Ch7.63 Revelations

The water rises up and deposits Sky and Lady Alma on the floor of the glimmering pool’s cavern, Sky holding her protectively. He sets her down and uses his oceanic divine sphere to whisk away most of the water. He cannot dry her off, like Somrak can, but he can at least make sure she’s not dripping wet. He hears splashing behind and turns to see that Dion is in the water. It takes Sky only a moment to be sure that this is his Gwydion, Sergeant Gwydion of the Three Rats Guardia Dei and not Senator Gwydion of the other universe. Aside from the uniform, this Dion is built like the rock-solid martial artist he is, and not a soft político. Extending a hand and waving at the water, Sky creates a lifting swell and sets Dion on solid ground as well. Then he looks back at Lady Alma and sighs, cursing “Demônios e diabos…” under his breath in the local dialect of Three Rats.

Dashing water from his eyes, Dion demands, “What have you done? Where is Alma!?”

Lady Alma, who has been looking down at her wet dress, hides behind Sky with a little squeak at Dion’s outburst. “Oh, daisy stalks…” 

As the pool’s magic fades and its light fades along with it, Sky summons another glowing globe of water from out of the puddles across the cavern floor. It gloops together and births an aquamarine luminescence. “I am sorry, my friend. She… I…” He gestures helplessly at Alma. “Lady Alma…we have crossed over to the other Insula.”

Dion’s fury is gradually replaced with a helpless expression. “Our Alma saw something…leaned too far. It was like the world tilted and she and Sky both went in. I dove in after her but…”

“The God Striker?” Sky asks, putting a comforting hand on Lady Alma’s trembling shoulder and pulling her a little closer without thinking. “Is that what she saw? Did she get it?”

Alma stays close to Sky. “Did I…” She swallows, her voice shaking. “Did I do something wrong?”

Sky can see the conflicting emotions battling across Gwydion’s face: shock and grief at his Alma’s disappearance, the desire to comfort this smaller, frightened Alma, repulsion at how closely she resembles his Alma and yet is not, self-recrimination for being so rude before a delicate, high-born flower of his own class.

“He is merely worried for his own Alma,” Sky says after seconds of awkward silence. “She has switched with you, and is now with your family. He is worried for her.”

Dion straightens, regaining some of his composure, though his dampness and shaken state cannot allow for a full restoration. “Forgive me…Lady. I…I am Gwydion, Sergeant, Guardia Dei. I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

Alma hesitates a moment but then comes out from behind Sky and holds a hand out for him to take. Playing her familiar role as a Senator’s wife gives her comfort and confidence, Sky notes. “Hello. I…I am sorry for this horrible mess. I just saw a glimmer in the pool and I thought it might be what we were supposed to be looking for and–” 

Alma’s eyes widen and her momentary confidence evaporates. “Oh no…oh no… My baby! I-I must go back. My baby will starve!”

Dion looks confused while Sky’s brown skin, lightened a bit by all the weeks he has lived underground, turns even more pale. Sky stammers, “I-I’m sure they’ll think of something. Perhaps Alma…” He hesitates. His thought is that Acting-Inspector Alma, with her Life sphere, may well be able to feed the child, but the thought of another goddess letting her baby suckle might not go down well with Lady Alma. “Well, they’ll think of something.” Dion, who has had a decided lack of babies in his life, gets a look of dawning comprehension after a moment.

“He is just a baby! He is not eating solid food yet. And he has never had any other types of milk.” Alma looks very worried. “Oh, Dion will be in a panic, not knowing what to do. He loves the baby, but he is not very good at such things…”

“You have Rose and Cherish and May there,” Sky reminds her, putting his big hands on her delicate shoulders. “And your world’s Sky. He, um, has helped raise a few babies, believe it or not. It will be all right.”

Dion looks from one to the other, and seems to swallow some considerable impatience. “Ahem…well, what is the situation there, Sky?”

Sky puts his hands on his hips, considering back over the past day. “Calm, for the moment. They are all in the caves. It’s Somrak and Machado, Cala and Aliyah, the Senator – you know about him?”

“Yes, yes, you – the other you told us all that,” Dion says impatiently. “Are they in danger?”

“They should probably move soon,” Sky says. “Oh…the other Sky wouldn’t know… Saira is with them. As a prisoner.”

“What?!” Now it is Dion’s turn to be pale, or at least more than usual.

“She led a team of assassins,” Sky explains. “Apparently she’s working for Nekh, not knowing he had her gang killed.”

“Uhm…excuse me…does this…does this mean they are still in danger even after moving to those dreadful caves?” Alma asks. “And are we in danger as well?” She looks pale, frightened.

Sky says, “We are not in danger here. But Doria was murdered in the cave, and their Oracle seems to have disappeared. I do not think Somrak will allow them to spend another day in the Grotto.” 

“Away from the pool,” Dion grinds out. “Away from any chance to switch back!”

“I…I am sorry.” Lady Alma hides her face behind her hands, her voice betraying tears. “I am so sorry. I did not mean to – this is all my fault!”

Sky puts a comforting hand on her back. It all feels very strange – though he has comforted his Alma before, she certainly would not be wasting so much energy on pointless self-blame. But he has to remind himself that this is not his Alma. Her life took a very different path from early on, and she is overwhelmed by all that has happened in just two tumultuous days. “It is not your fault. We are in the Hands of the Fates. And the people there are armed with a mighty weapon, now, and a warrior who will put it to good use. We will get you back home, and our Alma back home as well. Be assured of that.”

“Oh, my poor husband…” Alma’s voice is miserable despite Sky’s words. “He will be so worried. We have never been more than a few hours apart. He will be so lost. And our children. They have never known danger. And now all of this happens and…” She trails off at the sound of boots crunching on gravel and debris in the tunnel leading into this room.

The litany of woe is broken by the scuffing of rock chips and dust in the rubble-strewn hole that serves as doorway to this chamber. “How come I never get invited to pool parties?” Somrak looks in, a fiery orb floating by his head, bringing a warmer light to the chamber than Sky’s watery one. “Oh right, it’s because I hate swimming. What, no ‘Somrak, what are you doing here? Did you get kicked out of the Guardia again, Somrak?’” He looks at the three of them, then his looks settles on Alma, and his brow knits.

Dion sighs. “We have…a situation. Why are you here?”

“I just finished a case. Few days off. Thought I’d come…” As he speaks, his words slow, and his eyes never leave Alma. “Did you…change your hair?”

Lady Alma looks at him, then at Sky. “He is smiling!” She grins. “The other one never seemed to do that! And the scar is gone. Has he come to protect us?”

Somrak frowns. “All right, what’s going on? Is this some…alternate-universe Alma or something?” He chuckles, scoffing at the very idea.

Sky nods slowly.

“Shut the Hell up!” Somrak exclaims. “What’s going on, really? Come on!” 

Gwydion mutters, “They may not be able to return to the pool in time. There must be other ways…” He looks at Sky. “I need to consult the library at the Academy of Magic.”

Sky considers this for a second, then nods. “It would be best to have a backup plan. I will stay by the pool. I won’t budge.”

Dion nods. He looks at Somrak, his eyes carefully avoiding Alma. “Can I leave the station in your hands?”

“Holy Fates,” Somrak whispers. “You people are serious. Uh…yes,” he says aloud. “I’ll take good care of it.” Dion starts to leave.

“Dion?” Alma speaks up. “I mean…Sergeant?” She walks up to Gwydion, blushing a little. “I-I know you are worried but…I assure you, my husband will not let any harm come to her. She will be protected and well cared for.”

Dion stops at her words, half turning but not quite facing her. “Thank you. And you will be safe here.” His tone is perfectly polite. He almost says something more, but then leaves quickly.

Damp and miserable, Alma momentarily shivers from cold and fear. Sky comes to stand beside her and puts a protective hand on her slender shoulder. He can tell how much she is in need of comfort by how the Senator’s lady not only allows this, but leans against him for warmth. “He is upset. Frightened. He will do all he can, as will we. Come…you need to warm up.”

“He hates me,” Alma says, voice barely audible, sounding all the more miserable for talking about her husband’s counterpart in this world.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sky says, softly.

“Would somebody tell me what is going on?” Somrak asks. “Are we in for some trouble here or what?”

“We’re safe,” Sky says. “Alma is in an alternate timeline. Which I’ve just returned from.”

Somrak looks around at the claw marks, astonished. “You dug all the way to another world??”

Alma squeaks and squeezes a little more against Sky. “Oh, he is getting angry again.”

Sky shakes his head. “That’s just Somrak’s resting expression. Let’s have some tea, and I’ll fill you in.” 

神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎

After bringing breakfast and meeting Lady Alma, Doria, priestess and servant to the Oracle Nevieve takes her leave, leading Sky’s puppy – another surprise for Somrak – out for a walk. It’s only after she’s gone that Alma sniffles and wipes away a tear, and relates to Somrak how she sent the ghost of the other world’s Doria to the Wheel, to rejoin the rest of her soul. Somrak finishes boiling another small pot of coffee on the palm of his hand, and pours the powerful, dense brew into the tiny cups in Sky’s room. “So over there, Doria’s dead, the Oracle is missing, I still have the scar, Dion is a bigwig politician, Alma is…here, and Saira is trying to kill us all. And there’s a war going on.”

Sky nods.

“Terrific.” He looks over Alma again, marvelling. Especially while she was sleeping, curled up with Pharaoh the Pup, she has been reminding him strongly of the first time, the very very first time, he met Alma. He had been sent to the home of the Death Clan with a message from the Commander to Lord Death, and encountered a feverish little godling, and had helped lower her fever until her nurse could come. It wasn’t until much later, after he’d known the adult Alma for awhile, that he realized he’d met her long before. Alma herself had not remembered him at all from that fevered encounter. He wonders if they met in that alternate world. “What are we going to do with you, then?”

“I…I do not know,” Alma replies, shaking her head. “I guess…whatever does not upset this Dion of yours any further? He seemed ready to bite a limb off me.”

“Nah, that’s the kind of thing Sky does. Dion’ll be fine. Besides, there’s not really much we can do that won’t upset him more right now. He really, really, really wants his Alma.” Somrak looks around Sky’s quarters. “You know, keeping a lady here is cruel and unusual punishment. ”

“Somrak, if she leaves, she could be seen.” Sky sounds doubtful.

“We’ll just say she’s Alma’s identical cousin,” Somrak replies. At Sky’s skeptical expression, he says, “Come on, that’s one of those ridiculous lies that people just nod their heads at and go, ‘Oh yeah…identical cousin. Yeah, I’ve heard of that…happens with some god families, sure.’ They don’t want to sound ignorant, so they believe it. Besides, she might be here for a reason. And if she is, it’s not likely to be found here.”

Alma, who almost started giggling at Somrak’s fabulism, blinks and says, “Oh, I would not want to impose.” She pauses. “Is it true, then? That in this reality my other self is a Guardia Inspector, unmarried and with seven children of her own. No father to raise them with her?” She sounds doubtful and lowers her voice to a whisper. “And that she killed that dreadful Archon Nekh who murdered my husband’s uncle?”

Somrak says, “All true. Though Nekh didn’t murder Math here – Math’s still the same schemer as ever. Probably arranged the whole thing to knock off Nekh.” He knows his voice is full of grudging admiration. “So do you want to sit around with this guy, or take a look around the neighborhood? You can meet the kids…”

“Somrak, we shouldn’t…” Sky cautions.

“It’ll be fine,” Somrak insists. “Look, why else would I show up at this moment? Because the Fates need someone as irresponsible as me to play a part, that’s why. So she’s supposed to visit the station. Obviously.”

Alma finally giggles aloud, unable to stifle it further, and Somrak has to admit, it’s pretty adorable. “Oh, you are much kinder than your other self. I would love to meet the children. But…is it not dangerous out there? The ward was so grim and gloomy…”

“Oh, we took care of all the really bad people in this ward,” Som says. “All right, Sky, Dion, and Alma did most of that, but I helped here and there.”

“Helped,” Sky grunts.

“I did help! Most of the time. And you haven’t slept in a couple of days, have you?” Somrak gives Sky a stern look. “I can tell. You let Alma here sleep for five hours – that’s a very cute snore you have, by the way, your Ladyship – and you’re not going to sleep until our Alma’s home, are you? Yeah, well, you’ll be rotten company then. I’ll tell Doria to keep the coffee coming.”

Alma can’t stop giggling, but gasps and insists, “No, I do not snore! Do I? You’re just teasing, aren’t you?”

The way Sky’s shoulders slump, Somrak knows his old partner has surrendered. Speaking in Batepepo, the local language of Three Rats, Sky insists, “You need to protect her as you would Alma. Our Alma. Even more so, for this one is much weaker.”

Somrak replies in the same tongue. He’s not as fluent as Sky, but he learned quickly in the periods he was stationed here. “I’ll keep her safe. Come on, brother. You know I sometimes see things. She’s meant to meet the others here. I don’t know why, but it’s important.”

Sky looks at him very seriously. Then he gives the same look to Alma. “Lady, go with him. But regard him as your protector, more knowledgeable than you in the ways of this world.”

Alma looks back at him, then nods, equally serious. “I will. Will you be all right, left alone here?” She puts her delicate hand on his.

Sky’s expression brightens a little, and he pats her hand. “I have been alone here a great deal. I will be well. Besides, I need to speak with the Oracle. If she is here, at all. Doria said she is not in her usual cave.”

“Come on, he’ll be fine,” Somrak says. “And by the way, I’m not calling you Lady. You’re undercover. Let’s see, Alma doesn’t have any sisters, so we can’t say you’re her little sister even though that’s exactly what you look like. Cousin it is…fine, fine, I’ll drop the ‘identical’ bit. So what are we going to call you?”

“Oh, I…I have never been undercover before, I…” She looks rather befuddled.

He stands, offering her his hand. “How about…Malma? Dalma? Come on, help me out here.”

She giggles as he helps her up. “Oh, those are horrible names!”

“We could do an anagram. Lama? Or reverse it: Amala!”

Over the giggles, Somrak hears Sky snort in almost-laughter behind him as they leave.

Ch7.62 Revelations

The water seems bottomless, and instead of rising, Alma sinks toward a glimmering light. She sees it ahead of her, the dark, hard object, floating somehow despite being solid metal. She knows it, but how did it get here?

As she reaches for it, she sees for a moment an identical pale hand reaching for it. She looks and sees a pair of frightened eyes, eyes so familiar, eyes from a distant youth, a timorous, childish Alma she left behind so long ago.

But then she seizes the object, and breaks the surface. Her world spins as she reorients herself. Just as she is looking around, taking note of the chamber glowing with light from the water, noticing that the chamber is empty of anyone else, Sky surfaces behind her, putting an arm around her. “Are you all right, Lady…ehm, Inspector?”

She squirms in Sky’s arm, not struggling but turning, searching desperately for Dion. “Oh no….no, no, no…” Without thinking, she brings her fist down with considerable force on Sky’s shoulder multiple times. “Stupid, stupid, stupid – you are so stupid, Alma!” she roars in frustration and anger.

The water rises up, lifting her and Sky onto solid ground, before splashing away as the ocean-god releases his control of it. Sky sets her down, and she feels shame at hitting him, though she knows such pounding without some supernatural oomph behind it will do little harm to the big god. As she falls quiet, he murmurs, “I will get you home. I swear it. I won’t let them be without you.”

Alma takes a deep breath. “Thank you…does this mean…? I saw myself on the passage through. Was the other me, the Senator’s wife, going to the other side?”

Sky shakes his head. “You’re asking me? I think I caught a glimpse of myself as well. Perhaps your Sky is back home now. Perhaps we cannot exist in the same world at the same time.”

“Gods, I truly didn’t need this now.” Alma opens her hand, suddenly noticing that she is still holding the thing she grabbed. “The God Striker…”

Sky takes a look. “Fancy brass knuckles? A sort of lightweight cestus.”

He looks at Alma. “You punched an Archon to death?”

Alma shakes her head. “No. Gwydion punched him. He could have killed him with this but…he hesitated. He would have arrested him like the good Guardia officer he is. Instead, I ripped Nekh’s soul from his shattered body.” She gives Sky a look of defiance. “He was going to murder all my children in front of me.”

Sky’s expression carries no condemnation. “Sounds like you did what needed doing. Pity someone didn’t do that to him in this time-line.” He takes another look at the artifact, studying the fine script etched into the surface. “It seems inert at the moment. Still, I’m glad you weren’t wearing it when you were walloping me just now.”

“I’m sorry,” Alma says. “That was uncalled for. There wasn’t any convenient wall to punch…but I shouldn’t have punched you.”

“That’s all right,” he says. “I was confused and upset myself when I crossed over. But I will get you home, Alma. I promise it.” He sighs. “But it seems we will have to be back here in another twenty-four hours for that. We should go meet the others and find out what’s happened. Surely they won’t be far…”

“We need to find the Oracle, too,” Alma says. “If she is anything like the Nevieve I know, I would not be surprised if all of this is not just some elaborate cry for help.”

“At least Somrak will be glad to know the Fates are on our side.” He stretches a hand toward the pool. Water rises in a small hump, then pops free in a floating globule. Sky levitates it to float above his shoulder, and a swirl of glowing particles, like a tiny galaxy, spins into being from the center of it, suffusing the globule with bioluminescence, producing a watery glow reflected by the stone of the walls and floor in soft glimmers.

“This place,” Alma says and they start down the tunnel together. “It was Nevieve’s home. And Doria’s. They were our friends.”

“And now it is empty, violated.” Sky pauses, listening. “Though not entirely empty.”

Alma hears the faint echo of voices, too, as they approach the center of the Grotto. “I am not sure if I want to explain to these people what just happened,” she says in a low voice. 

“Do you want to hang back? Just wait by the pool? I could bring you some food.” 

She considers his thoughtful offer, but shakes her head. “It is better for them to know the truth than to think the other Alma is lost.”

He looks ahead and says, “Too late anyway.”

Before he’d even spoken, Alma had seen the two souls approaching. They had almost immediately been recognizable as Bunny souls, different from humans in their own subtle ways. Are they the same souls as her Bunnies, though? Before their faces appear in the watery light of Sky’s glowing globe, she thinks they indeed seem very similar to those of two of her daughters, Rosemary and Mayumi. If there are any differences, they are too subtle to detect without a more thorough examination.

And yes, there it is, Merri’s face entering the light, the ginger curls and freckles and russet fur on her ears so familiar. But her voice, when she asks, “Is that you, Mother?” is different. The timbre is the same, but carrying the accent and rhythms of a high-ring family, not the unique lilt and burr that matches no other accent on the Insula she knows of, the one her daughter emerged from the dreamworld with. 

“Almost,” Alma replies, keeping her voice calm, reassuring. “But not quite. Are you all right, Rosemary? You sound frightened.”

Rosemary slips past Sky and takes Alma’s hands. “You’re all wet! And wearing different clothes! You smell…different. And and and…”

“You’re taller,” May says, wonderingly, wide-eyed. This daughter, too, sounds a little different. Alma reminds herself that in this world, according to Sky, she goes by May rather than Mayumi, a shortening that her Mayumi once tried to explain was just incorrect for some strange reason. “And…you have a sword.”

“Let’s return to the others,” Sky says. “You shouldn’t be away from them. Is everyone well? Your father and sister and little brother?”

Alma feels a flash of appreciation toward this world’s Sky, for trying to distract them while she gathers herself back together. This is so very strange. There are Sky and May together, in her world so much in love, here meaning nothing more to each other than bodyguard and client. Yet she notices Sky looking at the Bunny with a little curiosity, perhaps wondering what his counterpart sees in her.

But she feels her equanimity shaken again, by anxiety and desire about seeing this godling babe. She takes Merri’s…no, Rosemary’s hand, and then May’s as she resumes walking toward the others. “I took an unexpected dip in the pool. I’ll explain everything when we’re all together.”

