Fury Awakened (Fury Unbound Book 3) Page 4

  Now, as I watched the awkward mating dance, I hoped that Jason and Elan would resolve it for the best. Even if Tam and I didn’t last, I would never go back to courting hope that Jason would notice me as the woman I had grown up to become.

  “I wonder if this means I’ve grown up?” I let out a loud sigh and, as everybody stared at me, realized that I had spoken aloud. I groaned. “Never mind. Just random thoughts.”

  “Oh, come on, Kae.” Jason grinned at me and waggled a chunk of bread in my direction. “What were you thinking?”

  “Nothing you want to know about. Trust me.”

  Trying not to blush, I buried myself in my food, focusing on stuffing my face. After a few more rounds of teasing, the others left me alone except for Tam, who stared at me intently. I sidestepped his gaze. He was too insightful, and I hoped to avoid ever telling him that I had harbored a secret crush on Jason.

  After we finished eating, I wandered back to the chair and lowered myself into the welcoming cushions. I leaned back, closing my eyes.

  “Fury? May I ask you something?”

  Suppressing a groan, I opened one eye.

  Elan sat down beside me. “If you want to rest, I can ask you later.”

  “No, no. What is it?” I forced myself to sit up.

  She glanced over her shoulder, then leaned in. “Does Jason have any women in the city?”

  I blinked. While I wanted the best for them, I really didn’t relish being thrust into the position of matchmaker. Or worse—counselor.

  I blurted out, “Shouldn’t you ask him?” Then, before she could respond, I added, “I mean, isn’t this something the two of you should talk about?”

  “That’s just it. There is no us. Not yet. I need to know if I’m wasting my time by pursuing a relationship with someone already spoken for. Unlike the Bonny Fae, we don’t take multiple lovers in the woodland. We mate and keep to that mate.”

  I blinked. The Bonny Fae were promiscuous by nature, but only with mutual agreement. At some point, Tam and I needed to define the boundaries of our relationship, but with all that had happened in the past six weeks, it was as though we had been flung together without a guidebook, rules, or even a first date.

  “Jason’s fiancée died about two months ago. All I know is that it was an arranged marriage, and that he still blames himself for her death even though he had nothing to do with it. I don’t think he’s seeing anybody else. If he is, he hasn’t told me. But Elan—” I held her gaze. “I can tell you this—from the way he looks at you, he’s falling fast. I recognize that look.”

  She considered my words, then walked away.

  I closed my eyes and drifted in the warmth of the cabin, not certain if I were sleeping or just pleasantly dozing. I wasn’t sure how much later the door to the cabin opened and a cold wind blew through, breaking through my lovely respite.

  Three of the Frostlings entered the cabin. One had to be the Guardian. There was something about the way he looked—with feathers made of ice around his neck, and a faceted crystal—again, I thought it was ice—in the center of his forehead. There was no sure way to tell he was male, except he “felt” male.

  The woman behind him was apparently some sort of nobility by the way the other two deferred to her. Maybe she was the Alezakai? Or maybe a high advisor? The third Frostling was also female and seemed to be guarding the other two.

  We gathered around the table, leaving them the spaces on the end, and waited for them to speak. I wasn’t sure if they understood our language, but Elan had been able to talk to them. But when the Guardian began to speak, every word and nuance was crystal clear.

  “Welcome to Wyfair. Allow me to present the Alezakai Neshera. And this is our Soothsayer. We wish your journey were under better circumstances but there is naught to do about that. We bid you rest here and we will help you navigate to your destination come morning.” He paused. “We have news for you, though not that which you hope to hear. The city to the south is under siege and that is all we know about that. But our news comes via the Earthchain—the necklace that encircles Great Mother Gaia. A chain of volcanoes far north, near the top of the world, have erupted and their ash covers the sky. It drifts in our direction now, and is blotting the sunlight. This winter will be cold, and perhaps next, as the light is reflected away.”

