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Wilbur and Morio stepped to the front, and Morio took my hand. Delilah and Menolly edged back to let us have room for our spell casting.
The rain cascaded down, plastering my hair to my head, streaking my face and chilling me to the bone. A bolt of lightning crashed overhead as the dance of the storm played from cloud bank to cloud bank, thunder rumbling so ominously that my teeth chattered.
Morio closed his eyes and I could feel him summoning the dark power. The power of the grave. I fell into synch with his breathing, and as he began to chant I focused the power he was building.
“Return to dust, return to the grave, return to the night, return to the earth, return to the depths, return to the Mother, return to the womb . . .”
Wilbur fell into a cadence with him and held up his hands, palms facing the wandering group of bone-walkers. A chill ran down my spine. Just by the tone of his voice I could tell he was more powerful than either Morio or me. FBH or not, this man knew his magic and it had changed him. A gray-green energy flared in his aura, creating a nimbus of power around him, and he began to gather it, sucking it in through his breath, focusing it out through his hands, aiming it toward the skeletons.
“Dust to dust, return to the ground, cease your wandering, strip life from that which has no life, return to decay . . .”
I blinked, sinking into the energy, ignoring the droplets that trickled down the back of my neck. The compulsion to move was strong, and I began to stride forward, a trail of energy linking me to Morio.
One of the skeletons came at me and I held up my hand. A brilliant light shot out of my palm, hitting the skeleton and engulfing it in flames of purple. The creature opened its mouth and shrieked, then fell, clattering into a pile of old bones. Morio walked behind me—I could feel him in my wake.
Wilbur was doing something. What, I couldn’t see. I was focused on directing the energy that Morio and I’d invoked between ourselves. But I heard another shriek and it wasn’t my doing. I flashed my hands again, and again the purple light engulfed two more skeletons. They fell into dust. And then, Morio shouted, breaking the energy.
Whirling around, I saw that he was being attacked by a zombie. He let out a low growl and began to shift into his demonic form. I glanced around, quickly ascertaining my position. I was in a battlefield of living bones and had incoming on the left—a pair of the bone-walkers was headed my way. I scrambled for the dagger I kept strapped to my thigh.
At that point, Wilbur shouted and I glanced in his direction. He, too, had been taken by surprise. A zombie trundled out from behind a nearby bush, attacking him from the rear.
At that moment, Delilah leapt into the fray, leading the others, her dagger, Lysanthra, raised high. The blade was singing her name, singing her battle cry. And then Menolly raced past me, bowling over one of the skeletons as she ramrodded it to the ground, skidding in the wet grass.
And the fray was on.
CHAPTER 18>“We were trying to avoid using the seals. Are they certain this is a good idea?” Menolly said.
“I have no idea. I don’t seem to know anything anymore.”
“Are you sure the idea will fail?” Chase asked. “I’m not trying to make waves, but maybe they’re right?”
“How should I know? They aren’t going to tell us every detail, I could see that right off.” I paused, catching my breath. “Sorry, I’m just a little on edge. The problem is we don’t know if this will work. That’s why I want to talk to Grandmother Coyote. My instinct is screaming that it’s going to upset the balance even further, but I want her take on it. Maybe I’m just paranoid.”
“But suppose the plan backfires and makes them stronger? There are too many potential disasters here,” Menolly said.
Morio played with his cup of tea, tapping the china lightly with one fingernail. “I think they’ve miscalculated the power of the demons. Think about it,” he said when we looked at him quizzically. “They’re just coming off a successful war. Both of them are feeling strong and victorious. Suppose it’s gone to their heads?”
Delilah coughed. “Somehow the thought of a win going to Queen Asteria’s head like that seems ludicrous, but I suppose even she is fallible.”
Trillian cleared his throat. “There’s another possibility. Suppose they’re afraid of the newly risen Fae Courts and are worried that the Triple Threat might join forces with the demons? Or even that you three might join forces with the Triple Threat? You’ll notice that neither Titania nor Aeval was invited to their little tête-à-tête. Or Morgaine, for that matter.”
I stared at him. “You really think they’re afraid we might start handing the seals over to the Earthside Fae Courts?”
“What better way to ensure that you continue taking them back to Otherworld than to invent an even greater need for Asteria to possess them?”
“Then you think this is a ruse?”
He hesitated for a moment, thinking, then shook his head. “No, I don’t. I think they believe what they say. But, like you—I feel it’s a double-edged sword. However, I don’t dare say anything. Svartalfheim is still suspect in Otherworld since we uprooted the city and ran out of the Sub Realms. There’s too much to lose by openly questioning their motives. And if I go to King Vodox with my concerns, he’d know about the spirit seals and that’s something you really don’t want happening.”
“He makes a point,” Rozurial said. “With the revelation that you girls are related to Morgaine, perhaps their fear has grown stronger.”
“But our father is related to her, too—” I stopped. “Oh. Do you think that’s why Tanaquar is sleeping with him? To keep tabs on him and, by doing so, find out what we’re up to?”
“Tanaquar did whatever she had to in order to win the war against her sister. Blood ties aren’t sacred to her. You can be sure if she had Lethesanar in custody, the Opium Eater would lose her head before she could blink. With the Fae Queens of Earthside reigning over their courts again, it potentially jeopardizes Tanaquar’s sole reign as the Queen of Fae.”
“But what about Queen Asteria? Is Tanaquar afraid of her?” Delilah asked.
“No,” Trillian said. “Asteria’s not the threat—she’s the Elfin Queen and the elves and Fae don’t play in each other’s sandboxes. But consider this: We have three newly crowned monarchs over here. What do you suppose would happen if Tanaquar’s people decided they want to go back to the old system—the Seelie and Unseelie courts—that was in place before the Great Divide?” Trillian finished his soup and pushed back his plate.