They find their way to the Oracle’s audience chamber. As they step in, she sees several people: Machado is there, and Cala and Aliyah, all three in uniform. Somrak, too, probably fueling the fire that burns on the stone floor, unfed by wood or anything else. She sees his scar, healed away by her mother weeks ago, returned to his otherwise beautiful face. And sitting at his feet–

“Saira…” she breathes. Her ally. Her patient. Her friend. 

Saira who lost her life in a quest for vengeance – and in the process saved them all. Here. Alive. And…a prisoner?

The Bunnies look up at her, feeling her tension.

Sky murmurs to Alma, “Not sure who that is. She must have joined us earlier today.”

Rosemary tilts her head, one ear flopping to the side. “But…what? You captured her.”

May wrinkles her brow. “You’re not the same Tuma-Sukai who was here a little while ago. You’re the one we first met, aren’t you?”

Rosemary shakes her head like a fly is trying to get into her ear. “What? There’s two of them?”

“Not only him,” May says, looking up at Alma, her eyes accusing and fearful. 

When Alma feels May let go of her hand, she feels a sharp, brief pain at the rejection. She and Mayumi had struggled to find their way to a strong connection – just before the girl had gone off to the Guardia Academy, Mayumi had become, in some ways, the one Alma felt closest to among all her children. The pain of the chasm she’d struggled to bridge returns. But she reminds herself that these are not her children. They are Lady Alma’s. And Senator Gwydion’s.

She wants to explain. These may not be her Bunnies, but they are mortals who are in a frightening situation. And more, she still feels a bond to them, even across the divide of universes.

She gives Rosemary’s hand a little squeeze of encouragement, then drops her hand. “You’re right,” she says to May. “But I–”

“Alma! But you are drenched!” Senator Gwydion, emerging from an alcove, hurries toward her, brushing aside Sky’s halfhearted attempt to stop him. “Oh, I knew this was a bad idea. You don’t even know how to swim. Are you well, my little lamb?”

Before she can think to bring her hands up to keep him back, the god, a rather well-fed, older-looking version of her Gwydion, embraces her. Alma stiffens at his touch. Her eyes widen at the treatment, then narrow at the pet name. Lamb? If for even a moment she had thought this soul was her beloved, that moment was past. She pats him awkwardly on the shoulder blade. “I am fine. For the moment.” She shares a look with Sky, who is trying to hide an amused smile, and tries to silently tell him, Man, you were not kidding. “But I am afraid I have some bad news for you.”

“Alma, what is wrong?” Senator Gwydion sounds worried as he releases her. She waits, watching him look her over, take in the differences. With the fire at his back, he can see her face more easily than she can see his in Sky’s aqueous globule’s glow, but still she sees him blanch. He turns to Sky. “What happened? What did you do to her?”

Sky takes a breath. “Do you know about the pool, Senator?”

Gwydion nods, impatient. “The pool that is supposed to be some sort of link to another world, yes! What…” He pauses, his eyes flickering over Sky’s uniform. “You’re no longer…half-naked.”

“Daddy!” Rosemary cries. “You knew?!”

Sky raises an eyebrow. “I was…? Never mind. I am the first Tuma-Sukai you met. The one that was…out of uniform was from the other world. I think he must have gone back at midnight, exchanging places with me once again.”

“Which would have set everything right,” Alma says. “But…” She opens her hands to indicate herself.

Senator Gwydion deflates, like someone has punched him in his slightly paunchy belly. “You mean to tell me that my wife is…gone?” The two Bunnies look horrified, and Alma catches sight of Cherry – no, Cherish – coming out of the alcove, holding a little baby in her arms. She has been overhearing this, and looks confused and afraid.

“Not gone,” Alma assures him. “She has crossed over to my world, where she will be perfectly safe, with good friends to take care of her.” She reaches out and pats his arm. “However, the same cannot be said about us, Gw– Senator.”

“On top of that, we now have someone with us who knows a thing or two about our enemy, and has beaten him before,” Sky adds. “The Inspector, here, has defeated Nekh in battle. It’s not a bad thing that she’s crossed over.”

“Why don’t you all come closer to the fire?” Somrak’s soul, like Sky’s, is much less scarred than that of the Somrak of her world, though not entirely free of the mark of old wounds, Alma can see even from here. His face, though, still bears the old scar that twists his pretty mouth into a slight sneer. But he has the same challenging, confident – even arrogant – stance. The same slender but muscular figure. 

He looks her over, skeptical but then smirking a little in satisfaction as he notes the way she bears her sword, like it belongs on her hip and is very comfortable there. “And, if you’ll allow me, I can do something about the wet clothes.”

“For as long as you are gentle with the fabric,” Alma replies, with a little smile. “I was told the blend is somewhat prone to shrinking.” She looks again at Gwydion and the two Bunnies, who have moved closer to him for comfort. They are still looking at her, confused. “I am sorry if I scared you. This is as strange and worrying for me as it is for you. I am Acting-Inspector Alma, of Three Rats Station.”

Rosemary asks, “So…our mother is a Guardia officer in another world? And… you have children there?”

As she’s speaking, Cherish, holding the infant comes closer. The Bunny’s big brown eyes are wider than usual. She asks, hesitant, “Are you sure our mother is well?”

Somrak takes Alma’s hand and sends warmth into her, and more specifically into her Guardia-indigo sari and her hair, heating them to the point that steam starts to come off them.

Alma almost wilts at how good that feels. She smiles thanks at Somrak, and says to the Bunnies, “Your mother has my closest friend and my world’s version of your father with her to protect her.” She looks at the one holding the baby – the same beautiful dark skin, the same full lips as her own daughter, but the wild kinky curls of her hair tamed and straightened into a glossy black ponytail similar to Somrak’s. “Tell me, Cherish, do you ever go by Cherry?”

Cherish says, “Oh…well sometimes Rose and May call me that. But nobody else, really.”

Rosemary adds, “And Shirtless Sky called May ‘My Yumi’ or something! And May said that it felt like something from a dream…now isn’t that curious?” She grins teasingly at May. 

“I rather imagine he would call her that,” Alma says with a smile. “He knows my daughters as Cherry, Rosemary, and Mayumi. Their names in my world. They look very similar to you but they are also different. And each has her own accent. Also, in my world, I have four other Bunnies: Sage, Kori, Chime, and Tulip. But no godlings.” She looks at the baby and her expression softens. “What is jys name?”

“His name is Nari.” The Senator’s tender pride pulls him briefly away from his fretting for his wife. Still, his eyes helplessly drift to Somrak’s brown hand holding Alma’s pale one. “Ahem, are you quite done with laundry, Sergeant? Perhaps you should help your partner dry off?” His attempts to keep jealousy from his voice are unsuccessful.

“Have to do this slowly and carefully, Senator, or this outfit might shrink,” Somrak says, trying to sound very serious. “As pretty as that might look, she might find it hard to move if another group of assassins asks us to dance. But…how does that feel, Inspector? Dry enough?”

Alma, used to Somrak’s flirtations, wriggles her shoulders and touches her choli, the bodice of her sari. It is dry and toasty warm. “I think so. Thank you, Sergeant. Now, what do you mean, another group of assassins?”

Gwydion replies, “We were attacked before. At the local Guardia station. Thankfully, no one was harmed in the process.” He is looking at Alma again in wonder and shock at the sound of her voice. “I didn’t really believe what the, um, other Tuma-Sukai said before. Not in my heart. But the way you are taking command with these sergeants…”

“Rather than demanding respect for your station,” Somrak adds, his sardonic grin more pronounced, as he steps back.

As much as she agrees with Somrak, Alma shoots him a narrowed glance. “Nor did I believe this Sergeant’s claims,” Alma says, pointing at Sky. “I am sorry. I did not mean to be harsh before. And…my condolences on your uncle’s demise. I know how attached Gwydion is to Math, I can only imagine what a loss it must be. In my world, Math has become dear to me, as well.”

The Senator’s grief is obvious. “He was like a father to us, a grandfather to the children. It all feels like a horrible nightmare.”

“The Commander regarded Archon Math with great respect,” Sky says. 

“They butted heads sometimes,” Somrak adds. “But what can you expect. The Archon was good for the Guardia. Great coffee, too.” His voice is not mocking at all. 

“The Commander will butt heads with a standing wall if he feels it’s in his way,” Alma says. “And where is he? The Commander? And my aunt, for that matter? I doubt they would allow all this to happen while they watch from the sidelines.”

Sky and Somrak share a look. “Your aunt?” Somrak asks.

Alma smiles a little, relishing the reveal. “Subcommander Varah, in my world. The Fencer.”

Gwydion shakes his head. “That dreadful goddess…”

Somrak’s eyes are wide. “Well…that explains a few things.”

Sky blinks, but merely says, “Since assassins have attacked here, this ward obviously isn’t the safe little hideaway the Commander thought. Somebody has intercepted the information.”

“Then we ought to be going random, throw them off the scent, go anywhere the mole in the Commander’s office won’t know about,” Somrak points out. 

“No,” says Sky. “This Alma has information the Commander needs now. And more than information.”

Somrak looks surprised and hopeful. “You found the God Striker thing?”

Alma reaches into a pocket and shows the weapon, weighty and solid in her palm. “Yes. It doesn’t look very threatening now but once it is recharged, it will be powerful enough to destroy even an Archon. And we need someone like the Commander to recharge it.”

Somrak sighs. “Fine, but…there is a mole. We need to go in, ready for that.”

“I…remember Somrak mentioning a traitor in the ranks of the ‘Off-Blues’,” Alma says. “But I am not sure who it is or who she works for. Only that she is female and has a partner. I am sorry but he could not disclose any more.”

“That he was even revealing that much – should this not be confidential information?” the Senator asks.

“It should be, yes,” Alma agrees. “He should not have told me. But he was being healed at the time. It is not uncommon for people to experience confusion in those moments.”

“I know this. My wife is a very talented healer.” He looks at Somrak as if he might amorously pounce on Alma at any moment, a look that Somrak receives with apparent amusement.

“Your wife has many talents, Senator,” Alma replies, hearing her aunt’s growl in her voice. “If she is allowed to shine, she might even outshine you before you know it.”

The tense moment is broken by a cry from the baby. Cherish says, “Um, he must be hungry. What about food? For him?”

Alma feels the beginnings of panic. “What do you mean…food for him? Did you not – oh…”

“The baby is still suckling,” Dion explains. “And…now he does not have his mother to feed him.” He looks sick with worry and goes to take the baby from Cherish’s arms.

“And he just polished off the last of the stored breast-milk,” the Bunny says as she hands him over. “We grabbed a few bottles on the way out when the Sergeants came to get us, but he’s a hungry little darling.” She nods toward their luggage not far from the fire. Alma can see an empty bottle with a preservation sigil on it, to keep the stored milk fresh.

“Why hasn’t his mother been feeding him directly? Or replenishing her stores?” Alma asks.

May says, “Well she was. But, uh, Sergeant Sky had her looking for the magical item. And so we fed Nari the last bottle not long ago.”

Gwydion’s attempts to cheer the baby are not working, and the cries are growing more demanding. Cherry says, “It was really only about a quarter of a bottle.” Her ears sag against the back of her head in worry.

“No dry formula?” Sky asks.

Cherish shakes her head. “You two were rushing us so much…”

“Oh dear,” Gwydion rocks the baby a little. “What are we going to do until your mother gets back, little Nari?”

Alma hesitates, then goes to the Senator. “Give him to me. I have an idea.” At Gwydion’s hesitant expression, she adds, “I am still a Life goddess. Besides, none of the Bunnies was born after a natural pregnancy, right? So the only way your Alma could have nursed them would have been to use magic to…activate lactation. She has to have done it before, and if she could do it, I’m sure I can. These things are not beyond a goddess’ control. Just…let me try. It is the easiest solution to this problem.”

The Senator looks alarmed. “But, um, here? With…” He tilts his head toward Sky and Somrak.

Alma smirks. “Somehow I think they’ve seen it before. But I will step away a little, beyond any curious looks that might never have seen a female breast before.” And she does, moving to a little hallway, turning away from them, bearing a breast and letting the baby suckle on it, her control over her own body urging her glands to produce milk in response, the milk to flow into the ducts, to the nipple. She grimaces and taps the baby’s lip. “I know you’re hungry but I am new at this. No biting.”

Will he accept her? Will he latch on? Any fears are quickly allayed as the hungry infant takes her nipple, peacefully, eagerly suckling, undisturbed by any possible differences in taste, while Alma enjoys the pleasant release of hormones, the sensation of peace and closeness to the little child. “You are truly adorable, did you know that?” she whispers to the baby, looking at him, studying his face. “So similar to him…”

She glances back to see Cherish standing quietly nearby, a little behind, holding a towel, waiting to be noticed – how very unlike her own brash daughter. Still, her smile is much the same, warm and broad and bright. “He burps up sometimes – you’d better have this.” She offers the towel, and arranges it on Alma’s shoulder. “Hey little Nari!” The baby’s eyes open and he looks up at his big sister. The corner of his mouth curls in a smile even as he suckles. Cherish giggles, then says to Alma, “This is pretty strange, isn’t it?”

“It is. And I don’t know what is stranger, really, looking at you three and seeing all the similarities and all the differences to my own children, or breastfeeding a godling child when I have none.” She shrugs, gently. “This part is not all that uncommon to gods. Your father could have breastfed him, too.”

Cherish laughs. “I would’ve paid to see that!” She becomes more still and quiet for a moment. “You must be missing them. But, you know…we’ll take care of you, while you’re here. Don’t worry.”

Alma reaches to stroke Cherish’s ears, then her cheek, which the Bunny responds to much as Cherry would have, by leaning into the touch, as sensual as a kitten. “Thank you,” Alma says. “I am missing them, yes. But I am here to take care of you and help you back to safety. We will find a way to do that and I will soon be on my way so that you can have your mother back.” She leans down conspiratorially and whispers. “I can tell your father can’t wait to be rid of me.”

Cherry looks a little sad at that. “We do want her back. But he’s just worried sick is all. And just because we want her back, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be making you feel welcome here!” She brightens. “I wish we could meet them! Especially the ones younger than us. Boy Bunnies…goodness!”

Alma shifts Nari in her arms a little, prompting an annoyed grunt from the babe, but she is only reaching for and then removing her elaborately asymmetrical Guardia badge. “No, don’t grab that, little Nari,” she admonishes. “There’s a pin that will prick you.” She hands it over to Cherish, sliding her finger over a little, inconspicuous bobble hanging from a loop on the pin, starting the projection of glowing images, sculptures in light, of special moments from her own memories, that appear for a short time, and are them replaced by another. She keeps a few dozen of her favorite moments there. “There. Their images will show up eventually.” Indeed, while the first image is one of Gwydion smiling rakishly, the second is of Merri and Cherry laughing helplessly together over some silly thing.

Cherish gasps, looking at the glowing picture in wonder. “Oh, can I show the others? They’ll love this!” Her voice is high and excited.

As Cherry rushes away and gleeful exclamations echo in the chamber, Nari finishes his meal and Alma raises him to her shoulder, whispering encouragement to him and she pats his back gently. Tuma-Sukai approaches, a soft, faint smile on his stoic features that makes him resemble more strongly the Sky she knows. “Somrak and I have been talking. We’ve agreed on how to try to find the Commander. It involves a visit to the off-blues headquarters, though.”

“Do I need to be blindfolded?” Alma asks. “Or just promise I will not disclose the location in the future?”

“Oh, we’ll figure all that out later. He thinks he knows who the mole is. But he isn’t willing to bring the Senator and the mortals and a baby into the middle of what could erupt into a fight, and of course neither am I. So just briefly, they have to stay here, and we will come back for them. But we have a prisoner we can take along. Somrak says that your Sky told him you helped her, once.”

“Saira…yes. I helped her, and she helped me. She helped save the Bunnies’ lives. And then she saved all of us, and gave her own life in the process.” Alma sighs, feeling heavy despite the sweetness of nursing. “Well, can we at least leave the local Popula here to guard the tunnels? This place is a maze. It will make it difficult enough for anyone to locate them easily.” Alma says, then looks at the baby. “After I replenish this little one’s milk reserves, I guess. Hopefully, the good Senator won’t think it all too sour for his baby’s lips.” She shakes her head in disbelief at the whole thing, then turns to the baby. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you someone to hold you while I make sure you won’t go hungry again. Oh, you are a strong little fellow, gripping my fingers like that – not the hair. Not the hair…thank you.”

Ch7.60 Revelations

“Try to escape, try to hurt anybody in this group, and you will spend hours wishing I had cut your throat, nice and clean.”

Sky listens to Somrak’s warning to Saira and interrupts before Somrak is tempted to describe the effects of turning a mortal into a living torch. Not only would it be disturbing to everyone else, Sky fears it would wipe out any chance of Saira changing sides, especially considering how her gang, her adoptive family, died. 

The likelihood of her turning against Nekh is already near zero, but a slim chance is better than none.

“Let’s get going. Corporal Machado, I want you up front with me. I know the way but you were born and raised here. You might know how to get us out of a tight spot. Constables Lamore and Kaur, take the flanks and stick close to the Senator and his family. Somrak in the rear with Saira.”

“Sergeant,” Gwydion begins to say, “I do not see why we are bringing this–”

Somrak cuts him off. “It’s either bring her along or kill her. We can’t leave her behind because she’ll talk to the next crew that comes looking for us. And the big guy says she doesn’t die. So she doesn’t die. Until she gives us a reason to change that decision.”

Sky adds, making eye contact with Gwydion and Alma, and each of the Bunnies in turn. “There will be time for questions after we arrive, and I will give you answers. For now, Senator, Lady, we must move swift and silent. Keep your family close together and follow the orders of your Guardia protectors. Your lives depend on that.” His gaze lingers for a moment on Mayumi, who returns it, looking nervous but determined not to show it. So that her mother’s hands will be free for healing, May has Gwyeu nestled in a carrier sling against her belly and chest, and the sight of her holding a baby sends his mind places that it really should not be going right now. He closes his eyes and, on opening them, deliberately focuses on Saira. “Please, do not force Somrak to do something I would very much regret. Because no matter how much I regret, I will not question his judgement in this matter.”

Saira, for once, does not have a brash quip to demonstrate how very unimpressed she is. She just glowers at Sky, shackled and sullen, still in her bright-yellow prison garb. Her clothing and weapons are all being brought along, but she will have no access to them.

Sky looks up at the thickening clouds. He suspects it will rain soon. He wishes he could claim to be scouting ahead, go around a corner, and sprout wings. With no stars or moon, with the nearly abandoned ward lacking in lights to reflect off the low-lying clouds, he would be nearly impossible to spot from the ground. But with Saira along, he knows the best way to keep her in line is to make it obvious that escape is impossible. Splitting off their forces will not do that.

The stealthy move to the Grotto is tense but with little incident. Sky’s mind flashes back to the time he, Alma, Dion, and Machado were escorting the Bunnies through a cordon of Dukaine-subordinate gangs to try to get them to safety. That had not gone smoothly at all, but it had many of the same people involved. Now, though, Lady Alma and Senator Gwydion are all but useless, and Saira, rather than helping, is a danger to them. At least there are no younger Bunnies to worry about running off in panic. Though he would not want to see their reaction if they encountered an ambush. They are keeping themselves together now, but the Merri, Cherry, and Mayumi Sky knows had not grown up so coddled. They were ready to lay down their lives for their younger siblings if need be, and they had at least a vague idea of what that meant. Sky hopes that these three never have to find out how they will do in the same situation.

Fortunately, nothing of the sort arises. They reach the Grotto, finding that the enchantment that lets them into the caves without getting soaked and pounded by the waterfall is still active. Sky leads them deep into a chamber away from the entrance, and away from the Chamber of the Pearl, the one which Pak has been using for training back in Sky’s world. It is one that is unlikely to have been explored by the forces that killed Doria and took the Pearl, and therefore it could give them a little more time if the warning spells he and Somrak placed along the entrance tunnel are tripped.