  During the World Shift, Gaia had cooled the world with volcanic eruptions that had lasted long and hard. But that had been eons ago.

  “Well, we can count on a long, hard winter,” Tam said. “And summer won’t be a picnic. The agronomists will have a difficult time. This means potential famine, especially for those countries who live very low on the food chain.”

  “Will it spread around the world, or will the effects be localized?” I wasn’t sure what—if anything—we could do about this, but the more information we had the better. At least we’d know what we were dealing with, even if we were helpless to stop it.

  “It will spread worldwide. The chain of volcanoes has been sleeping for thousands of years and they woke last night, hungry and in anger. The Greenlings say many trees have been lost. Whole forests were blown down.”

  I let out a sigh. “The government’s not going to care. They aren’t the ones who could starve from this.”

  “Of course they won’t. They’re overblown, conceited assholes and they live on the sweat of everybody else. This will be the perfect way for them to triage the world. They don’t need an artifact like the Thunderstrike. The eruption will do the work for them.” Jason folded his arms across his chest. “So does the snow falling contain ash as well?”

  The Guardian inclined his head. “We’re in luck. The ash hasn’t reached the forests here—not yet. But if the wind doesn’t shift, then it will arrive in a few days, and you should not leave your faces unprotected. Ash can pierce the lungs.”

  Great, just one more thing to worry about.

  “Meanwhile, please, rest. We will bring you more food. Then, tomorrow, we will lead you to Eleveanor and you can join the rest of your people.” And with that, they departed, in silence the way they had come.

  Chapter 3

  I huddled around the table with Tam, Jason, and Hans while the others drifted off to sleep. “What do you think this means for Seattle?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. Zombies aren’t going to stop just because of a little volcanic ash in the air. I’m not certain whether this information affects us in any way, except to prepare for a food shortage this year.” Jason shook his head. “Once we reach Verdanya, we need to formulate a plan. We can’t just keep running.”

  “Queet is finding out what he can from Hecate. By the way, she can apparently track me via my necklace. That gives me an odd comfort.”

  “It’s always nice to know that your owners can find you.” Tam chuckled.

  “Laugh, lover-boy. But you’re right. Hecate does own me, from my heart to my blood to my soul. She can approve or veto any plans I might make, and she has the power to protect me, or kill me. So behave yourself—she could say no more touchy-feely games.” I gave him a haughty stare, but then gave it up and laughed. “Actually, it’s comforting. I know she cares, and not everybody has that.”

  “Still…you belong to her.” He gave me a little shove, snorting.

  I sputtered. “Give up the argument. You may be king under the mountain, but your people own you as much as you own them.” I pecked his cheek. “I love you, my Fae prince.”

  “Should I tell you two to get a room?” Jason tried for a joke, but I could hear the edge beneath his words. He looked away when I gave him a questioning stare.

  “So, we stay a day or so in Eleveanor, then head to Verdanya. Once there, what are we going to do? We can’t just huddle up there and wait for life to get back to normal.” I drummed my fingers on the table, mulling over what to do. “I mean, we have to go back to Seattle. Right?”

  Tam nodded, though too slowly for my comfort.

  “I think so. I can’t leave my people too long. But Fury,
we can’t just waltz back in as though nothing has happened. For one thing, the zombies are still there. They’ve probably walled off the city by now. And we don’t know if the Regent has made plans to evacuate the rest of the population. If so, where will he lead them? To Bend? Bend can’t support that big of a swell in population. And he can’t just leave people to the mercy of the walking dead, can he?”

  “Can the Devani kill the zombies without being turned?” I frowned. “When it comes down to it, what do we really know about the Devani?”

  We knew that the soldiers came through from the World Tree from the realm of Elysium. But other than that, all we knew was that they were fierce warriors who—once humans had won the war against them—dedicated themselves to serving the Conglomerate.

  Jason lit up. “Actually, I know a bit about them. I did some research a few months ago for the Cast. We had some questions about how they were operating.”

