Cyrus had the floor and he wasn’t ceding it. Nor did he look worried.
“Your delaying tactics won’t work, old man. You thought to discredit the Lady Accalia, Laurentia of Lobizon’s only daughter, and the adopted daughter of Sebastian of Arnou! Thought to besmirch her name and send the craven dogs of her old family chasing her, to make sure you did not have to face her again. You feared her—”
“I fear nothing!”
“She beat you—”
“She used magic—a trick—”
“She was out of magic, to the point of death. She used no trick. That was the gift of the Ulfheðnar, once the captains of our people. Long thought lost, but now reborn from a line known for it.”
At that, a murmur went around the room, because some people had clearly understood what he was talking about. Which was more than I did. But he ignored them, moving on.
“You thought that removing her would clear a path to victory. But you forgot—Sebastian has a brother. And now a champion!” Cyrus threw the badge of office onto the ground in front of Whirlwind, where it lay, gleaming under the lights. “You want it, old man? Then pick it up. But only after you’ve won it—the old-fashioned way. The Blood Path.”
A bigger murmur reacted to this, because the Blood Path was not merely a challenge. A regular challenge could end at any time, if either combatant chose to concede. Or if one was too badly injured for that, a family member could do it for him. It might come as a surprise to outsiders, but most Were challenges did not end in death.
Except for one.
The Blood Path was ancient, from a time far crueler than the present, and it was bound by different rules. Or to be more accurate, it was bound by none, save one: it only ended in death. Of one combatant, of both, it didn’t matter, but the fighting didn’t stop until someone had paid the ultimate price.
Whirlwind snarled, an echoing sound that reverberated around the room. But he didn’t bend down. He didn’t take it.
“You’re vargulf,” he scoffed. “You can’t challenge anyone, much less a member of council!”
“I am vargulf, it is true,” Cyrus said, looking around the room. “And I deserved it, if ever anyone has, for thinking that I could rule better than my brother. For casting family aside and challenging him for a position that I had no right to. Unbridled ambition made me determined to rule our clan, and possibly even all of you!
“I was wrong.
“I did not realize how much until afterward, at the sight of my family turning their backs on me. Then I felt true remorse, knew burning shame for what I had done. But there was no recourse. I accepted my fate, I left the family, and came out here to make my way however I could, thinking to trouble Sebastian no more.” His eyes slid back to Whirlwind. “But when I heard what had happened, when I understood that you had tried to fight him when he was half dead from protecting our people—”
“He was hurt protecting a thing, a filthy necromancer—”
“Dick,” I heard Jen whisper.
“—not one of ours—”
“That ‘filthy necromancer’ fought for us, as did a number of other powerful individuals—including my ‘whore’, as you called her. Where were you?”
“On my way,” Whirlwind snapped. “And had I been there, with the might of the great Clan Rand behind me, far fewer would have died! Your brother lost how many—”
“But you weren’t there,” Cyrus said, cutting him off with that simple truth. “You didn’t fight. They did—my brother, my mate, a handful of children, and a group of townspeople with only shotguns to help them against an army of well supplied mages. Yet they held out; they won. And you came in, conveniently late, to accuse them?”
Cyrus’s voice had been loud before, but now it had reached a crescendo that shook the rafters. Or, in this case, rattled the glass. For a second, I was afraid he’d break it, like an opera star going for a high note.
But then it went in the other direction, from a shout to a whisper, but one that carried. One that crawled up the spine and back down again, bringing shivers with it. Because he meant every word.
“My brother made it clear: the only way back is the way I left: through challenge. Your blood is the price of my redemption, and I want my redemption. Fight me.”
Whirlwind gazed about at the circle of faces, all of whom were silent, waiting. They weren’t tilting one way or the other, not yet, but they easily could. Challenge had been given, and while this wasn’t the usual place, with none of the ritual that went along with it, that didn’t matter.
At its heart, Were society hadn’t changed much in hundreds of years, maybe not in thousands. A challenge was sacred, and could take place anywhere, including a dusty street with no pomp or circumstance, no anything but blood and courage. It didn’t matter when or where; it was just as sacred, just as important.
And yes, it was barbaric and cruel, and sometimes let the wrong person win.
But I couldn’t deny that my blood flowed a little faster through my veins, just at the sound of those two simple words: Fight Me.
But Whirlwind clearly didn’t feel the same way. It was the proof of a leader, that he or she was willing to put their life on the line for their people. And since he’d missed that opportunity last night, he couldn’t very well turn away from this one. Not if he wanted to become bardric; not if he wanted to retain control of his own clan.