Sky explains all this to them and helps get them started on settling in. But after a short while he approaches his primary charges. Gwydion and the Bunnies are unpacking their meager belongings, while Alma is sitting on one of the stone benches, burping the baby after nursing him. “Lady Alma, Senator Gwydion. I need to speak with you both. Away from other ears, I’m afraid.”

The Senator looks at him, worry etching his tired face. Then, keeping his eye on Sky, he says to the Bunnies, “Children, stay here, please. We will be right back.”

Alma hands Cherry the baby. “Take care of your brother, my little one. We will not be gone for long.”

Sky leads them through the twisty, tight passage, a glowing ball of water bobbing along with them to provide a blue-green light, speaking to them in a low voice. “We only have enough water for two days, and while I can create water, I am sorry to say it is sea water. The water of this ward is tainted. However, it is possible that this pool I am taking you to is not. At least, I did not feel the effects of the corruption brought on by the damaged Pearl when I passed through it.”

“Passed through?” Gwydion asks. But Alma nearly interrupts him, asking, “Do you mean the pool from my vision, Sergeant? Is that why I dreamt of it? Because it will allow us to hide here?”

“Possibly,” Sky says. “But there is more to it than that.” 

Gwydion starts to ask, “Pool? Vision?” but Sky holds up his hand. His eye is caught by a blue glow ahead. Alma gasps behind him, and Gwydion hisses, “What is that?”

A voice whispers in their minds, “Help her.”

“A memory,” Sky says, heavy with sorrow. “She was the Oracle’s priestess. And my friend. Those who took the Pearl also took the Oracle, and murdered Doria. At least that is my working theory.”

“The poor dear girl.” Alma lets go of Gwydion’s hand and moves past him and Sky to approach the barely visible phantom. The memory-ghost brightens as Alma nears her, becoming more solid as well, and when Alma reaches out a hand to her, what is left of Doria reaches out a hand and takes Alma’s.

At Alma’s touch, Doria briefly looks as real as if she were truly alive and standing before them. She smiles with relief and joy, and looks at all three of them in gratitude. Then she fades, dissipating into nothingness. Any sense of her existence is gone.

Alma sways a little, as if she has just woken from a dream. Sky breathes out, realizing he had been holding his breath, and steps forward, placing a hand on her back to steady her. But Gwydion, with a cry of “My lamb!” pushes past him and takes her in his arms. He glares accusingly at Sky. “Why did you let her do that? She could have been hurt!” He turns to shower her with words of comfort.

“Lady Alma?” Sky asks. “Are you all right?”

“Yes…yes I am fine.” Alma looks up at Gwydion. “It is all right, my prince. I have not drawn upon my Death sphere in a very long time, but I can still do it. And she was nothing more than a memory, as the Sergeant said. But I saw…what she saw.” She straightens and looks at Sky. “The Pearl, the Oracle…I saw them. I saw them taken. A man of great evil was there, directing them. Doria whispered his name to me: ‘Margrave’.”

Sky feels a chill wash over him, and sees Alma’s eyes widen at his expression. “You know that name, Sergeant?”

Sky nods. “It confirms my theory. Margrave is Archon Nekh’s lieutenant. He is a diabolist. His soul has been sold to a Prince of Hell in return for great power. And…he tortured me. Or I should say, a being he summoned from Hell did so.”

“How awful,” Gwydion says, pale. He puts his hands on Alma’s shoulders. “Then does this confirm that Nekh is behind all that has happened these past few days?”

“Not enough to hold up in court,” Sky says, “but enough for us to start planning. Before we can do that…I have more to tell you.” He gestures ahead of them and sends his light-globe hovering ahead down the passage. “The pool is just ahead. Let us proceed, and I will explain.”

He takes the lead again and they soon enter the chamber together. The pool, as when he left it about twenty hours before, is quiescent. He walks up to the edge and squats, touching the water to determine that, yes, it is not tainted. He looks over his shoulder at them. “This is what I found when I came here a few hours ago. I’m not sure what it is, but I believe it to be a gateway to another world. One almost identical to this one, but different in profound ways.”

Alma squeezes her husband’s arm a little, her hand resting on his forearm. The Senator says, “That is good news, if slightly disturbing. Are you proposing we flee to this other world, Sergeant?”

Sky rises and faces them, and shakes his head. “I do not think that is possible. It seems to function on an exchange basis. If you went through, your counterpart, say a Gwydion who had joined the Guardia and has become a well-respected Sergeant, would have to be ready, in this chamber on the other side. You would switch places. If he was not ready, I imagine you’d do nothing but get wet. And if he was and you did exchange places, then that Dion would be stuck here, confused and worried for his family back home.”

“If this is so, then why bring us here? Are you just trying to play charades while your…partner raises his voice to us at every perceived mistake we make?” The Senator keeps his voice level though it is clearly strained, trying to be dignified but too tired and frightened to succeed. 

Sky keeps his voice gentle. “Somrak’s only concern is keeping all of you alive, a job he is highly skilled at. But it would be easier if you both recognize the extraordinary circumstances we are in now. You must forget your stations and rights to respect. You are our most precious objects in this universe right now. Protecting you is of far more importance than your egos.” He lets that sink in a moment. Then when the Senator opens his mouth again, Sky cuts him off. “But this is no charade. I brought you here because I have gone through this pool, and I most likely will again, soon. And I have knowledge from that which I must impart to you.”

Alma gasps, gripping Gwydion’s arm tighter. “So that…that is what you found from my dream?”

Gwydion looks at her, confused. “What dream? My little lamb, you have mentioned this twice now, and each time something has preempted my questions, but please tell me, what are you talking about?”

Alma looks down, embarrassed and miserable, seeming almost to shrink before Sky’s eyes. “I…I had a very ominous dream about these caves and I asked the Sergeant to investigate. It said we would find what we need to be safe again here.”

“But…my dear, why did you not tell me about this?” Gwydion sounds stunned that she kept this to herself.

“Well, I…I did not want to add to your worries. You might think I was falling ill with some divinatory fever. And…” She pauses, something building up inside her, something that comes out in a near-squeak. “I feared you would just discard it!”

Sky can hear the frustration in her voice, built up not over the course of this night but for decades, the frustration of being ‘protected’, of being ‘shielded’, of being ‘cherished’ – but not being listened to. Gwydion, however, does not seem to notice it. “Oh, my delicate flower…” the Senator murmurs as he embraces her. “But are you feeling well?”

She nods, her voice a little muffled against his shoulder. “I am, my prince. Just frightened.”

“I am just worried,” Gwydion says, petting her hair. “And you have used your Death sphere…you know how dangerous that is for your fragile health.”

Sky does his best to keep his feelings from reaching his face. It is almost grotesque, seeing these two people who were, at some point in their lives, the same as his dearest friends. Surely they were born from the same parents as the Dion and Alma he knows, and at least for a short time grew up in the same way. But somewhere along the line, they took a turn in their development. To think that his Alma, his Dion, could become such milksops… And yet, he reminds himself, if the Dion and Alma of his world have the potential to become this, then this Senator and Lady have, somewhere deep within, the potential to find their strength. 

“She was right to tell me,” Sky says. “I think the knowledge I carry could help with your survival, and perhaps with rebuilding after this is all over. I believe you may be playing a large role in that.”

“And what knowledge is that?” Gwydion asks, still consoling Alma.

Sky takes a deep breath. Here we go, he thinks. “First, I must apologize for being…deceptive. You see, I am not the Tuma-Sukai you sent here, Lady Alma. I am the one from the other side, from that other world which, I surmise, diverged from this one decades ago. The Tuma-Sukai who was assigned to protect you has, I believe, changed places with me, and I assume he is there now, hopefully not causing too much trouble.”

The couple are both silent, staring at him, Gwydion blinking incredulously, Alma’s eyes wide with fascination over her husband’s bicep. Finally she whispers, “Another world…a copy of this one but with a divergence in history… Is that why you were acting strangely when we were attacked?” 

Sky nods. “Forgive my familiarity, but in my world, I know both of you. I have known you for nearly a year, now, and indeed, we are very close. It seems Fate brought us together there, and is once again doing so here. Over there, you both recently risked your lives, along with Somrak, to rescue me from a dire fate – the torture I mentioned, at the behest of this Margrave.”

“Oh my…” Alma breathes. “We risked our lives…for you? And with Somrak?”

“With all due respect, I do not see how this is possible. Was this situation something of a political nature?” Gwydion pulls Alma closer, as if to protect her from the clearly insane Sky. “I can barely imagine how we would have met if it were not for this horrible ordeal we are in.”

Sky, by force of will, does not sigh, at least not physically. “Our coming together was considerably less traumatic, in that world. We were all three transferred to the newly expanded Three Rats Guardia Station. My Dion and Alma were promoted to Sergeant to ease the sting of the hardship posting, while I was, for a time, Inspector.” He grins slightly. “We didn’t much like each other at first. But we’ve become a team. More than that – a family. We’ve been through a great deal together.”

“Sergeant? Of the Guardia?” Alma goes almost sheet-white – as pale as the complexion of the Alma that Sky knows. “Oh no, no, no. I abhor violence. I can barely stand the sight of blood.”

Gwydion’s expression drips with doubt. “With our standing in society, I truly do not see why either of us would ever become Guardia, of all fates.” 

Sky almost laughs, thinking that his Dion’s uncle, the Archon Math, must have said something similar when he learned that Dion had joined the Guardia. To Alma, he says, “Your counterpart told me of grueling training sessions with her aunt, known as the Fencer. That Alma very nearly gave up, but she stuck with it, and it gave her the strength to leave her father’s home and join the Guardia.”

“Fencer?” Alma blinks, then seems to understand. “Oh, Aunt Varah. I only took one or two classes before I gave up. They were really not for me. Besides, I had my gallant knight protecting me at all times.” She looks up adoringly at Gwydion.

“We left Senator Death’s house when we became engaged. My uncle took us in.” Gwydion looks down, thoughtful, holding Alma’s hands. “Do you mean that in this other reality, we both took those classes, then? And that is how we became Guardia?”

Realization blooms as pieces click into place. Sky breathes out, “Ah… How old were you when you were taken in by the Death Clan, Senator? Was it immediately after your parents’ disappearance?”

Now it is Gwydion’s turn to look pale, the mention of his parents unsettling him. “I assume so, yes. I was rather young. I do not remember those days very well.”

Sky nods in comprehension. “In my world, young Dion was taken in by his uncle Math and raised by him. Dion never knew Alma until less than a year ago. From what I understand, Dion’s relationship with his uncle was often fraught. In the end, Dion joined the Guardia to escape the political life.”

“That is so horrible…” Alma sighs. “I cannot imagine a life without my beloved Dion. He is my soulmate. Our counterparts…are they together now? Engaged, maybe?”

“Ah, well…perhaps eventually.” Sky cannot help but smile. “They are very much in love, though, but I think marriage is something of a ‘maybe someday’ possibility. But I would say that ‘soulmates’ is an accurate description of them. It seems the Fates want you two together, in whatever world you find yourselves, even if it takes many years to bring about.” He smiles to see the pleasure those words bring to both of them. They may be annoying, he thinks, but they are still Alma and Gwydion.

“And children?” Alma asks, her voice hopeful. “They want children, yes?”

Sky tries to be cautious, but can see no reason to lie. “Well, things are very unsettled just now. We averted a major civil war, but the situation is just calming down. And Alma has her hands full sometimes with her Bunnies.” He winces slightly at the obvious next question. 

Which comes immediately. “What do you mean, her Bunnies?” Gwydion asks. “She had them alone?”

“Not…exactly.” Maybe I should have just held that back after all. “She had them before she met Dion.”

The Senator looks at Alma as if expecting an explanation, but she looks back just as confused. “And you believe this knowledge is important to help keep us safe, Sergeant?”

“What is important is that, in that world, Nekh is dead, and your uncle is alive.” Sky’s voice assumes a sympathetic tone. “And please allow me to offer my sincere condolences. I know the Archon Math. He is well-loved by his nephew and a good many more people, and I am sure your uncle was as well, Senator.”

“He was so good to us.” Alma’s voice hitches and tears fill her eyes. “And he adored the children. He was so tender to them.”

“He certainly did not deserve this betrayal by Archon Nekh. My uncle was nothing but a good, decent old god.” Gwydion’s grief is heartfelt.

Sky’s keeps his general opinion about Archons – that whatever face an Archon might show to loved ones, no god can reach those lofty heights without being a ruthless, amoral player of the riskiest of games – to himself. “In my world, Archon Math arranged things so that Nekh would extend his hand too far, setting him up for a fall. The plan was, I think, to destroy Nekh’s power base and force him to become a secret scion of House Math, but…things went further. Nekh had his soul ripped from him, after being shattered by a weapon known as a God Striker. And this God Striker was found in these very same caves. And it was found by my Alma.”

“Your Alma?” Senator Gwydion looks at him quizzically.

Sky smirks and shakes his head at the jealousy. Just like my Dion, mistaking the love of friendship for romantic infatuation. “The God Striker is another thing I wanted to ask you about. It is also called the Deus Percussorem. Have you ever heard of any such thing?” They shake their heads. “Well, that would have been too easy, I suppose. But in my world, Nekh’s men also attacked the Oracle and stole the Pearl. In doing so, they left the God Striker behind, at the bottom of a pool, as if it wanted us to find it. It is possible that may have happened again, so it could be somewhere in here. So we need to start checking pools. There are quite a few, I’m afraid, but I don’t plan to sleep until it is time for me to attempt to exchange places with the other Tuma-Suka again, in less than twenty hours.”

“Excuse me…” Like a schoolgirl embarrassed to ask for permission to go to the bathroom, Alma raises her hand. “I believe you said someone ripped Archon Nekh’s soul out of his body? I may not have studied my Father’s Clan lore extensively but I know that what you are describing is an unspeakable crime. It would merit nothing short of being banished to Hell.”

Sky looks at her, quiet, for a moment. The more I tell them of what their counterparts are capable of, the more I risk sounding insane. But this could very well be important for them to know. It could save their lives. “It very nearly came to that. But an argument was put forth that, not only was it self defense and defense of others, but it was also a very convenient disposal of one of the vilest criminals the Insula has seen. And with Archon Math’s help, a bargain was struck.” He nods at Gwydion. “The wielder of the God Striker was set free, to serve the Guardia wherever he preferred,” and he nods at Alma, “while the one who had killed Nekh was sentenced to stay in Three Rats until further notice. With her family of Bunnies.”

“Bunnies? Then–” Dion looks at Alma, his mouth agape. “Impossible…”

“The dashing Sergeant who had wielded the God Striker decided to stay with her in the end,” Sky confirms for them. “I do not believe he regrets it one bit.”

“You mean…?” Alma’s eyes are wide in astonishment. “Oh, this is sounding like something out of a myth! Are you saying that we killed Nekh in this world of yours?”

“You did, together.” He remembers coming into the room just after it happened, Dion stunned but comforting Tulip, the youngest Bunny, the one who had fulfilled the prophecy by dropping the God Striker next to Dion at just the right moment. And Alma in a state of shock, Nekh’s burnt and smoking body before her. I held her, told her it would be all right. And I am grateful every day that that did not turn out to be a lie. 

“I hope this does not mean you intend us to play out their story, Sergeant.” Dion says. “Such a violent effort would surely mean my wife’s death. She has never harvested a soul in her life.” 

Sky nods. “I realize that the two of you have grown up along a different path. You have other strengths, and other skills that may well prove more useful than combat and magic. But the God Striker could turn the tide of battle. Perhaps this world’s Sky or Somrak are meant to wield it. Perhaps someone else. But you should know that anything the Alma and Dion of my world can do, it is something that exists within you as a potentiality. That strength, that ruthlessness – you can be capable of it, if you want it badly enough.”

“Thank you for your vote of confidence, Sergeant.” Gwydion seems shaken by the implications, however. “So what do you need us to do?”

“We need to search for the God Striker. It could be in a pool, or it could be elsewhere. If it is here at all. Fortunately, I know these caverns well, having lived in them for months. Somrak can keep watch over you while Alma and I search.” He looks at Alma. “She is the one who found it before. It is possible the Fates only want her to find it. And I hesitate to have everyone searching, in case someone were to fall into a pool or something.”

“But…but I do not even know what it looks like!” Alma squeaks.

“I have a feeling that you will know it when you see it,” Sky says. “In our world it looked a bit like a cestus…uh, a sort of large set of brass knuckles. It could be in a different form here, though.”

“Well…if you are certain…” Alma sounds unsure, but then her mouth firms up in determination. “I… I will try to help.”

“Are you sure, my dearest?” Dion looks worried. “Perhaps I should go along with you.”

Alma hesitates, looking as if her momentary resolve is about to evaporate, but then says, resolute, “No. It is all right. The children might worry if we were both to leave them for long. Sergeant Tuma-Sukai will look after me, will you not?”

“With my life,” he says. “You, all of you, are under my protection every bit as much as you are under that of this world’s Tuma-Sukai. Until such time that I am sent back to my home, I shall take on his task without reservation.”

“Very well, then.” Dion turns to Alma, taking her hands again. “Just…be careful, my flower. I do not know what would happen to me if I were ever to lose you.”

“I promise I will be careful.” Alma puts her arms around him and holds him tightly. “I never want that to happen. Never.”

Ch7.59 Revelations

 

The moment Sky exits the cells, Somrak moves to stand chest to chest with him. Well, chest to upper abdomen. “Time for us to talk.” 

Sky looks down at his former partner. Just after the torture, Sky got to spend more time with Somrak off the job than he’d ever done before. He’d become used to Somrak’s new face. Lyria, Alma’s mother, had healed Somrak’s wounds, and she had not held back from healing the old, old scar that Somrak never talked about. Sky had grown used to that unmarred countenance over the past several weeks. The loss of the scar made Somrak look younger, and it seemed to remove a shield he had long held up before himself. 

But this Somrak is like the one Sky knew from their long off-blues partnership. That had been another thing that had opened up their hearts toward one another. Though Guardia partners often become closer than brothers – indeed, eventual marriage is not unknown, and Sky has heard of one case where a partner underwent a magical sex change in order to be with a partner who was only attracted to one gender – there had always been a wall that kept Sky and Somrak apart. But that is because they were never true partners. Sky has always been a sort of slave, a captive of the Guardia, given the choice of working as an agent or rotting in prison. Or, more likely, being given over to oblivion. Even death would not be enough, for Sky’s soul could not be allowed to return to Hell, memories intact. Sky does not know how Somrak would manage that, but he knows that Somrak must be capable of killing him, and somehow preventing his soul from escaping. A magical artifact, perhaps, or maybe even one of his tattoos. 

In a situation like that, how can either of them be true partners? But the Somrak Sky knows has been relieved of that duty. By dissolving their partnership, by sending Sky to Three Rats Station, the Commander has allowed the two of them to achieve a closeness they could only find in brief moments before.

Sky nods to the scar-faced fire god. “In the alley.” He looks over at Aliyah. “Constable? I appreciate the trouble you went to, finding these. But I’m afraid they don’t quite fit.” He hands her back the shirt and trousers she brought him.

“Dang, sir, sorry about that,” the athletic woman says. “I ain’t bad with a needle and thread, you know.”

“Thank you. But we’ll need to move soon. Ser– Corporal Machado? Sergeant Somrak and I will be right back. Have someone keep an eye on the prisoner, but we also need to get ready to head out.”

Somrak crosses his arms, not happy at being made to wait while Sky issues orders, but unable to gainsay what he recognizes as necessary precautions. He looks hard at Machado, who says, “Yes sir. When you say ‘we’…”

“I mean all of us, yes,” Sky confirms, his voice low. He switches to Batepapo, the local blend of Urbia and Brazilian Portuguese with a fair dollop of Hindi, a dash of Haitian French from a neighboring ward, and a sprinkling more that he can hardly place. “I cannot leave you Popula behind. The next group that attacks will be Dei for sure, maybe even Sikari.” He sees the burly Corporal’s eyes widen in fear at the mention of the half-legendary creatures.