  “What did you find out?” Tam leaned back, and rested one arm across the back of his chair. “I’d be very interested to know. My people have tried to get a read on them for years but as far back as we can trace, they aren’t known among those who have any familiarity with Elysium.”

  Jason gave him a little nod, his mood turning somber. “I had that same problem. Every lead I followed ended at a brick wall. Finally, I came across a reference by a scholar who’s studied them for years. His work was banned by the Conglomerate, but I managed to scrounge up a couple black-market editions of his books. He used to live in Seattle, by the way, though I couldn’t find any known address for him. He dropped out of sight when the government decided he was conducting research dangerous to the status quo.”

  Something clicked. “Did you search the Junk Yard for him? A lot of people go there when they want to vanish.”

  “No, I didn’t, but that’s a good idea. His name is Gregory Rafford. He theorized that the Devani traveled to Elysium from a different planet. That they’re actually aliens in the true sense of the word. Rafford suspected that they were aiming for Earth but ended up caught in a different dimension. He also theorized that they aren’t nearly as submissive as they seem. He speculates that they’re biding their time before they make a push to take over.”

  Tam gave him a quizzical look. “Alien invasion? Really?”

  Jason nodded. “Really. And it makes sense, to some degree. For one thing, nobody in the realm of Elysium ever mentioned the Devani before they appeared here. The Greeks tend to view the realm as some sort of heaven, though we now know it’s just another realm for the Greek gods.” He turned to me. “Has Hecate ever mentioned anything like this to you?”

  I shook my head. “No, but then we’ve never talked much about the Devani. Mostly we focus on the Abominations that I’m supposed to be out killing. By the way, Queet said that they’re still coming through on the World Tree and that they’re escaping from the city. I wonder what would happen if one of them used a zombie as a vehicle.”

  Abominations jumped human victims before draining their life force. They took over their host and put on the body like we changed clothes. By their nature, they were energy beings. Rarely, one came in corporeally, but most could only assume corporeal form by stealing bodies—usually the strongest and most dangerous they could find.

  “That’s a scary thought. Zombies are hard to kill. But they’d still have the soul-hole, wouldn’t they?”

  I thought about the question for a moment. The soul-hole was the place where Aboms could be killed and I had the ability to see where it was. Sometimes it would be the top of the head, sometimes the back of the neck, other times it took a while to spot but regardless of the body, an Abom in-body always had a soul-hole. If I could strike it at that point, I could send it back to Pandoriam, where the creatures originated. But I usually took them to the Crossroads before attempting it because my abilities were stronger over there, even though the jump and resulting fight left me wasted like a quart of bad tequila on a hot summer night.

  “I think so, but I don’t know for sure. By the time they take on a human vehicle, the host is gone, so they might as well be a zombie. My question is, will the Abom be able to control the zombie’s drive to feed and destroy? Aboms are strong, but I’m thinking it would come down to a battle between the Abom’s attempt to control, and the zombie’s innate need to feed.”

  Jason had turned a pale shade of green. “I get queasy just thinking about it. Witnessing a battle of wills for control of what was once a living person isn’t on my bucket list.”

  “Like the idea or not, it’s something we’ll have to face when we go back.” I paused, then sighed, shaking my head. “Or rather, what I have to face. I’m the one who has the directive to take them down. It’s inevitable that an Abom will—at some point—jump a zombie.”

  “You know we’ll help as much as we can,” Jason said. “You don’t have to do this all alone.”

  “I know. It’s not that.” I curled my hands into fists, my nails rough against my palms. “To be honest, I’m antsy. I should be out there, guarding against those damned freaks. Anyway, back to your research. So this guy thinks the Devani are aliens from a different planet?”

  “When you think about it, is the idea really so far-fetched? All of these other realms coexist in the same space. There are multiple parallel universes—we know that now. Not exactly alternative realities, but like threads on a web. When you open an intersection on one thread, you can cross through to another.” Tam scooted forward to the table, tracing a web on the wooden surface with his index finger.