The three mortal cops, Edison Machado, Aliyah Kaur, and Cala Lamore, are all fluent in the local language. The two women turn pale and look at each other. Machado just stares at Sky for a moment, then says to his Constables, “You heard the Sergeant. Aliyah, keep watch on the prisoner. Cala, stay with the Senator and his family, and make sure they’re ready to go. I’ll gather what we need.”

Any questions they have about how this stranger knows the Three Rats lingo are left unasked for now. Perhaps they just figure they have more important things to worry about, which is true. Perhaps they think that knowing whatever language he needs to is one of Sky’s divine powers. Or maybe he just looks too intimidating to ask – or just too weird. He is, after all, still dressed in nothing but a pair of black tights.

Sky glances over at the Senator and his brood. Dion is holding the baby, looking very tired but on the verge of giving him to Alma and coming over to insist on some answers and do you know who I am?! Alma, leaning against Dion for comfort, is watching Sky as if she knows there is something he’s not telling her, that maybe the little mission she sent him on bore fruit after all. And the Bunnies are all asleep, May cuddled up against Dion, Cherry and Merri in each other’s arms by leaning against Alma, all looking, despite the balm of slumber, scared and miserable, innocent mortals caught in the middle of god business, which is never a good place to be.

Sky looks back at Somrak, who looks like he is close to exploding. Which in Somrak’s case is meant literally. “Come on,” Sky says, tilting his head toward the kitchen. “I’ll explain everything.”

Somrak starts in on him as soon as they are in the alley and the door closes. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing, going off like that without saying a word?” His voice is hushed but angry.

Sky leans back against the door, letting his shoulders sag. He looks up at the night sky but sees no stars. Clouds have moved in. He guesses it must be around three in the morning now. “I don’t know, to tell the truth. You see, I just met this Lady Alma, what, an hour ago? But apparently she asked me to do her a favor and go looking. Or…she asked the me of this world.”

Somrak, standing across the alley from him, blinks at this, and then his eyes narrow. He moves swiftly, slamming his hand against Sky’s chest, pushing him hard to pin him against the door. His hand is hot and growing hotter, and Somrak’s mandala-like aura flickers into visibility, flames around his head and shoulders that hint at tigers and phoenixes. “All right, buddy, you have about one minute before I decide what to do with you, so if you want to live, you better start talking.”

Sky, who was expecting this, does not resist, and stays calm. Though Somrak’s touch is rapidly becoming painfully hot, Sky keeps his hands down, resisting the urge to grab Somrak’s wrist. Keeping his voice steady, he explains, “I am Tuma-Sukai, but not the one you know. I think…I fell here from another timeline. Another Insula, a mirror of this one. And I can only assume your Sky is there now.”

Somrak’s hooded eyes stare into Sky’s. “You have any proof?” 

Sky knew this would come. “About six years ago, in my world, we liberated a shipment of slaves bound for a very nasty party where they all would have been eaten by the gods who’d purchased them. Eaten alive. It was a near thing, us catching it. There was a child among them, and he clung to you like barnacle to a boat’s hull. He just wouldn’t let go of you. And you wouldn’t let go of him until you were able to hand him over to his parents. About two hours later, when you and I were having a drink, you just started weeping. I held you. We didn’t say a word. Not then, not ever.”

Somrak’s jaw works, shaken by the revelation. He drops his hand and takes a step back. “Right. Now the rest of this crazy tale. Spill it.”

Sky straightens. He takes a look at the red mark on his chest, shaped just like Somrak’s open hand. Fortunately, it is already fading. “Right…from what I can put together, Lady Alma asked your Tuma-Sukai to go explore a nearby cave complex, as a result of a dream. Meanwhile, in the other world, I’ve been living in that same cave complex, recovering from serious injuries, under the care of the residents. I discovered a pool, got…scooped into it, and on coming out found myself here. I explored the caves, looking for the residents, but they’re gone. One of them left behind a pile of bones and a memory-ghost, though. I came here, looking for the Guardia station. I noticed the assassins and foiled their attempt. And beyond that…I don’t know much. Oh, except that assassin we have? She was a friend who died saving our lives in that other world. Yours and mine.”

Somrak just stares at him through all this. Then he snorts. “Yeah…sounds likely…” He pauses, thinking it all over, then curses in his own language, Flametongue, which sounds like sap-filled logs popping and exploding in sparks in a raging fire. “Great, just great. Just what I needed, to add to those two indoor flowers and their kids that keep running off or freezing in terror when I need them to move.” He turns, balling his hand balled in a fist and punching the wall. “Fates! What else, huh? What else…”

“Calm yourself, Somrak,” Sky says gently. “The others might hear. Now tell me, is Saira right in saying that the Archon Nekh is alive?”

Somrak turns back to Sky, voice perfectly level. “What, you’re going to tell me that on the other side he’s the one who’s dead and that other one, Math, is still alive?” He looks at Sky’s expression, then rolls his eyes. “Great. Mind you, there’s not a single Archon that isn’t a self-righteous bastard but at least Math let the Guardia and the Commander be. Nekh tried to put the Commander in his pocket as soon as he got in charge. And when the Commander refused, that damned buzzard just seized control and started a civil war. We – my Sky and I – suspect it’s Nekh who’s coming after these two.” He jerks his head toward Dion and Alma. “Just to wipe out the whole family.”

Sky nods. “Nekh controls both sides. The fighting is merely cover for taking out all opposition, and to have him emerge looking the hero after he kills off most of his now-inconvenient criminal organization. We’ll be back to a God Emperor system in a week.” He closes his eyes, thinking how fast these things go, when they go. “Or I should say, you will be. But since I know how Nekh died on my side…maybe we can come up with something.”

“Oh?” Somrak’s interest is piqued. “Nekh has some kind of vulnerability?”

“Not exactly. On my side…those two killed Nekh, you see. The Lady and the Senator.”

Of anything he’s said so far, Sky knows this will be the hardest one to sell. Somrak’s deep belief in the Fates has stuck with him since childhood, undercutting his cynicism just enough to keep him from drowning in it. But even Sky has to admit he wouldn’t buy it, either.

Somrak blinks, then looks at the wall behind Sky as if he could see the loving couple through it. He blinks again. “Pull the other one. They couldn’t kill a steak on the grill. He’s useless and she’s afraid of her own shadow unless someone forgets to address her properly. He pretty much guides her along as he pleases.” His facial expression and tone of voice make clear his annoyance at this, bordering on disgust.

Sky smirks, thinking about how deeply his Somrak in love with the Alma he knows, and how this Somrak is so much like the one he knows. This Lady Alma might be very different, but wasn’t she born the same Alma? She has the potential for being just as strong as Sky’s dearest friend. “I wonder if that’s how it goes in private, with this only the public mask. And where I come from, they are both dear to you. And to me. And Alma is in charge of Three Rats Station.” His smirk blossoms into a grin as he looks at Somrak’s shocked expression. “She’s been your commanding officer briefly. And you hers.”

Somrak frowns at all this. “And you’re sure these caves you’re talking about aren’t filled with some powerful hallucinogenic gas or something?”

Sky shakes his head, his grin disappearing. “I only wish it were such a simple explanation. But the Fates are all bound up in this.” He cannot be sure how often he has been a plaything of the Fates. Once, long ago, Sky was told by the Oracle that he is free of Fate, but he keeps being entangled again and again. “Without Fate playing a hand, I’m sure you’d never have met them here. Nor ever have come to Three Rats.” He looks at Somrak sharply, a thought occurring to him. “Whose idea was it to come here?”

“Commander’s. He told us to head for here, yesterday. No reason why, but we just assumed it was because it was well out of the way. We lost contact since then. Then word that Headquarters was attacked, destroyed. I imagine he’s gone off grid.” Somrak looks melancholic, and Sky can imagine why. The Commander has been like a father to him, the closest thing to a father that Somrak ever had. And Mrs. Finch, the Commander’s mortal secretary, is very dear to Somrak, and to Sky as well. 

After a moment, Somrak asks, “Any ideas on how long you will be here?”

Sky thinks it over. “I have some experience of pathways between worlds, but never like this. They often open on some trigger. This one was right at midnight, I think. So perhaps it will open then again. But for all I know it is seasonal rather than nightly, or it could require a perfect alignment of stars…” Anguish creeps into his voice as he realizes how little he knows. It is possible that there is no way back, that the Tuma-Sukai of this world will have to step into that life in Three Rats, and that the Sky of Three Rats will be permanently stuck here. “I want to help, Somrak. I really do. But I have people back there. A family…”

“A family?” Somrak looks like he is growing tired of all the surprises. “How did you manage that in the offblues – right. Never mind. You’re going back to the caves at midnight. Meanwhile…any epiphanies?”

Sky has none, but he does have a straw to grasp at. “Have you heard of a God Striker? That’s what Dion used to break Nekh’s defenses.”

Somrak shakes his head. “New to me. Where did he get one?”

Sky mulls it all over. “You know, Lady Alma’s dream told her that Tuma-Sukai would find something to save them in the caves. In my world, the God Striker was lost at the bottom of a pool there during an attack on the Oracle. Perhaps…the same happened here. I need to return there and look for it, just in case. Perhaps I missed it.”

“Only one thing, though. There are no Oracles in this world.” Somrak points out.

“Someone is sending your Lady Alma prophetic dreams,” Sky ripostes. “Maybe it’s our Oracle. But maybe yours is around somewhere after all. The ghost I met was the Oracle’s priestess. She told me, ‘Help her’. I think the Oracle was living in that cave up until just a few months ago, when the priestess was murdered and a powerful item called the Pearl was stolen. The Oracle could have been taken as well. And if she is still in this world, we need to find her.” He glances around, listening for the assassins he is sure will be arriving eventually. “This place is compromised. Saira knew where it was, so Nekh will as well. We need to move before a second attack comes. We should relocate to the caves. They could be compromised too, but we can’t discount the possibility that your Sky might return at midnight with something to help win the war. And if I’m not there to switch with him…he might be stuck there.”

Somrak sighs in exasperation. “Great…but you’re the one explaining to these snobs that their fine clothes are about to get damp.” 

Ch7.55 Revelations

After leaving the Grotto, Sky notices how quiet Three Rats is. The ward has always had numerous empty buildings due to the twisted, fused nature of many of them, resulting from the merger of two chunks of Reality into one ward. But those buildings that were lived in were packed full of lively, boisterous people. Even now at, he would guess from the stars, two in the morning, there should be shady characters on street corners, partygoers on their way home, gangsters and cops patrolling and nodding to each other in uneasy detente as they pass. Even if the ward is sensing that something big is about to go down – the average Three Rats dweller having an amazing nose for the smell of trouble brewing – he should have been able to hear the small sounds of families hunkering down, plaintive children’s voices asking why they had to be quiet followed by shushes. 

But there is nothing but empty streets and empty homes. Quite a bit of vandalizing as well. Windows that look like the ragged-toothed jaws of beasts, and doors hanging from one hinge, discarded loot on the doorsteps. A few, very few homes look lived in.

Sky approaches Three Rats Station only to find it abandoned as well. In fact, there is no sign it has ever been used as a Guardia station. He enters by pulling aside a rusty corrugated-steel panel placed over the gaping doorway and discovers nothing but a shell of a warehouse with signs of someone having squatted there for a few days, leaving behind empty cans and water bottles. The squatter left three days ago, by Sky’s estimation of the stink in the corner, which the resident has used for a toilet. There is no sign that the interior walls of the station had been ripped out, either. Where Sky’s office had been, there are no scrapes or nail holes or anything to show that his office has ever been built.

Out back, the Burrow, Merri and Cherry’s bar and home to all the Bunnies, and to Alma and Dion as well, is also abandoned. The sign he gave them for Year’s End is missing. And the two screw hooks he put in himself to hang the sign from…gone. Never there, really. No holes. Inside he finds that yes, it is a bar, but that was the case before the Bunnies had arrived, an old former bar that they took over and made into a new one. There are no bottles to be found, no glasses, no dishes. Nothing left behind. No indication that these things had been taken away.

He does find something, though. A newspaper left behind, fallen behind the bar. He picks it up and sees the date of several months ago. From the yellowing of the paper he would say it was several months old, not years. A spark of hope begins to kindle as he starts to think that he has not disappeared for years after all. Yet the mystery of the empty ward remains. He leans against the bar, pondering.

This station was never a station, and the bar was never the Burrow. Bunnies have never lived here. He’s never been Inspector here. The Pearl has been stolen, but perhaps not twice. Perhaps only once, at the same time it was stolen in his memory. Only he and Alma and Gwydion had not been here to get it back and return it. And Doria, instead of being injured, had been killed.

Time travel to the past is forbidden by the Fates, powers greater than the greatest gods. Any being who attempts it meets a horrible end instead. And the newspaper shows he has not travelled into the past.

He forms a theory. He thinks it over again, then again, and can discover no flaws in his reasoning. It is still a mystery, what has happened, but the reality of the current situation is becoming clear.

And he remembers that Three Rats had, until just before his arrival, another Guardia station. A smaller one over near the border with Little Falls, back in the direction he’s just come from, not far from the Grotto. Machado and the other Guardia Popula had moved from there to here as the station was being expanded, when Sky had become the new Inspector. It seems that move never happened. Which means the old station could possibly still be occupied.

And thus he is now approaching the old station. He can see it at the end of an unusually straight stretch of road, and yes, there is a faint light within showing through the windows. It is only one story high, just a small block of brick and masonry. His heart beats faster. He wants to rush there, find someone he knows, perhaps Machado or Kaur or Lamore, someone who may never have met him but who can tell him something.

But he freezes. He is uncertain why at first. Then he sees something that does not belong. A bump at the top of a three-story building that looks down on the little station. He stands very still. The bump moves. And something else comes up from the shadow, a complex shape. A crossbow, being brought up and laid upon the edge of the rooftop. The head of the crossbowman – for the bump is a person’s head – shifts again, and Sky sees a shoulder to go with it. Whoever it is is taking aim at one of the windows of the station.

Sky slips into the shadows. Has he been seen? How many of them are there? Where are they. 

He transforms. His skin, naturally dark, is still too visible in his human form, and shirtless as he is, too exposed. He may be far larger as a devil, but he is made for night stealth, not only with red-black skin but with an ability to cloak himself in shadows that cannot be seen through even by most forms of magic. He considers the quietest way to gain the heights. Flight, he decides, it the best route.

He retreats a block back the way he came and turns down a cross street, and with a powerful leap of his long, hoofed legs launches into the air. He flaps heavily to rise above the buildings, mostly two to four stories tall in this neighborhood, then glides quietly on leathery wings, dark-adapted eyes piercing the night. He is careful of the light from the one crescent moon that hangs near the horizon, making sure not to occlude it from the direction of the station.

He spots the crossbowman first, crouched at a balustrade on the roof of the building. And there is another, on a balcony. Another at street level, at the corner of a building. All three are holding crossbows, all three tense, predatory, ready to go. A barely noticeable shadow slinks down and leaps onto a first floor balcony. It raises something to its mouth, and Sky hears a quiet, momentary whistle. Two more shadows detach themselves from nearby buildings and head for the back door of the Guardia station. The one at the corner and two others advance in a diagonal line from a nearby building, headed for the front door. One of them looks like a human battle ram, so bulky and tall is he.

Eight. He counts eight. Too many to take out without bloodshed. Too many to shout, “Guardia! You are under arrest! Drop your weapons!” Not when they’re about to launch their kill mission. He’ll have to attack full force, no warning. And with no weapons…he’ll have to use his natural ones. He flexes his talons. 

And there, they’re moving fast. He moves faster. 

First the rooftop crossbowman. Glide, then swoop. At the last moment the sniper senses something behind him. He starts to turn, trying to bring the bow around, but too late. Sky flies just above him, both arms hanging down, palms forward, talons curved. A horrible, brief tug of flesh and cloth tearing, and Sky’s target grunts, flipping off the rooftop in a gout of blood that arcs through the air. He hits the ground just before Sky, wings folded to dive then snapping out to decelerate, lands with a heavy thud just behind another of the assassins, whom he blinds with a cloud of darkness. The darkness dissipates just as a bolt flies through it from the sniper on the balcony, but Sky is gone, leaving only a twitching body in a rapidly growing pool of blood. But the big guy doesn’t stop – he’s hitting the door, smashing it in with a huge crash and shatter of glass. A shadow swells from darkness and leaps upon him, swallows him, then the huge attacker is flying through the air, all the way across the street to land like a sack of wet oatmeal, skidding a bodylength before stopping. A crossbow bolt, again from the balcony, goes through the moving, ink-in-water shadow and hits the brick of the station, sticking into it. 

The shadow fades in dissipating tendrils, and is gone, with no sign of Sky.

There is a smashing of a glass window. A scream, as a figure slips into the station through the opening. Three high-pitched voices, screaming almost in harmony. They sound familiar to Sky, but the circumstances bring no pleasure at the possible recognition. The screams suddenly increase in volume, another female voice adding to them, and at least one male scream of agony joining in. Impact, then again, and another lesser crash as a body enveloped in flame is knocked back out the window through which he entered. Sky palms his skull, greasy with boiling fat and flesh, and yanks him the rest of the way out, swinging the burning, struggling man and hurling him to impact the oversized thug who is trying to stand, knocking him down again and setting his shirt afire.

Sky hears an astonished curse and looks up to see the balcony sniper, frozen in the act of reloading across the street and two floors up. He is staring at Sky, who, having forgotten to wreathe himself in darkness, was illuminated by the flaming now-corpse. Sky knows what the sniper has seen: a creature the size of an aurochs, but long and bipedal, wolfish jaws, huge dragonish wings and a dragon’s tail. And an aura that just screams Hellspawn. Devil, demon, the sniper will not know or care. He sees Sky staring and drops his crossbow off the edge of the balcony and it clatters to the street. He turns, bashes into the frame of the balcony door, staggers, and runs into interior of the building.

Five, Sky counts. Two snipers, one dead one running. The three in front, two dead one struggling to put his clothes out. Got the two round back and the leader to deal with.

Another scream within. A cold female voice, telling them to shut up.

Sky slips around the back, rapidly reverting to human form. He is big for a human but he moves like a cat when he needs to, light and silent. He is glad for his bare feet, so heavily calloused from this stolen form’s shoeless childhood that even small pieces of glass do not bother him. He sees the rear door, forced open, a shape in the doorway. Another member of the strike team, left there to watch, but looking the wrong way at the moment. Sky is on him as he turns, no talons or teeth now but just a pair of big, strong hands. One seizes the man’s crossbow, clenching the foregrip and pinning the bolt against the flight groove so that it cannot be fired. The other hand is around the man’s throat. Sky looks into the man’s eyes as he squeezes both hands as hard as he can. The eyes bug out. Sky feel the larynx collapse, the vertebrae pop as they separate. There is a slight splintering of the crossbow. Sky lowers both to the ground man and weapon to the ground, silent.

He enters the station’s kitchen. Through the door to the main room, he can see the leader, cloaked, holding someone. Holding a knife to someone’s throat. Hostage. Beyond her, in the lit room…

Somrak is the first he makes out. Somrak standing crouched, ready, one of his long knives in one hand, the bunched up shirt of an attacker in the other. The attacker is dead or unconscious. Somrak took him down, so Sky assumes dead. The knife is red and slick with blood. 

Sky cannot see the whole room from here, but he sees Gwydion, looking terrified, his arms protectively around two frightened Bunnies, Mayumi and Rosemary. And just behind his shoulder is Cherry, holding a bundle that squirms. A sound like a cat’s scream suddenly erupts from it. No, not a cat. A baby.

“Lower that hand, Matchstick!” the cloaked figure demands. “I start feeling hot, the lady here is getting her throat slit with an ichor-laced blade.”

The voice freezes Sky in his tracks as he creeps closer. He knows the voice instantly. Only its owner is dead. 

Somrak lets the body fall to leave his other hand free, but he lowers both that hand and the one holding the blade. “You’ll never get out of here alive, assassin. Unless you give up now.” He is not looking at Sky. His eyes stay focused on the one he calls ‘assassin.’ But Sky knows that Somrak must be able to see his heat signature in the shadows of the kitchen.

Alma’s voice, choked by an arm across her throat, terrified, begs, “Please! What – what have I ever done to you?” Sky can now see her feet encased in tiny, delicate shoes, in front of the assassin’s flexible boots. The rest of both assassin and captive are still hidden by the cloak.

Alma’s voice but…different. Had he ever heard Alma beg? For anything?

“Nothing, hon, but I do need to make a living. Now stop squirming.” The hostage-taker takes a step back, keeping Alma off-balance, dragging her toward the kitchen and escape. “And you stop mumbling! If I hear one magic word, she’s dead.” This last makes Dion freeze, eyes wide, horrified.

Sky stays where he is, not breathing, willing himself to be unnoticeable. Not here, not here, there is nobody here. He learned the technique so very long ago from a native scout when Sky was training the mortal’s people how to use repeating firearms, and in return he was trained to be even sneakier than he was. He stands so she will be in the doorframe when her back touches his chest. But he knows who this is. Her voice is harsher than he’s ever heard it except when she was killing Margrave, and being killed in turn by minor demons biting and tearing her. He knows how deadly she is. He knows she could kill Alma if he is not very careful.

That is why he does not wait for her to step on his foot, or for her back to touch his chest. He stops wondering why Alma is begging instead of casually disarming Saira, for thought Saira is deadly, she is no Guardia Dei who was trained by the Fencer. He just reaches a hand around Saira’s hood with the speed of a rattlesnake and grabs, intending to seize the assassin’s hand. But even he is not quite fast enough. Instead of her hand, he feels the sharp edge of the blade slicing the skin of his fingers. He does not hesitate, gripping the blade with all his strength. He ignores the sting of the razor edge cutting through muscle to the bones, instead happy his little finger has caught the handguard. She won’t be able to simply pull the blade out of his grasp. 

He holds on as she grunts and tries to pull it free. He holds on even though he feels that she was not lying about the highly illegal demon-ichor poison that is coating the blade. This much entering a god’s bloodstream would have brought the god to his knees, potentially with death to follow. For Sky is merely hurts, like fire burning through his veins and up his wrist and forearm. He is, after all, a being of Hell. His own bloodstream is, essentially, this very poison in a less-concentrated form.

His other hand grabs the back of Saira’s cloak, yanking her back, hard. As she was doing to Alma, keeping her off-balance so she could not easily try to fight back, Sky shakes Saira like a terrier with a rat, and steps back into the darkness of the kitchen. She lets go of Alma, who falls with a thud to the floor, landing on her derrière, undignified but free. 

Sky knows Saira will have another weapon in her free hand in a heartbeat. He makes no attempt to stop her, instead bringing his right arm around her throat. He is still holding her blade, but she lets go as she realizes she cannot extract it from his grasp, nor does she have the strength to stop him from applying a choke. She tries to slip free, but he has her, pulling her from the floor, holding his right forearm with his left hand. She kicks his legs, trying to break a knee. She tries to wriggle away. She pulls another blade and stabs it into his forearm.

None of it helps. While it is true that a highly trained smaller opponent can easily overcome brute strength, when the stronger opponent is almost as fast and is just as highly trained with ten times as many years of experience, and when sharp kicks to the knee and fingers slashed to the bone and demon-ichor poison and a dagger in the forearm all amount to little more than scratches and bites from a cat, the result is inevitable. Saira is one of the best, but she is mortal, and Sky is already constricting the flow of blood to her brain as his forearm and bicep press against her carotid arteries. She does considerable damage to him in the five seconds she has before she blacks out. But she goes limp nonetheless.

There is a moment of silence. Sky releases his choke hold and makes sure Saira is still breathing. But then as if a chip falls, screaming starts. Shockingly, it is not a Bunny, but Alma filling the station with terrified screams. Sky drops Saira faster than he should, regretting the thud of her unconscious body on the wooden floor, but nearly panicking. His first thought is that one of the Bunnies or Dion or someone was just killed by the sniper that ran away, but no…from the kitchen he can see that Alma, clutching at her chest, is scrambling to her feet and rushing into Dion’s arms, holding him like a stone in a raging stream, sobbing. Though they too look shaken, though they too have tears in their eyes, Merri and May are comforting her, as if she were the child and they the mothers. Sky catches Cherry looking at her weeping mother and sighing in mild exasperation. He thinks she almost rolls her eyes.

“It’s all right, my little lamb. It’s all right.” Dion, patting Alma’s back, looks up from where he sits to ask Somrak, “What-what happened, Sergeant?”

Somrak, who is keeping his eyes on the kitchen, watching Sky’s body heat in the shadows, says, “Well, my partner was on the job, after all.”

Sky looks at his right hand, the one that Saira’s knife cut deep into. The demon-ichor rages within, though he is metabolizing it. But the fingers are talons, the skin red-black up to his elbow. He cannot walk out there. His left forearm has a dagger still sticking out of it. He carefully extracts it and tosses it into the kitchen sink, wincing at the loud clatter that cuts off Alma’s screams, leaving only sniffles. 

Lovely. “There are two more. One has fled. Perhaps the other as well.” His voice is frighteningly deep, monstrous. He grimaces at how everyone in the main room leans away from the dark kitchen door, eyes widening. Everyone except Somrak, who narrows his eyes in concern. 

Sky squats and pushes Saira’s unconscious body from the kitchen into the light. “I will…” He clears his throat, struggling to get it to return to what he thinks of as normal. “I will hunt them. Stay here. Disarm this one and put her in a cell. Be careful – she’s very good. She will have many hidden weapons and tools. But do not kill her, whatever you do.”

And with that, Sky goes out the door, ignoring Somrak’s protest.

神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎神兎

About fifteen minutes later, Sky returns. He notes that five bodies, one of them burnt, are stacked neatly in the alley behind the station. Somrak or the Popula must have gone out and fetched them. Sky approves. A station surrounded by bodies is rather conspicuous. 

He does not have the other two with him. The big one was easy enough to catch up with. He turned out to be a minor demigod of strength of somesuch, and his blows could have been deadly to Sky if any had landed. Sky punched him hard in the side of his bullet-head and discovered that he did not have any special resistance to damage. The skull crushed, the unfortunate demigod collapsed like a cheap building in an earthquake, never to move again.

And the other had seen Sky’s true form. Sky found the sniper cowering in an alleyway and asked him a few questions, which the assassin begged to answer. What Sky learned fit logically with the hypothesis he had formed. He considered the possibilities of keeping the man prisoner, but he knew they would have to move quickly and that there would be no facilities for locking him up where they would go.

Death was quick and almost painless.

In the dark kitchen again, he watches the main room of the station. Machado is there, talking to Kaur. Dion is sitting on a sofa, his arm around Alma. Protective. Alma holds the baby, calmer, whispering and cooing. Merri is next to her, fussing with the baby’s blanket, and Cherry is leaning over the back of the sofa, making funny faces at the infant. 

Sky notices that Alma’s eyes are the beautiful blue that they were when he met her. They have not been transformed into strange pupil-less pearlescence. He shudders at the memory which flashes into his mind, of Nua the Necromancer torturing innocent mortals to death just to break his will, mortals she had reshaped to appear to be Alma, Dion, and Saira. Nua had not known that Alma had become the Spinner, and in so doing that her eyes had changed.

But here, now, this fits with everything else. This is Alma. It is no trick.

But she is not his Alma.

He looks past the little family, who look so much like his family, and he sees Somrak, looking at him in the shadows again, having sensed his return. Somrak with the scar across his handsome face, his mouth pulled into a slight permanent smirk by it. The scar not erased by Lyria’s healing. And next to Somrak is Mayumi, also watching him. Her ears are perked forward – naturally she heard him moving around in there. Her face is just as beautiful as his Mayumi’s. But…it is different. She looks younger, softer. She doesn’t look like someone who would ever be interested in joining the Guardia. More like Mayumi’s party-loving, beach-going twin.

He considers the blood on his arms and elsewhere. The Bunnies will be disturbed by the smell, and everyone else by the sight. He turns to the sink and begins washing himself off.

He hears the sound of a footstep behind him and most of the light from the station is blocked. Glancing back, Sky sees Somrak leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Lose your uniform?”

Sky continues wiping down his chest and limbs with a wet rag that is turning red with blood. “I had an…encounter. The threat is neutralized. How’s the prisoner?”

Somrak just watches him for a moment, but then says, “Locked up nice and tight, stripped down to her undies. I let the Popula woman, Lamore, do the cavity search. She’s watching her now. Prisoner was coming around when I left them a couple minutes ago.”

Sky drops the rag in the sink and walks to the door, pausing as Somrak does not move aside. The fire god looks Sky up and down. “That was some scouting jaunt,” he says with a low, accusatory voice. “You slaughter most of an assassination team and you seem to know the only surviving member personally. You show up here in nothing but a pair of tights. And…you’ve lost weight, partner. You’re thinner than I’ve ever seen you.”

Sky takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets it out. “I’ll explain when I’m certain what’s happened.” He talks low but adds, “The Bunnies can hear every word we’re saying.”

Somrak rolls his eyes up toward the stars above. “Of course they can. Don’t take too long with that explanation, pal. You know I don’t like being kept in the dark.” He straightens and moves to let Sky through.

Sky looks around the room. Everyone is looking at him. Alma looks as if she wants to say something, while Gwydion looks…intimidated? And like Mayumi, he looks soft, more literally so. Alma as well. And despite the baby in her arms, Alma looks like she is barely out of her teens, while Dion seems almost patriarchal – a little heavier, a little more…dad-like. The way Cherry hangs over his shoulder carries not the slightest hint of flirtatiousness, and Dion reaches up to take her hand, to comfort her in the face of the looming, shirtless, barefoot, scary-voiced killing machine standing before them all. Mayumi moves to sit by Dion, leaning against him in a daughterly way that Sky could hardly imagine her doing with anyone except Alma.

Sky looks over at Machado and Kaur. The uniforms are the same. Sergeant – no, it’s Corporal Edison Machado, according to his pips, who looks no different, though he hasn’t shaved his head or cheeks in a couple of days, resulting in a shadow of black stubble peppered with grey on his pate and lower face, except for a large bald spot on the crown. With yet another shock, Sky notices that Aliyah has shorter hair, only to her mid-back. The Constable-sometimes-Corporal Aliyah Kaur he knows does not cut her hair, in keeping with her family’s Sikh faith, and it is braided in a queue the end of which taps against the backs of her knees as she walks. There is not much of her faith that she holds to, but apparently this Aliyah does not hold to that rule.

Alma, Gwydion, Machado, Kaur – these are all his officers. Well, not anymore, not since he was tortured. But depending on the Commander’s decisions, perhaps one day again. And all of them and the Bunnies and Somrak, they are all family. But no, only Somrak knows him here. All the rest are wary of him.

“Sergeant Machado, I’ll speak to the prisoner now,” Sky says. “And…I don’t know what kind of stores you have, but if you happen to have any clothing that might fit me, I would greatly appreciate it.”

Machado nods after a moment. “Sure, Sergeant. I think there might be a shirt, at least.”

Sky nods at him and Aliyah, then goes toward the holding cells. Alma, as if suddenly coming to a decision, a determined look on her face, abruptly stands, surprising everyone with her on the station sofa. She scurries over to Sky as he places his hand on the door to the cells. Partially obscured by a tall filing cabinet, she whispers to him, “Sergeant? I… May I have a word with you?”

He looks down at her, taking in her lace-trimmed silken blouse that manages to be demure and at the same time reveal the cleavage of her full, motherly breasts. He is not certain, but he thinks she is a little shorter than his Alma. His eyes focus for a moment on the baby, which smiles with plump cheeks at him. “Yes, of course. What is it, Alma?”

She looks a little scandalized at his words, not in the humorous way her mother Lyria pretends to be scandalized, but truly so. Then in a shaky voice that is trying to be brave, she whispers, “I know I asked you for a big favor, Sergeant, but I do not believe it merits such intimacy of speech between us.”

He blinks at her, his face still, to hide the surprising flash of hurt at her objection. “Forgive me…Lady Alma. The recent violence has shaken me. Are you all right, by the way? Were you at all hurt?”

She shakes her head, looking subdued now that their social boundaries have been reestablished. “No. I was just…shaken. It was the first time someone held me at knifepoint. But I am all right. Thank you. For saving my life.”

“I hope I shall never have to do it again,” he says, “but I will gladly do it a thousand times if necessity requires it. Now, this favor you asked of me…” He trails off, hoping she will fill in the blanks about some favor he has only just now heard of.

“Yes. I did not want to ask about it in front of my husband and your partner – forgive me but he has been so ill-tempered with us since you both were assigned to protect us. I was afraid you would somehow get in trouble for it.” She looks expectant, almost pleading. “Did you find it? The Grotto?”

He pauses, his mind racing with how best to reply. “Yes. Yes, I found it. And…a pool. A pool that glimmered, and was filled with swirling colors. Is that what you expected?”

She nods, her breath quickening. “That is what my dream showed me! Did you find the answers there for how we may be saved?”

He thinks furiously, his hypothesis further bolstered by this, and starting to see more implications that come crashing down on him like the Grotto’s waterfall. “Perhaps. I…I’m still trying to understand it all. You had a dream, you say? Was there anyone else in this dream?” He sees her look of confusion. “It’s just…I was hit, in the fighting. On the head. Things are a little muddled.”

Her eyes widen in concern. “Oh you poor soul! And your hand is wounded as well!” She shifts the baby to her left arm and takes his hand, pulling him to a desk chair. “Here, come and sit down for a moment. I will take care of those wounds before you go speak to that dreadful assassin character.”

Sky sits, glad that the chair has no arms. From the picture of a bearded father and smiling mother on the desk, he knows it is Constable Kaur’s. “Thank you. I…I could hold the baby,” he offers, realizing he wants to and hoping she will let him. “What is his name?”

“Gwyeu,” she says with a voice filled with love. She looks just a little nervous, but she leans forward and carefully hands him over, and Sky holds him with tenderness, his face overcome with an expression of bliss as he smiles at the child. He almost doesn’t hear her as she asks, “Is he not the sweetest, most adorable baby you have ever seen? Looks like a miniature version of his father.” She strokes the baby’s nose, looking as if her heart is melting before she perches on the edge of the desk and takes Sky’s hand. “Now, this may hurt a little before it starts feeling better.”

His hand closes around hers. The flesh has mostly knitted back together from his own healing. His ability to transform himself has come with an unexpected benefit: the divine self-healing that nearly all gods have seems faster than before, as if the newfound ability to control his body includes repairing it. But the muscles will still take time to regain full strength without help. He unconsciously squeezes her hand before noticing that he’s doing it, forgetting, as he makes amusing faces at the baby, that this is not the Alma he knows.

“You seem to have a way with children,” Alma notes, as she suffuses Sky with preliminary healing energy, scanning his whole body for wounds. “Do you have any of your own?”

“Long ago,” he says in a soft voice. “I haven’t held a godling this young in…years. A few years.” Not since a mission to retrieve an infant stolen by a malevolent fae. But she would not want to hear about that – it had been dark and bloody. “He is indeed adorable.”

Alma smiles at his words, but then frowns. “You were hurt in more places than just this hand. And…the scars.” Although actual scars, like that on Somrak’s face, are rare in gods, still traces can remain of healed wounds, recent or terrible, that leave shadows on the flesh and spirit. Alma starts healing him, her magic pouring into him, and he is surprised, for in this she is stronger and somehow more self-assured, more efficient at healing. Closer to her mother Lyria’s level of expertise. But this also makes the healing hit him harder and faster before the relief comes. He closes his eyes at the intensity of it, but he does not allow the baby to be disturbed at all.

“There. All done,” Alma says. “Such horrible poison… I wonder how they even find such terrible substances in nature.”

He opens his eyes, his breathing a little faster than before. The demon ichor, of course, was almost gone from his system. “Yes, well, that is something I will ask our prisoner about. Such poisons are very much prohibited.” He pauses. “Now, I don’t think you mentioned…was there anyone else in your dream?”

Her energies, softer, wash through his body again, checking for anything needing healing that she might have missed. “No, just a voice. Feminine. Pleasant. Old perhaps.” Alma looks at him, helpless. “I worry that I may have done nothing but waste your time and put you and ourselves in danger by asking you to go. But it felt so ominous… I had never had such dreams before.”

“Well, you mustn’t think it was useless,” he says, mulling over her words. The Oracle? Is that who she heard? He himself had been sent a message by Nevieve in the past, telling him where Alma, Dion, and the Bunnies were and that they needed help. “If I had not been sent out, I would not have noticed the team of assassins. They could have succeeded, otherwise. In a sense, your prophecy has already come true.”

Alma gasps in shock, which almost makes him laugh. In such dramatic gasping, she sounds distinctly like Merri. But before she can say more, Gwydion comes around the filing cabinet. He looks almost suspicious. It is an expression Sky has seen before, on the Gwydion he knows, who was, for a time, jealous of the friendship Sky and Alma shared, thinking it carried a romantic element. “My dear? I was looking all over for you. You mustn’t disappear like that. The children were worried.”

Sky knows it is Gwydion who is worried, and that ‘looking all over’ is ridiculous in this tiny station. “She was healing me…Lord Gwydion,” Sky says, assuming that if Alma goes by Lady then Gwydion must have an appropriately equal appellation. “And a most impressive healer she is.” He gently hands the baby back to Alma. “I thank you, Lady Alma. Now I had better interrogate our prisoner.”

“You will speak to this…mercenary? But she nearly killed my wife just now!” Dion looks confused an expression that seems comfortable on his face. “Why would she even bother to speak to you when she was obviously sent to kill us all?”

Sky stands up and shrugs. “People often open up to me,” he says. “I just have one of those faces, I suppose.” He nods toward both of them, then turns and opens the door to the holding cells, and ducks through, careful not to bash his skull on the doorframe.

Ch7.35 Revelations

The door of the waiting room clicks, then opens at the touch of his gnarl-knuckled fingers, and the Commander steps into the comfortable but spartan waiting room. His ruddy, leathery face is smiling, his thin-lipped mouth closed until he sees all three of his officers looking toward him: ethereal Alma in the protective arms of prettyboy Gwydion, seated against the wall together, and young Somrak, fists clenching in readiness for whoever comes through the door, standing before the couple.

The Commander looks at the three of them. Has he ever had anyone cause as much trouble in such a short time as these three? Why yes, as a matter of fact. He’s been in his position for a very long time, many times the lifespans of these hotheads, in charge of the Guardia as long as there has been a Guardia – and yes, he’s seen worse. And better. They may think the universe revolves around them, but even this miniature one, this big rock in a sea of Chaos, barely knows they exist.

“They told me to deliver the news,” he growls at them. “They figured if they called you back in, there’d be more fighting.”

“Bunch of cowards.” Somrak’s fists relax and he turns to face his boss, crossing his arms. “Right, give it to us.”

“What is our sentence, sir?” Alma asks, looking haunted, nervous, but still straining to look dignified as Dion helps her stand.

“You,” he says to Alma, “will continue being Acting-Commanding Officer of Three Rats Station until further notice.” He pauses a moment to make sure she’s taken it in. She looks so worn out and shaken from the enormous gamble, and success, that she has just had in the trial. Although he wasn’t present, and although the Council of Archons’ chamber is the most eavesdrop-proof location in the Insula, the Commander has his ways. He designed the place, after all.