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Actually, you could consider the Crossroads to be an intersection of points on the web. The Crossroads is merely the juncture point. Whether in the city or the wilds—wherever two paths cross, or two rivers, or whatever else—it offers me the chance to jump over. But how does Rafford think they arrived in Elysium in the first place? In a ship?”

  “I think we have to get away from the thought that interstellar travel is dependent on crossing through space in a linear fashion,” Tam said. “We know that wormholes offer space-bending modes of travel, even if we can’t access them yet. But suppose the Devani are from another world? That wouldn’t change the fact that the web runs through the entire universe. Perhaps they had farther to travel along the strands to reach Elysium, but they don’t need ships. It’s quite possible to cross through the web. Here, we have the World Trees. They provide the perfect intersections between our world and other realms. So what’s not to say the Devani don’t have their own version?”

  The potential was mind-boggling, now that I thought of it. For years, mankind had looked outside the world for life. And then, with the World Shift, life alien to humanity came pouring through the World Trees. When a werewolf just jumped into your backyard, or an Abomination just ate your cousin’s soul, you tended to start muttering prayers that the space brothers would just pass you by.

  “I never thought of that possibility.” By the look on Jason’s face, it was obvious that he was struggling to wrap his head around the logic. Sometimes, hawk-shifters were too linear for their own good, even those used to working within a magical system that defied—on first glance—the nature and laws of physics.

  Tam had warmed up, his eyes shining. “Say the Devani meant to come here instead of Elysium, but when they stepped through the portal or whatever they use for their World Tree, they accidentally crossed over to the wrong realm? They ended up on the wrong thread of the web, in Elysium. And once they did get here and told us that’s where they were from, we assumed that was their home of origin.”

  “You could be right. I wonder why the Conglomerate didn’t like Rafford’s theories?”

  “Maybe they believe him but didn’t want people to know. The government is good at hiding what it wants to keep secret.” I might have been getting paranoid but I was pretty sure that was exactly what went down.

  “Well, whatever the reason, they blacklisted Rafford and he withdrew into seclusion. I wonder if th
ey caught him and locked him up and that’s why I couldn’t find an address? Rafford had a lot of other theories too, mostly about government conspiracies.” Jason pulled the tray of bread and cheese over to build himself another sandwich. “Now I want to go back and read whatever I can find of his work. If we ever make it back home.”

  I wanted to read Rafford’s work too. Something about what Jason had said struck an alarm bell. Especially about Rafford vanishing.

  The Conglomerate was always at odds with us Theosians. In return, we regarded the government suspiciously. The Devani tended to kidnap those of us whom they thought might be useful, and the Elder Gods couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do much about it. I had never actually asked Hecate what would happen if I came up missing, partially because I didn’t want to know.

  The American Corporatocracy ran on the greed and grime of old men and their grasp for power. I had thought, at times, of relocating to the Canadian Empire, but it was hard to cross the border, and with an altered chip, it would be even harder.

  “I just wish we had a long-term plan of action.”

  Jason smiled. “You’re always wanting a plan, Kae. But we can’t do anything until we know what the situation at home is like.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I know you’re out of your element, but we can’t just waltz back to Seattle, hoping everything’s back to normal. So chill and quit fretting for now.”

  I didn’t like it, but Jason was right. There was no way we could ever go back to a life before the zombies came through. Even if the Regent managed to quarantine them, this event would forever alter the underlying nature of the city.

  “Then let’s get our asses to Eleveanor, and then to Verdanya.” I slumped back, crossing my arms. “Time for sleep. I want to head out early tomorrow.”

  Tam motioned for me to follow him over toward the sofa, which folded out into a bed. I realized, looking around, that every comfortable chair in the place had been turned into a bed of sorts. It was as though the Frostlings had planned out a mini-hotel in one big room, which made me wonder how many visitors they actually welcomed.