“You’re in charge of Tuma-Sukai,” he continues, “responsible for getting him ready for duty, making sure he doesn’t cause the slightest hint of scandal, and for…taking care of him if he isn’t going to recover.”

Alma looks at him and blinks once, her face expressionless. “You mean terminate him,” she says slowly.

“Just make sure it doesn’t come to that.” His voice is harsh, as usual, but a hint of compassion leaks past his teeth. “But if it does, I’m certain he’d prefer having you there at the end than anyone else.” He looks at Somrak for confirmation.

Somrak, Sky’s longtime partner in the off-blues secret-police agency and Sky’s potential executioner in case the devil ever lost control, shrugs. “Hey, he probably would. But it won’t come to that. So what else? That can’t be the worst of it.”

“Depends on your point of view,” the Commander says as he turns his gaze on Gwydion. “Dion, you’re to remain at Three Rats. Archon Math is pretty miffed at that one – the result of some bargaining. You’re not getting busted down, you’re not getting drummed out – and neither are the rest of you. But as Math’s nephew, you got targeted for what some on the Council thought was a punishment.”

Dion takes a deep breath, but on letting it out, he wears a relieved smile. “I will stoically endure, sir.”

“And Somrak?” Alma asks, her voice filled with trepidation. “What is his punishment?”

“I convinced them that Fencer needs some screw-ups for her replacement for the off-blues, Guardia who can be sent on the toughest, most thankless missions.” He looks at Somrak. “Each one of those is pretty much a punishment. You’ll love it. You’ll hate it too. Just trust her.”

Somrak looks back, silent. The Commander knows that the kid trusted him, trusted him completely ever since he actually was a kid and the Commander took him in, back when Somrak betrayed the god-binding, devil-worshipping gang he’d fallen in with.

But that trust was broken. Somrak has gone on too many missions, too many that were too dark. Hardly anyone lasts more than twenty years in the off-blues. They either go out with a head full of locked-up secrets that even they can’t remember, or they just go out, their lives extinguished in a hundred different ways. The missions are dangerous, it’s true, but the job itself can be just as bad. Even immortals commit suicide – perhaps especially immortals. Even a simple temple god who never gets involved in intrigue and politics and police work can build up such a weight of regret that annihilation can feel the only way out. A lot of gods that people believe ‘ascended’ to a higher plane of reality simply chose death and reincarnation – or even oblivion.

Somrak’s century of service directly under the Commander is at an end. The kid needs a master, but he can’t serve without questioning any longer. And though the Commander would welcome that, the dynamic between himself and Somrak is too set in stone. It just wouldn’t work.

Besides, it’s time to end the off-blues. Whatever Fencer calls the new taskforce, or like him calls them nothing at all, the Commander won’t be directly involved. It is her project now, and she’s going to remake it in her image. All he will know will come from reports scrubbed of the agents’ names.

So when Somrak straightens out of his crossed-arm, glowering hunch and looks the Commander in the eyes and says, his voice steady and serious, “Yes, sir,” the Commander smirks in a rather Somrak-like manner and gruffly says, “Can’t remember the last time I heard those words out of your gob. Except sarcastically.”

He shakes his head and resumes. “I’m still in command of this misbegotten excuse for a police force, and we can’t have a station that’s the lynchpin for six wards headed up by a mere sergeant. So Alma, you’re Acting-Inspector as of now.”

He enjoys the widening of her eyes, the mixture of relief at having her leadership made official and unambiguous – or at least less ambiguous – combined with the dread of being trapped in the position. He knows that any remaining hope that Sky might return as Inspector and that she might be able to go back to the relatively carefree life of a second-in-command is now snuffed out. Ah well, not like that life was all that easy anyway, what with assassins coming after her kids and being tried for murdering an Archon and all that.

“These promotions take time to come through,” he adds, “and final decisions on what to do with Sky are still pending. But he seems safe for now.”

At this, Alma’s mouth turns up slightly at the edges, and she nods. “That is all we needed to hear. Thank you. I will be sure to do my best in all the tasks thrown at me.” She pauses for a moment, then asks, “And…did they decide what I should do with Nua’s soul?”

Although he knows that Wasure has paid a visit to them, the Commander can only guess at what memories were sealed away. But it’s clear from Alma’s voice that his guess is correct: if they locked any memories away, it was only the minimum they deemed necessary. Alma is still shaken by the knowledge that her body was used to harm her fellow Guardia. Perhaps not as much as before, but the traces remain, and likely always will.

At least he hopes so. As shut down as she has been during most of her career, she has stood out as one of the more humane Dei officers, treating mortals with particular care. That is not an easy thing for most immortals even when they are young, and it tends to evaporate once they’ve seen any acquaintances they may have made in youth age and die. The Commander has always assumed that it is due to Alma’s foot-in-each-world status, being the child of Death himself and of a Life goddess who could have been the head of her clan if she had wanted it badly enough. That and her mortal children, the Bunnies. Many gods would have cast off such creations, and the fact that she did not, that she endured great hardship to keep them safe, has always kept Alma on his list of Dei officers to watch.

Well, it doesn’t hurt that she is also his ex-wife’s favorite niece. That makes her family, however attenuated.

“That was part of the bargaining too,” he says. “The necromancer’s soul goes to Death. All the secrets he finds are accessible by the Council, and nobody else of course – except designated experts, like that mortal, Trocia.”

“Margrave’s niece?” Dion sounds as if he accidentally bit into a rotten piece of fruit at saying the name of the Lieutenant, the Archon Nekh’s demon-summoning right-hand man. But he recovers and asks, “Is she to remain under Guardia custody, then?”

And here is another one whom the Commander has long kept an eye on. At first it was just because Gwydion is Math’s nephew, and Math is the Archon who heads up the Guardia. Not exactly the Commander’s boss – the Guardia owes its allegiance to the law, not the Council, but since the Council has the final say on the insane tangle of laws that impose ‘order’ on the Urbis Caelestis, that distinction usually ends up being de jure rather than de facto.

Like Alma, Dion joined the Guardia to escape his family’s suffocating rule over his life. It’s not such an uncommon reason. But lately the Commander has seen more potential than he earlier thought Dion had in him. The hedonistic hunter-of-sex has always been a competent Guardia, but under the influence of Alma and of Sky, he has blossomed into the loyal, caring officer he perhaps would have been without Math’s attempts to turn him into just another game piece.

“She is, via the House of Death,” the Commander confirms. “We will have contact with her. She’ll be treated fairly. She’ll learn more about necromancy than she ever expected to, an advanced Mage Academy course in a year, I expect. Problem with wiping out a whole discipline, is when you need experts, they’re hard to find. She seems willing to become one, as long as she can use it to fight Hell and dangerous necromancers.”

“She is a smart girl,” Alma notes. “I will surrender the soul to Father on the first occasion.”

The Commander grins, knowing how it gives him a rather skull-like appearance. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to be rid of it.” He gives into temptation and pulls a cigar out of his breast pocket. “So, the Archons who are against you got to save a little face with what looks to them like punishment. If you run into them at parties, try not to point out how much of it was what you actually wanted. And though I personally thought you all earned commendations for catching Nua and uncovering the Tragas plot, and so on and so forth, you did violate orders and put yourselves in terrible danger.” He shakes his head. “It all could’ve gone so much worse.”

Somrak snaps his fingers and the end of the cigar flares. “You know that if I’d contacted you and then you didn’t call in the Sikari–”

“Yeah, yeah.” The Commander takes a deep puff to get the cigar smoldering properly. “I’d’ve given my enemies the ammo they needed to oust me.” He blows out smoke, then gives them all a serious look, and a nod. “No medals for you. But on the whole, you did good.”

They all look like they understand the weight in his voice. “Thank you, sir,” Dion says sincerely. “That means quite a lot coming from you.”

Alma nods in agreement. Her voice is steady, but fervent. “Yes. Thank you. For speaking up for us.”

Somrak remains silent, but it’s clear he stands with them.

The Commander looks at each in turn. “You three have made the right choices under stress most of the time.” Then his voice resumes its customary dangerous-dog growl. “But you got hurt, bad. Nearly ended up in Hell twice now. You need to be more careful. More prepared. You need to realize that even if you get a break and find yourselves in a little lull, this here is only the beginning. The Tragas, the other Hell plots and incursions – your situation is far from unique. We’re fighting that stuff all over the Insula right now. And there’s worse, too, that you know nothing of. You need to train and develop your powers for what’s likely to come your way. And you need to assume the worst is coming, and be devious about prepping. All those traps Margrave set? You need to have way worse waiting for the next Margrave. You need to be nasty bastards.”

Dion looks worried, but Alma’s expression is more resigned, while Somrak looks like this is simply what he expected to hear. “We will be ready, sir,” Dion says.

“We will be Guardia, as we were trained to be.” Alma’s voice is steady. “We will play dirty when we must.”

“Sounds like life as usual,” Somrak says, speaking more to them than to the Commander. “You want lessons in paranoia, talk to Sky. I’ll add in my ideas for extra nastiness.”

“Not yet you won’t.” The Commander jerks his head toward the door. “Come on – your new CO wants to get started.”

“What, now? I don’t even get to pack?” Somrak rolls his eyes and throws his hands out like a martyr. “I don’t get to say goodbye to the Bunnies? Or my dear friend Edison Machado?”

“Like you won’t be back down there the first chance you get.” The Commander looks at Alma and Dion. They’re exhausted, at the end of a long emotional earthquake, but is there ever rest for those who deserve it? “As for you two, Math wants a word.” He points with his chin at a golden portal forming behind them.

They turn to look at it. “Oh dear…” Alma whispers, while Dion looks back at the Commander and asks, “On a scale of one to ten…how miffed is he?”

The Commander has been told that his smile causes babies in a twenty-league radius to start crying. He’s pretty sure there’s not many babies in the Curia, but those that are are making quite a fuss right now. “Oh he’s pleased as punch that all his plans for getting you back upslope are trashed. Have fun.” He gives Somrak a ‘come along’ look.

Somrak hesitates, then turns to Alma and Dion. He reaches out and puts his hands on both their shoulders, looking them in the eyes. “You were there for Sky. You trusted me.” His face flushes with emotion, not only turning a little red, but since Somrak is a fire god, even from this distance the Commander can feel the heat coming off him. “And I got you into Hell, just about. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about that. And I can’t tell you how good I feel to know you’re alive, and Sky is alive.”

Alma reaches up and grasps his elbow. She gives him a sad smile. “It’s over now, Somrak. Take care. And don’t let Fencer get under your skin.”

“We’ll look after Sky and the rest of the family,” Dion assures him, clapping a hand on Somrak’s shoulder.

Somrak pauses a moment, then pulls them both into a hug. “Take care of each other. And if you need me, don’t hesitate.” He kisses them each on the cheek. “Anyway, I’ll be popping in. If you can stand to have me.”

They both hold him tightly, their bodies expressing the brotherhood forged in shared pain. “It is your home,” Alma tells him. “We will keep your room ready for you.”

Watching the three of them, the Commander cannot help but envy them their naivety, their belief that they can sustain such a bond in the face of what is to come. But he does not dispel their illusions. Such faith may yet carry them through the worst of it.

He clears his throat, and Somrak chuckles, releases them, and with a smirk he falls in with the Commander, as insolently cat-like as ever. The top-ranking officer of the Guardia, indeed the primary creator of the Guardia, shakes his head in pretended annoyance and thinks how much Fencer is going to complain about her new right-hand man.

Ch7.34 Revelations

The Council room. Built to be big, imposing. Terrifying. From the point of view of a defendant or a supplicant, the experience is designed to be an encounter with the impossible. With the hopeless, the unattainable. Balcony upon balcony carved out of the rock, surrounded by shadow, its occupants concealed from sight. Nothing to look at but the vaguest hint of a light, probably used for reading by. Nothing to look at but the holes on the wall, dark and vacant like the very eyes of Death–

Death… the thought makes Alma snort inwardly. What is death to her that she should fear it? Who is there to fear in Death but her own father, whom she doesn’t like, doesn’t understand most of the time, doesn’t like to rely on, but whom she cannot help but love to the limits of a pathological, self-hurting love for someone who makes her feel small and weak so often, whose approval and appreciation she finds herself longing for more often than she would like to admit. Whom she certainly doesn’t fear. Not anymore.

No… the very faintly glowing eyes of darkness carved into the wall don’t carry the threat of Death. They carry the fear of Fate. It is an intelligent design, a part of her has to admit. Mysterious judges wrapped in shadow gazing at the plaintiffs, who are made to stand on a wide but not so solid-looking platform which hovers just above the belly of the still-hungry, still-roiling mountain, and lets them peer into the perpetual fires that lurk below waiting, patiently waiting for a next meal. Do plaintiffs who are denied get tossed into the abyss? the mind is made to ask. Can the platform be turned at the push of a button or the uttering of a word to remove a supplicant from the world if the Council grows bored of jys pleas?

The Council, cloaked in darkness, probably in other spells too. Spells that mask heat and vision and scent. But not souls. As the accused are brought forth, Alma can see the brilliant light of those old, intricate, powerful souls as if they weren’t trying to hide at all. How strange…some almost seem to be fading. Are they in the path to Ascension? She has no idea what such a soul would look like but the thought strikes her nonetheless. Not that she should be currently worrying about something like ascending Archons…

And yet, she can’t help but let her mind wander into thought after thought as she walks onto the platform, Somrak slightly ahead, Gwydion by her left. The Commander is on the platform as well, his expression grim but no more than the usual, unreadable as always. He has just testified before the Council, it seems, and the silence which allows their steps to echo through the chamber (doubtlessly another feature to increase the intimidation levels) is the one trailing whatever words he has left the Archons to mull on. He gives the trio a look, stony as usual but with a slight uptick of the chin that Alma recognizes from long years of knowing him as a form of encouragement, as he passes them on his way back to the waiting room. The three sergeants stop just beyond the center, spread out in a sort of triangle formation that, if they were being physically attacked, might have a tactical advantage, but in this case merely makes it look like she and Gwydion are bodyguards to Somrak. She wonders if this is a purposeful thing, a way the fire god has concocted to put himself forward as the proverbial sacrificial lamb and main culprit, just as Math wills him be, just as the Council is primed to believe.

“Let me do the talking,” he had said just as the doors opened to allow them entrance.

To which Alma had said nothing and Gwydion even less. She had not wanted to lie, after all.

Her heart beats with a strange ferocity at the silence in the room. There is a thrill of anticipation, a wondering of what will be said, of how things will go. This should go quickly either way, they’ve been told.

“Remember to put on a show…”

She breathes deeply, near inaudibly in the quietness. The board is set, the game pieces are in their places.

“What version of the game shall we play today, Alma?” a voice from her youth rings in her memory. “The Fallen Leaders? The Three-Step Drop?”

“How about the Callypsinian Reversal, Aunt Sesh?”

“Ah yes… It is your strongest one, isn’t it? Very well, let us begin.”

Let us begin, she thinks at the assembled Council. The first move is yours.

“Who steps forward now?” a voice calls out from the darkness, from above and to Alma’s left. A strong, deep male voice.

Silence stretches for a second before Somrak raises his voice. “Sergeant Somrak, of The Clan of Fire. Ser–”

“Sergeant Alma, Bringer of Life, Keeper of Souls,” Alma cuts him from introducing all three of them. “Of the Death Clan.”

“Sergeant Gwydion, Master of Enchantment, Wielder of Magic,” Gwydion follows in their steps. “Of the House of Math.”

“Ah yes… the ones the Commander was just speaking of,” a soft-spoken voice says.

A voice which sends a shiver down Alma’s spine. For she knows it well from her youth. From the times she entertained its owner at her Father’s request without knowing she was speaking to an Archon. Anura, the gentle goddess of breezes.

Well done, Father. Well done, indeed…

“Shall we pronounce their sentences, then?” another voice says, female as well but slithering and full of spite.

“Rest your rage, Archon,” yet another familiar voice states, calm but firm. “Justice requires we give them a chance at pleading their case first.”

Enki… Enki of the voice like fresh streams, the quiet admirer of Seshat’s records. The creator of the written form of Urbia who would every now and again visit Seshat, the Death Clan’s Scribe for a cup of Thebiad wine and a couple of hours of peaceful conversation.

How many Archons must I know, then? How many have I met without knowing? Alma wonders.

“Yet, these are the familiar faces of repeated offenders,” a voice says, female and crackling, remindful of the words Somrak sometimes uses when he swears. Alma glances toward the fire god to find him almost imperceptibly cringing at the Archon’s words. “Perhaps we should skip that step altogether and decide on their record so far.”

Could it be a fire goddess, one without an issue over throwing a god of her own clan into the depths of Hell?

“Yes,” again, the slithering voice insists. “One guilty of creating unauthorized lifeforms, one once involved with an Hellish cult, two involved in murdering Ne–”

“ENOUGH!” Math’s voice booms, just to Alma’s right. “That. Was. Settled. It was self-defense, the life forms you mention are very much authorized. We voted. It is done.”

“Be that as it may, such things are not easily forgotten,” Enki reminds Gwydion’s uncle and Math has no choice but to fall silent at the words.

“Your previous endeavors have already forced Math to bargain his way out of letting you pay for Nekh’s demise.” Alma remembers her father’s words.“It is rather unorthodox to execute a traitor before he is proven treacherous, after all.”

Math can only do so much… she thinks as she sees the brilliant specter of Math’s soul shift impatiently as his body moves in his chair.

Still, Enki adds, benevolent, “But you are correct. What is past is past. This is a brand new case. Sergeants, how do you plead?”

Finally, the time is come. She catches Somrak looking at her through the corner of her eye, his expression set in resolve but pleading at the same time. He then looks at Gwydion, before turning his gaze back up at the darkness. “Well it seems we’re accused of a lot of things. I’ll say ‘not guilty’ across the board. But in all these matters, keep in mind that Sergeants Alma and Gwydion were following my orders, without knowledge that what they were doing might be a violation. Therefore, I ask that they be released, now. Humbly. If it pleases the Council.”

Barely a movement or whisper among the Archons. No surprise at all at the scenario they had been prepared to accept. No shifting at all in the room but the tensing of Gwydion’s jaw muscles. The great and powerful Council…so quick to judge and dismiss and move on.

“Giving a devil a Guardia badge and assigning their brave Dei to work under his command… If they were anyone else, they would be on trial themselves.”

“Sergeants, is this true?” that deep male voice from before asks, coming from a soul like a flash of lightning. “Is Sergeant Somrak the sole perpetrator of the crime being judged here today?”

Somrak looks around at Gwydion and Alma, and the silent pleading in his face becomes even more acute. Say yes, it seems to say.

Alma looks at Gwydion. They had spoken of this before. Letting Somrak fall means letting Sky fall as well. It means paying for freedom in their friends’ blood. And they had decided that the price was not one they were willing to pay. At her beloved’s minute nod, the goddess turns to the darkness that to her is filled with the glimmering silhouettes of her judges. “No.”

Her voice is blunt. Certain. And her simple word makes Somrak slump in near defeat, his hand reaching to rub his eyes before he straightens again. The Council room fills with murmurs, with half-intelligible whispers, with malicious, wheezing laughter, even. The quick trial with its orchestrated plot has been thrown off the groove in which it was rolling along. And now there is a chance amidst the chaos, to draw a new groove in the sand.

“Play your cards right… and the tables turn.”

Yes, Father.

“Archons!” Alma calls out, her expression blank despite the pounding of her heart in her chest that makes her mind spin and sends a throbbing rush to eardrums. “How does the Council plead?”

Silence. The chamber seems to hold its breath, every single Archon frozen in the wake of her accusation. Alma can see, at the edge of her sight, Gwydion’s shocked, bleached face staring at her, the movement of Somrak’s body slowly turning to stare at her, but she cannot afford to meet their gaze. No, her resolve would crumble at the fear in their eyes. And this is a game of bluff, of sheer power of will. The game she was taught to play.

“Look at the board, Alma,” Seshat’s words echo in her thoughts. “Don’t look at me until you have learned to keep your thoughts from your eyes. I could play a whole game without seeing the pieces, so clear you are making your strategy.”

I’m trying, my Aunt… I’m trying.

“What exactly do you mean, Sergeant Alma?” a new speaker says. New to the conversation…not to her.

Let them shake.

“What I mean is what I said, Archon Dergallin,” she says, sensing a cringe from Gwydion’s body but brushing the thought of why he seems disturbed aside. “Of the crime of harboring and employing a devil for its own purposes, of sending gods into danger alongside him and under his command, of withholding information that sent its Guardia, its agents into contact with agents of Hell. How does the Council plead?”

And the silence is no more. Again, the chamber is filled with murmurs she can barely understand, “Is she really… accusing us?!”, “…calling us by name…the nerve on that one…”, “…said before, she’s dangerous…”, “…has a point, no?”

They build up, louder and louder, like the buzzing of a colony of angry wasps deciding what to do with an intruder. She looks toward where she knows Math is sitting, very still, very silent.

He didn’t know this would happen, she realizes. Father never told him.

His soul is flaring angrily and she wonders what their next conversation will be like.

Forgive me, Archon, she thinks at him. I hope you can.

“We are not on trial here, Sergeant,” that sibilant voice shrieks, laced with poison. “We showed mercy to you before, but clearly that was a mistake!”

The rising of the one voice seems to bring some order to the uproar. The murmurs begin to die down in anticipation of Alma’s reaction.

But it is Math who speaks. “Well, as one of the main people behind the employment of said devil, I should like to confront this accusation head on.”

“What?!” the shrieking Archon argues. “You’re going to let her dictate–”

“As I was saying,” Math cuts her off, raising his own voice. “Ahem, Sergeant, I greatly resent your accusation.”

He sounds like an old grandfather amused and harrumphing at a grandchild’s accusation and Alma can’t help but smile internally at the tone. “The devil known under the name Tuma-Sukai has never proven dangerous to allies in many years of service. He has been loyal and has proven his worth. The Council’s paranoia over the question of his loyalty made sense at one point, but records will show that I never supported the wrongheaded move to require the Sikari to be sent in in the event of his capture. As we all know, the Sikari have proven almost infinitely more problematic than Tuma-Sukai.”

“Why you two-timing–” the crackling voice grunts.

“And yet, he does have a point, has he not?” Dergallin intervenes, his old, wise voice silencing the (probably) younger, more bickering Archons. “And so does she.”

“We are the Council!” an Archon protests, outraged. “Our word is the law!”

“And the law states that under the Demon Act of the Great Insurgency, ‘any and all agents are liable of action against them through all means necessary in the pursuit of the protection of the citizens of the Urbis Caelestis from agents of Hell and their representatives’,” Alma quotes, taking the opportunity to bring the discussion back under her control.

“That is the law this Council has written and given to the established authorities to enforce,” she says, removing her badge from her shirt and holding it just above her eyes. “Authorities like the Guardia Dei.”

A busy silence spreads throughout the room. They’re probably regretting ever giving the badge to me, Alma amuses herself in thinking as she lowers her badge and pins it to her blouse again.

“The law is hard but it is the law,” Anura finally speaks. “And you claim we broke it, Sergeant?”

You probably break it every day, don’t you? Alma thinks to herself. But you are the ones who make it so who cares to look twice? Who dares accuse you? Would you even be listening in shock instead of amusement if one of those empty seats didn’t happen to belong to a god whose soul I stole from his treacherous body?

She breathes deeply, not allowing her thoughts to come out of her lips. It does not do to actively remind them that they have good reason to cast her into Hell.

“You cheated, Aunt Sesh!”

“Have I? Is it cheating if I merely use your own rules against you?”

“I claim we did not enter the necromancer’s lair and that of the main Lieutenant of Archon Nekh’s former demon-summoning organization to rescue a devil but to rescue a fellow Guardia,” Alma says aloud. “A Guardia Inspector whom the Council itself deemed suitable to serve at a station in the Fourth Ring after forty years of loyal service in other areas. Whom we were never told had direct ties to Hell.” Though we knew, oh yes we knew what he was when we went in. “So we deemed him worthy of our efforts to save him. It is standard Guardia protocol. We paid dearly for it.”

The rhetorics seem to work in stirring up half-hearted murmurs and mumbles.

And again, Math enters the dance in tune with Alma’s music, “Which makes Sergeant Somrak’s action in violating the law requiring notification of the Commander the only punishable act. And even that, the Commander cleared up just moments before, didn’t he? It seems he was out of contact at the time you three went in. Sergeant Somrak, you really should have contacted him earlier…”

Somrak seems almost jolted from frozen contemplation by the mention of his name. “Uh, yes. Poor timing. Mea culpa.”

“And this leaves us with one standing issue, does it not?” Dergallin intervenes. “The fate of the devil known as Tuma-Sukai.”

“Yes,” Math agrees. “Tuma-Sukai has been examined by a trusted expert, the goddess Lyria. She assures the Council in a statement that is on Supplemental Page 14-1 that Tuma-Sukai is healing rapidly and that she anticipates a full recovery. She also has some additional comments on Page 14-2, but these shall be kept only for Council eyes at the moment.”

Round one is over. Here comes round two…

“This devil…has it really been of use, or is this just one of your pet projects, Math?” a grumpy, aged male voice asks.

“Its mind has been shattered by torture, the report states,” the crackling female voice says. “Its soul has been damaged. How can it even function if the wounds are this deep?”

“‘Shattered’ is a very twisted misreading–” Math starts to say as the arguments and replies from the various Archons begin to rise again.

“…put on a show.”

Yes.

The platform flares with light, greenish blue or bluish green, soft at first but growing, brightening, spreading like the angering of a territorial firefly trying to outshine the moon. It pours from Alma’s skin, from Alma’s ever-shifting eyes, from her lips. From the whole of her. It is a special kind of nakedness to reveal one’s soul to the eyes of another. To the eyes of an audience. It is a special kind of vulnerability. But she does it. To put on a show.

Hear us…

Hear us…

Our pain…

Flaring…

Ending…

No rest…

No rest…

Hope…

Death…

Living…

Spinning…

Us

Her life force glows out of her, her essence peacefully twirling, energy resolving into an image of a being that could only loosely be referred to as humanoid outside of the bindings of the forms that assume to shield their true selves from the eyes of other gods who might wish to harm them or the eyes of mortals who might be harmed by them. Her soul, usually kept hidden from the eyes of those who lack the Death Clan’s magical ability to see through the flesh into the core of one’s self, hovers on display, torn at the edges, ripped by the forces of the binding spell that pulled on it from every direction, trying to drive her into her own sword. Gashes open by Nua’s immaterial fists and nails when she punched and clawed through it. Dimmer areas where her soul is thinned from being pulled away from her body. Dark spots where the energy does not flow at all and which used to bind her essence to her material self.

Alma’s soul, on display. “He functions the same way we all function, my Lady Archon,” she says to a room filled with gasps and silence. “A devil’s soul is no different from a god’s, it seems.”

She looks at Gwydion and Somrak directly for the first time since derailing the trial, pleadingly, asking for their permission. Revealing herself is one thing, but revealing another’s soul without consent is almost a crime, an utter breach in trust. And though any god may reveal jys own true form, not many can reveal their souls at will. Gwydion, his eyes shimmering with light reflected from her soul, nods assent, as does Somrak, grim but sure. And with a little twist of Alma’s magic, just a turning in the direction of her usual soul-scrying, their souls are brought forth as well, made visible to the Council. The horrible cutting slashes of Nua’s whip, plain for all to see, bring a buzz to the eerie spectacle.

“Look at that…”

“Horrendous…”

“How are they even standing?”

“Who can do this to a god?”

The whispers are almost painful to hear. There is empathy in some, an almost macabre fascination in others. Shock in all. Though the constant pain is something Alma is getting used to and the ripping of her ties to herself something she is trying to make useful, the judging of how bad her wounds are by others makes her feel like a misshapen freak at a roadside show.

Eventually, Math ends her own, self-inflicted misery, “Sergeant Alma, thank you for helping us to understand the nature of your wounds and Tuma-Sukai’s in a way that the report does not convey.”

His voice is filled with a resigned, restrained pain. This is the first time he is seeing Gwydion’s wounds in all their horror, she realizes. And as cold and calculating the old Archon can be, she knows from experience that this in no way stops his love for his nephew from being just as real and binding as it is twisted and manipulative. She cancels her magic, ending the display, feeling suddenly very tired of a trial that is far from over.

“Sky…” Somrak speaks up, his voice rough. He swallows to clear his throat. “Tuma-Sukai was badly tortured. But he has been through worse, and he has recovered. I was tasked with watching over him for his entire service, ready to end his life if I deemed it necessary. I did not deem it necessary then, nor do I now. Rest assured, if I believed he could not recover from this, I would execute him out of pity.”

“Isn’t Lyria the mother of one of the accused?” the spiteful, crackling voice Alma is thinking of as a fire goddess. “Perhaps another expert should take a look at this devil.”

“Are you implying I chose the wrong expert, Archon?” Math growls, shifting in his seat.

“I am implying you regularly make ‘conflict of interest’ sound like a euphemism,” the voice retorts.

“Lyria is one of the most powerful and talented healers on the Insula and the findings in her report are consistent and thorough,” a new voice intervenes, male, laced with a vibrant energy, and an indisputable finality. “The veracity of her words requires no debate.”

Can it be? Is this the Archon of Life? Kept away from her mother’s side of the family by the political inner working of the Life Clan, Alma has never met more than a few life gods, none of which are all that high in the proverbial food chain. Certainly not her mother’s siblings, not anyone above her mother in the hierarchy. Not the current leader of the Clan, not the great-uncle who supposedly had a seat in Council. All she knows is a name: Kadmyl.

“Still, this devil is a potential hazard,” a thundering voice echoes in argument. “And a potential scandal.”

“What could be more dangerous than a devil on the loose?” the snaking-voice Archon adds.

“The Council’s heart is far from its most troublesome part. It is its head you must sway. And offering Nua, with her knowledge of necromancy, of Hell, of Soul Bombs to destroy souls beyond recovery… a necromancer whose soul has been wanted for over two hundred years.”

“How about a Necromancer this very Council has chased for two hundred years?” Alma speaks up, producing the soulstone in which Nua is imprisoned from a hidden pocket in her blouse. “A necromancer with intimate knowledge of Hell. With knowledge of how to make the Soul Bombs that have taken the lives of over 40 gods in the few months of her reign of terror. The same that were made to blow up in the Three Rats Guardia Station and in her own lair, killing a dozen mortals and turning their souls into screaming, agonizing mush. Not to mention the knowledge and means to bind divine souls to weapons to be used against gods.” She raises the stone, no bigger than a pebble, so they all can see it. “A single person with the knowledge to start a war against gods…and win.”

And look at how tiny her soul can be made, she adds to herself. Look at how even powerful souls can fit between my fingers.

“The necromancer returned from Hell with the soulbinding techniques of the Tragas,” Somrak speaks up. “This means Hell is spreading that knowledge to its agents, preparing to instigate a war against the gods. It will spring up in other locations. We will need every edge we can get.”

“They are just selling bargaining a chip…” a voice grumbles.

“The secrecy surrounding the existence of such weapons keeps us blind, not safe,” Gwydion says and it is a surprise to Alma how confident of his words – and most of all, how angry – he sounds. “How many have seen a Soul Bomb go off? How many could describe the effects of being wounded by a bound weapon? How many have known that pain and survived to tell the tale? Her soul may have knowledge that could save thousands of gods and countless mortals. If the Sikari had been called in, would they have preserved this knowledge? Will the Council throw it away after we paid so dearly to acquire it?”

“You make a good case, Sergeants,” Anura speaks, softly but audible above all other voices. “But you were not originally sent to acquire the Necromancer. You were not sent at all. We are now made to decide whether any disobeying of orders that may have occurred is outweighed by the benefits of your sacrifice.”

“You are correct in assuming the Sikari would not have shown Nua the kindness of preserving her in any form,” Enki adds. “Yet, you know your duty is to surrender her soul to the Council. We are at the summit of the hierarchical force you know as Guardia and, therefore, that soul technically belongs to us, regardless of whose hand is holding it.”

“Yes! Why is that soul not in our power yet?” an Archon cries in outrage.

“They cannot use it to bargain with us!” another bickers.

“They took a prisoner out of custody!” an Archon slithers. “Used Guardia resources for a personal mission!”

“Though the prisoner was temporarily taken out of jail, he was never out of Guardia custody and the personal mission you refer to was to rescue a fellow Guardia who, if he had not happened to be a devil, would have been given the dignity of a much greater rescue force,” Alma raises her voice, intent on taking the reins of the conversation again. There is only a narrow window of chance that they will manage to pull through and she cannot risk it by letting the Council find its balance again. She looks toward Enki’s balcony. “As you yourself put so clearly, Archon Enki, the Council is the highest entity responsible for the Guardia.” She scans the room, making sure to look directly at every shimmering soul. “And we, the Guardia, protect our own, regardless of rank. Regardless of species. ‘Serve and defend’, that is what is written in our badges.”

It is a strange thing, how silent the room falls, as if for a moment Alma has become a school teacher scolding her students for not taking their homework seriously. But it does work to bring things again under control, the Council again focused on the issue at hand.

“A soul is not mere evidence to be surrendered to a superior,” she reminds them. “This is a functional, thinking entity. It does not belong to the Council by any manner of right or law. That would constitute slavery, which the Council itself very publicly abhors.”

And though it might be no more than a nuisance to you, it would still take you quite some time to stifle the enraged ranks of the press if I let them know you are not practicing what you preach.

“We know the laws very well, Sergeant,” Archon Dergallin replies, his voice carrying a strain which tells Alma she is beginning to stretch the limits of the freedom to speak. “We wrote them, after all. But you yourself propose to sell a soul. Isn’t that just as much against the law?”

Before Alma can reply, Anura speaks up, “Technically, she is not selling anything. Unless she sets a price.”

“This is no time for technicalities, Archon!” a voice thunders above Alma’s head.

“Technicalities are all this hearing has been about,” Anura retorts, barely raising her voice but hardening it with the threat of a storm. “The Sergeant is not, in fact, selling anything and therefore no crime has been committed. Yet.”

The Sergeant…not Little Alma, not Young Alma, not Lady Alma. Sergeant Alma. Amazing how much of her identity has grown around that center axle of her life. Amazing, how much ‘Guardia’ becomes who we are…

“For all we know, this is a bluff,” a gruff voice grumbles. “We are all sitting here, wasting time discussing the value of a treasure chest that might be filled with nail clippings.”

“This is most certainly true, Archon,” Enki agrees. Enki…not Math. Math is lost for a foothold since his choice of an expert to evaluate Sky’s condition was questioned. “Perhaps we should evaluate the true worth of this soul before we decide what must be done, do you not agree, Sergeant Alma?”

Alma nods, playing along. Here comes Father… “It would certainly put my mind at ease. Considering I was subjected to the unpleasantness of her presence in my body.”

“Unpleasant, indeed,” Enki agrees after the shortest of pauses. “Do we have an expert on this issue ready?”

Math calls out dryly, “Send in Senator Death.”

Alma braces herself for someone to question this choice in expert but the argument doesn’t come. It would be difficult, she must admit, to find an expert on souls that would not in some way have a familial bond with her. The doors open, sending an arc of light across the chamber that feels almost like it might strong enough to blind her, so used to the intimidating darkness of the room she has become. Death walks in, his figure as carefully groomed and beautifully clad as always, discreet but imposing at the same time. He walks with confidence, at his own leisurely pace, as if the flowing of the procedures depended on his whim and will alone and at his own time. There is not a glance toward Gwydion or Somrak and barely even one for Alma as he stops, just a step to her left, blocking her line of sight to the fire god.

“Archons, how can I be of service to the Council?” he calls out and his mellifluous voice oozes with the unspoken words for as long as it serves my interests.

It is truly a rare show. In a single sentence, he puts Somrak’s boyish cynicism against authority to shame, the great master tossing the youthful apprentice to the corner. The straight but relaxed stance, the false subservience that is at the same time almost disrespectful and strikingly convincing. And the way he stands next to his daughter as if herding her away from her companions, setting her apart.

He is showing me off, she realizes to her own mild shock as her hand reaches to comb her hair behind her left ear as if it were being moved by some external force. And this act is now a duet.

“An evaluation of the worth of this soul has been called for,” Math says, sounding like a long-suffering Academy instructor at the sight of his most rebellious student. “The necromancer, Nua.”

Death turns to face Alma for the first time, his perennial smile cold as ever on his face. And yet the glint in his eye is one of self-satisfaction, so familiar to Alma, so unnerving and still, in this situation, reassuring, as if he has looked upon the Council and found it rattled enough, unsure enough to his satisfaction. She does not dare let the blankness in her expression fall for fear of what might be revealed. Terror? Hope? A maddened thrill? Her heat has gone quiet, calm again in her chest since her first words of accusation. As if this is right somehow. She stretches her hand toward him, Nua’s soulstone resting there at the reach of his fingers, and wonders for a moment if to him these contrasting and clashing feelings are the enticing drug that keeps him playing the game.

He could snatch the stone right out of her hand. He could. She would not stand a chance against him if he tried. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even reach for it. He merely waves his hand almost dismissively as his eyes flare and Nua’s soul blossoms from the stone, still bound to its material form and incapable of escaping but allowed a voice that all can hear.

“…bitch!…you cannot keep me!…”

“I’ll make more of that whip with the souls of your family…”

“make my sword out of you as I blow their souls to dust!….”

“Death Clan whore….”

“…just the first!”

“…with Hell behind me!”

Alma cannot help but close her eyes and cringe at the angry, poisonous, shrieking voice of the one who stole her body and nearly stole her family as well. She endures stoically the screams as Nua spews her caustic remarks and cries threat upon threat, to her, to Gwydion and Sky and Somrak and the Bunnies and her clan, to the world in general, speaking of the things she has learned to do during her time in Hell. But it is a close thing. She feels her free hand start to shake, her lips purse in pain. The voice unleashes memories that Wasure never touched, that are not stopped by any magic from flooding her mind again.

And perhaps sensing her break, her father brings the demonstration to an end. The world goes silent. For a heartbeat. Two. Alma feels a gentle pressure on the soulstone, making her close her hand around it as she lowers her arm, and it is only then that she dares open her eyes again. To her surprise, her cheeks feel wet with tears. She knows she hasn’t sobbed, hasn’t moved, but still, she must have wept. She looks into her father’s eyes to see no light there, no amusement. Just a constant gaze, as if waiting for her to regain control.

I don’t remember ever seeing him worried for me. Or anyone else. Would I be able to recognize it if I ever saw it? Is it this, now?

“I confirm that this is the necromancer, Nua, whom we have been seeking for the past two centuries,” Death says, still looking at her but speaking to the Council in general. “Her soul seems to be not too damaged to retain information about her various crimes. Information my clan’s specialists would be happy to extract and deliver to the Council.”

“Thank you, Senator,” Enki replies. “It was most enlightening. And now that we know this soul is authentic, what shall we do, Sergeant? What price are you setting for the Necromancer’s soul?”

Alma takes a moment to reply, still watching her father, still lost in his gaze, looking, searching for a hint of his worry. Of his intentions. And then the glimmer returns to his eyes, his lips curl ever so slightly as he glances toward the Council.

Time for round three…

She takes a firm hold of Nua’s soulstone and returns it to her blouse pocket as she turns to look at her audience. “As the Council itself has spoken, selling a soul is a crime. How could I set a price to something so sacred?”

But wouldn’t some of you want to know how much a soul really costs, had you known I still have Nekh’s with me?

“Yet I am left with a dilemma which I leave to the Council’s wisdom to solve,” she adds. “My duty toward this soul is triple and conflicted. It is a bodiless soul, the kind which belongs in the Wheel. But there, all of its knowledge will be erased forever and our advantage over Hell will be lost. I could give it to my Clan for questioning but though this would ensure my people’s revenge for the Necromancer Wars it would neither mean justice is done or that all the knowledge obtained is shared. I could give it to the Council for simple justice in the name of the Insula, but not in the name of the Death gods Nua so evidently targeted. And unless I am much mistaken, not a single soul in this Council possesses the necessary tools to interrogate her.”

She allows a silent pause to stretch to punctuate those last words. There are fire gods in the Council. Air gods, thunder gods, gods of war and anger, gods of time and wisdom. Gods of life…but no Death gods. And whose fault is that?

“Regardless of which path I take, my duty will have been fulfilled and none can claim otherwise,” she moves on. “But for each of them, there is a cost of opportunity. Something to be gained and something to be lost.” She pauses again for effect. “For all of us. I trust the Council in its wisdom will know the worth of Nua’s soul and knowledge. And I trust it will know to steer me in making the right choice in action.”

“It would seem that that is where we must focus our attention as we make our decision,” Dergallin says after a moment. “Sergeants, Senator, please step outside while we decide on how to proceed. You will hear again from us shortly.”

She hears Somrak speak, though she can’t see him behind her father. “We appreciate the chance to make our case.”

Death does not even bother to say anything. The Archons seem to have already forgotten about them. Alma turns toward the door, glancing at Gwydion, who she can see, pale and haunted but standing firm, and then at her father, who gestures her to start walking. She forces herself to move slowly, keeping her head held high, her steps ringing loudly in her ears though the room is again buzzing. Soon, Gwydion falls close beside her and she can sense Somrak right behind her as well. But not her father. Not anymore. He has simply left.

Was it enough of a show for you, Father? she wonders.

The uncomfortable sensation of her hands shaking beyond her control makes her reach for her left hip. They are not allowed to bring weapons into the Curia, let alone into the Council chambers, but the touch to where the hilt of her sword – her old sword, taken from Fencer’s training room, not the one she was nearly bound to and which rests still in her office – should be resting against her hip is somehow a comforting one.

A few more steps later, they are back inside the waiting room, no one there to greet them or stand in solidarity with them. Just the three supplicants, waiting to receive news of their sentences and of Sky’s fate, downslope. As soon as the door closes behind them, sealing the Council chamber away, she reaches for a wall and turns to lean her back against it, her legs promptly losing their strength and letting her slide down to sit on the floor.

“What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?” she murmurs, rocking back and forth, her hands reaching to hold her head as if it might flight away.

A shadow moving by her side resolves into Gwydion, sitting down as well and gently putting an arm around her shoulders to pull her close to him. “It seems you have set the tone for our trial.”

“I nearly keeled over dead when you accused them,” Somrak says, dropping to a crouch before them, head shaking slowly. “You’re as bad as your aunt, you know? Keeping your plans to yourself…” He reaches to touch her shoulder, looking at her with empathy. “But…Dion’s uncle ran with it. It reframed things.”

Alma looks at him as she curls closer into Gwydion’s embrace.“If we somehow survive this… half of those people will want me dead, I’m sure. They’ll be fighting for the pleasure of it.” She sighs. “Oh please, keep me away from politics.”

“Eh, half of them already wanted you dead, from what I hear,” Somrak notes, standing straight and pulling out a cigar that he lights with the tip of his finger. “And you may not have any choice. If politics keeps gunning for you, you’ll have to join the game or let them do what they want to you.” He tilts his head toward the chamber, cigar dangling from his lips. “And you showed you can play the game. But Fates, Alma…the safe thing would’ve been to let me take the blame. I could talk my way out of it with some punishment. If things do go against you…”

“And how would you have talked Sky’s way out of it?” Alma argues, finding herself raising her voice at the fire god. “If I’m the one bargaining for his life, how can I plead innocent?”

“It’s what had to be done,” Gwydion agrees, stroking her hair. “And for a couple of moments, all seemed lost. But some of them seemed swayed, at least. All we can do now is wait on their decision.”

Somrak’s eyes drop to the floor as he surrenders with a nod. “It’s done. And you did brilliant. And… thank you.”

Ch7.29 Revelations

A fire lights up the office, but it is not the gaslight mounted on the wall. Rather it is a small burning ball of red flame floating through the air, bright but not as hot as it appears, not likely to set anything less flammable than pure alcohol alight, but Somrak still keeps it away from the walls and ceilings without needing to think about it, until he reaches the window and, pulling on the sash, raises the slatted-wood shades. The light disappears as he turns to face Alma, who enters, looking around the office with relief, obviously glad to be home, and Dion entering last, closing the door behind them.

Somrak feels a slight pulse of magic as Dion casts a spell, one Somrak recognizes as a privacy spell Dion has used before, more efficient than the one that Somrak knows, and the off-blue agent reminds himself to ask Dion to teach him that one soon. But for now, he pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket and hands it over to Alma, just as he did a little over a week ago. “Your orders, Sergeant.”

Alma plucks the envelope from his fingers, and Somrak gives her a wry grin and spins a quarter turn, then lets himself fall into a graceful slump on the sofa, his arms extended along the back, his legs stretched out straight, boots crossed at the ankles. “And now I can get back to earning my reputation as an irresponsible miscreant. As you see, I did not burn the ward down, for which I think I deserve a cookie.”

Fanning herself with the unopened envelope, looking like she is trying not to laugh, Alma looks around the office as if inspecting a house she might be planning to buy. “It really is all very…organized,” she says, finally.

“Not even a scorch mark,” Dion murmurs, hands on his hips, sounding half surprised.

Somrak grins. “We, uh, did have a little trouble, but with help from Pavia and Ewá and Doria, we took care of it. Machado was very helpful as well. We totally bonded.”

“You mean…with ropes?” Dion asks. “That would explain why I haven’t seen him downstairs.” He leans against the edge of Alma’s desk, by her side, and even though Dion may not be conscious of it, Somrak can see how at ease Dion is again with Alma, and how comfortable she is with him as well. The goddess relaxes ever so slightly toward Dion, her hip touching the edge of his hand.

With a silent inner sigh of exasperation at his own desire for Alma, as inextinguishable as it is unfulfillable, it seems, Somrak replies, “Machado is off duty. And the rope-play involved Ewá. With Machado, I kept getting cane rum spat all over me.”

Alma raises a salacious eyebrow. “This is sounding better and better by the minute. So what kind of trouble requires a Wolf, a Voice, and a Naiad walking into a Guardia station?”

“Trickster trouble.” Somrak’s voice is flat and dark. He knows they’ve probably had their own encounters with this most annoying sort of god. Trickster stories are always popular, and usually quite funny, and Tricksters are often heroic figures to a certain sort of chaos-loving never-do-well, but they’re exasperating to encounter outside of legends.

“Oh, we’ve had one here, then?” Alma breathes. She sounds equal parts unsettled and relieved. “Good thing you were in charge. Saved us the hassle of dealing with it.”

Somrak rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah…I’m soooo happy to have rendered that service. You should be glad you didn’t have to deal with it. Guy was very annoying. He’s up in Third Ring Max Security now. Strange thing…Ewá is actually planning to put in a bid to have him sent to her folks. Some kind of cultural tie. Even though he threatened her kids.”

“Maybe her clan has ways of dealing with this kind of trickster to reform him,” Dion suggests. He sounds equally glad he’d missed out on the fun. “Or to make him wish he was still in prison. Anyone hurt?”

“Me mostly,” Somrak grumbles.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the nickname ‘Scorpionpants’, would it?” Dion asks, a wince in his voice.

Somrak just gives him a sour look as confirmation, causing Dion to grimace in sympathy, and Alma to cringe at whatever image her imagination conjures up. “Other than that,” Somrak says, “some groceries ruined, some goats and chickens stampeded, some kids scared. Nothing serious, but the last one could’ve become serious. Pavia…” He pauses before mentioning her flea infestation. “Well, she got dunked a couple of times.”

“And what else?” Alma’s voice and expression are dry. She can tell he’s hiding something. Somrak knows he can be a very good liar when he wants, but he has realized lately that he tends to let his guard down among those very, very few people he is close to.

“Well, it’s one of those things that seems like no big deal to me, but might be to her, so I’ll let her tell it,” he says, waving off the question. “Suffice it to say, she was real happy when the little jerk got sealed away. Couldn’t have done it without her. Kinda wish I could take her with me when I head out.”

“She is a good, dependable officer, yes,” Alma agrees. “But why was she sent here, and how long will she be here? She didn’t seem to want to discuss it with everyone else in the bar just now.”

Somrak’s head sags, and as usual when something makes him feel sad, he feels anger bloom. But there is no one here to direct that anger toward, so he shoves it back down. “To answer the second question, there’s no end date. This is her new posting. As for why…” He looks up at Alma. “It was us.”

Alma looks appalled. “No…”

“So far, she’s been punished more than any of us has for rescuing Sky,” Somrak says, trying to keep emotion out of it. “By your aunt. But I don’t know…maybe Fencer’s just trying to make sure the punishment isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Pavia seems glad to be here, even if she’s not happy to be separated from her family.” He realizes anger is creeping into his voice despite his best efforts, so he just sighs and shakes his head.

Alma looks as if she’s been punched. Into the silence, Dion says in a low voice, “But she has children. There are regulations against separating parents from their offspring. Did they migrate here too?” He seems deeply unsettled at the thought that the Guardia might separate a parent from her offspring.

Somrak shakes his head. I couldn’t get away from my mother fast enough, he thinks. But not everyone is a poisonous abusive bitch like her. And Dion’s only got his uncle for family, doesn’t he? And being around Sky, perhaps, had infected him with a stronger concern about the often-unnoticed and lasting harm children endure while adults tell themselves that the kids will be unaffected.

Aloud he says, “It’s not something Pavia wanted to talk much about with me. But I can tell she’s not happy about it.”

Alma looks haunted. “I will talk to her about it. I’ve known her for over twenty years and I know her partner as well. He used to come by the station every now and again long before they were mated.”

“Good,” Somrak says. I just hope she doesn’t get her heart shattered in the process. He has an inkling of how strong Pavia’s feelings are for Alma. And he can relate. But in the Wolf Clan, loyalty is a love even deeper and stronger than the romantic variety. Paired together, as he is sure it is in Pavia’s case, it makes for a legendary combination – literally, the basis of several popular tales. Being spurned can be devastating. But…none of my business. “Anyway, you guys are looking more than halfway back to normal.”

“A vacation without demons or other major threats works like a charm,” Dion says, putting an arm around Alma’s shoulders and smiling gratefully at Somrak. “And Wasure’s visit was an even greater help.”

This brings a grin to Somrak’s face. “Good. He, uh, he helped me, too.” After a second, he asks, worried, “And how are the kids doing?”

“Better,” Alma replies, smiling a little at his concern. “Glad to be back. They enjoyed the estate but this is their home. They missed everyone here.”

“That bar was way too quiet without them.” Somrak chuckles, “Me and Fencer had heart-to-heart conversations in it, it was so quiet.”

“And how did those go?” Alma asks, unsure.

“Surprisingly well?” He is as uncertain as she is. “I, uh, seem to be onboard for something…different. All very hush-hush and I’m sure stuff I’m not even supposed to think of mentioning but…well, even I’m not sure what it is. But I may be leaving for it any time now. Sort of…off-blues but not quite.”

“I thought you were suspended pending the trial,” Dion points out.

Somrak shrugs. “And yet they put me in charge of a whole ward. Apparently one thing that’s not changing about this new program is the way rules get changed at a moment’s notice.”

Dion frowns, and Alma says confidently, “You can trust her. If she has seen something in you, then you can trust her. She might not be nice or keep you safe but…she’ll go to war for anyone she takes under her wing.”

“Yeah…I’ve figured that.” He looks up at both of them. “I’m sure I’ll be at the trial.”

Their expressions soften with shared worry. “We’ll be there too,” Alma says. “And we are doing all we can to gather support for our side. How…is Sky?”

“Oh.” Somrak gives them both a secretive smile. “Sky had to put on some pants the other day.”

They tense in expectation. “Did you have to go out and buy extra fabric?” Dion asks, leaning forward slightly.

“Well, Doria and I are talking about how to make a kind of kilt that can expand and contract as he shifts–” He breaks off and laughs at the hopeful, eager, even impatient looks on their faces. “He’s able to be Sky again. For a few hours a day now.”

Alma straightens, standing from leaning against the desk. “He’s… shifting.” She sounds as if she’s having trouble processing the news, as if she is afraid to believe. Then her eyes widen, her expression brightens. “He’s shifting! He’s shifting!” She actually jumps, turning to land facing a broadly grinning Dion, and she throws her arms around his neck as he takes hold of her waist. “He’s shifting,” she murmurs against his shoulder.

“He’ll be coming home,” Dion breathes, equally relieved.

Somrak takes pleasure from their joy, from Alma’s burst of girlish energy as well as from Dion’s quieter happiness. But he is keenly aware of being at a remove from them, further than the mere two steps of physical separation in the cramped office. He feels a pang at that awareness, but knows that it is the proper state of things, for a god like himself. A part of him longs for the Fencer’s call to duty.

Not wanting to fall into a brooding silence as he has been known to do, Somrak says, “From what Sky says, Lyria helped. Death Clan is all over this ward, lately.”

Alma’s head shoots up and she turns to look at Somrak. “My mother visited?” She looks pensive. “They must have sent her to see if he’s recoverable…”

“She got him past whatever was blocking him,” Somrak says. “And he’s lasting longer every day. Probably going to need some big-spikey-growly-voice time every day for awhile, but…I think he’s going to be ready for public consumption in a few more weeks, maybe even less.”

Dion releases Alma as she relaxes back against the desk again. “We’ll visit him as soon as we can find a window of distraction from all the people who might be intent in following our comings and goings,” he says. “And bring him some items of comfort.”

“This is such a relief… The closer he is to recovery, the easier things will be for us all,” Alma says. “It will be harder for the Council to decide against him.” She looks at the slightly creased envelope of orders, as of she had forgotten that she was still holding it.

Somrak’s smile fades at the thought of what the oncoming trial could mean for all of them, and a resolve that he has held ever since the mission to rescue Sky becomes even stronger. This mess, in his mind, is largely his fault. He was in charge of the operation. He was the most senior officer. He, Somrak, nearly got them all killed, worse than killed, even. He intends to take that burden of responsibility and lay it before the Council. They have all already suffered enough. Even Pavia, who had nothing to do with it, is suffering. If anyone is to receive further punishment, Somrak will do his best to make sure it is him.

“This is Sky’s home,” Somrak says to get his mind away from thoughts he does not wish to share with these friends. “He needs to be back here. And, uh, that apartment is not going to work for him. But I don’t think he can afford another sanctum for awhile. Seems he gave just about all his savings away to some teacher who says it came from an anonymous donor…”

Alma smiles at this tilting her head as if not surprised. “We’ll figure it out. There is no way we are letting him stay in some alley apartment where he might go missing again.”

“We are devising a plan for all our apartments,” Dion adds. “If we have to be paranoid, then we’ll at least find a pleasant arrangement that also makes things easier.”

Somrak feels intrigued. “Oh, finally getting paranoid? I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

Alma raises a hand, palm forward. “You’ll just have to visit later and see. Or,” she shakes a finger, once, at him, “stay long enough to see what happens. Which begs the question: How much longer do we have you with us?”

Somrak lifts his hands, palm up. “Fencer seems to delight in being unpredictable. I suppose I can’t deny her what gives her joy, so…I will find out when she yanks me away. Hopefully I have another couple days here, at least.”

“Then you can stay in charge for the rest of today,” Alma decides. “I need time to start enacting my brilliant plan.”

That jolts Somrak out of his slothful slump. “Hey wait, I’ve already turned the place over to you!” he protests. “I thought you guys were all about rules and procedure. Dion’s second-in-command, right? I’m just a civilian right now. A shockingly handsome civilian!”

Alma gives Dion an amused look. “Did you hear him turning things over to me?” She holds up the envelope, still unopened.

Dion shrugs and shakes his head. “I must have been distracted unloading Merri’s fifty luggage pieces.” He turns his apologetic gaze on Somrak. “Sorry. I really am going to be busy too.”

Somrak slumps back again. “I’ll tell you, this ward has given me more trouble in just a few weeks…” With a sudden burst of energy, he stands and snatches the orders from Alma. “If you insist, I’ll make these official after you’ve done your…” He waggles his fingers at them. “…miniature world creation. In the meantime,” he lowers his chin and growls like the Commander, “get outta here so I can get some work done!”

Ch7.28 Revelations

“Oof!” Merri’s foot comes down hard on the solid packed dirt, speckled with patches of grass, in the breezeway between the Burrow, their dear dear bar and beloved home, and Three Rats Station, Mum and Gwydion and Sage’s workplace. It’s like arriving at the end of a flight of stairs and thinking there is one more step down but no, there’s the floor, bam! Happens to her every time she goes through portals, always a little higher or lower than expected. But she’s holding Cherry’s hand and that keeps her steady, which is a good thing as otherwise the heavy suitcase in her other hand might’ve tipped Merri right over into a sprawling heap.

They are right behind Mum, and oh what a relief it is to be back in Three Rats! The scents of the ward may include the results of still-inadequate garbage collection and sewage treatment (though not as bad as it used to be) and the occasional cooling corpse (now that’s well down these days), but it also includes the smells of jacaranda blossoms and arroz e feijão cooking slowly in someone’s kitchen, and sambar lentil soup bubbling away in a big pot in the house next door. As she takes a deep breath, Merri closes her eyes, and she can smell something…ohhh, some kind of spicy curry is cooking in their own kitchen right now!

As Merri opens her eyes, Alma is looking back toward the portal. Cherry pulls Merri aside as the others come out, and Mum announces, “It’s all still in one piece.” Merri can’t help but giggle, but oh, poor Som! Still, the Bunny must admit she had been just a wee bit worried at what condition the place might be in. All that alcohol around a fire god?

“Come on,” Merri says, tugging at Cherry’s hand. “Let’s find out what smells so good!”

They rush past Alma and throw the door open, and oh! the Burrow, the Burrow, the lovely Burrow! The lush greenery and flowers of the plants, the lustrous old wood of the tables and the bar itself, that comfortable smell of a bar: beer and other alcohols from all across the Insula and even other worlds, plus the fresh living smell of the flowers and ferns and all, and whatever that dish is cooking in the kitchen, and oh, a whiff of tobacco, well not too bad and what’s a bar without a little tobacco scent as long as it’s not cloying and disgusting, and oh, Auntie Varah has been here! and Somrak and oh my goodness that smell isn’t Lexie, it’s some other cat, a big cat…and…and…

Merri’s eyes go wide as she feels Cherry’s grip on her hand tighten. Seated at one of the tables, partially hidden behind the hydrangeas, there’s a cop, Guardia Dei by the indigo shade of her uniform, and oh she smells like a hunter, a predator, oh my goodness…

A wolf.

Merri feels a thrill of a deep-buried prey-fear shiver from the backs of her calves as they tense to spring away, up her thighs to her tail, which puffs out, and along her spine to end up prickling the soft ruff of fur on her neck beneath her ginger hair. A wolf! At the same moment that she is feeling a primitive terror, she is marveling at the woman’s ears, which are just adorable, and the strong, high cheekbones on her dark-tanned face. And her eyes, oh her sharp-glancing golden eyes, fixing on the two Bunnies, and she thinks, Oh my dear ye’ve got the same thought we do, don’t ye, but from the other side? Somethin’ deep down inside ye wants to give chase, don’t it? And the thought of gettin’ chased through the woods and caught by the likes of ye, well, I cannae say it doesn’t appeal – eeee, look at that big puffy tail, oh I want to cuddle it!

She grins at the woman, who smiles back. Merri knows that, whoever this is, she’s likely to be at least as good as a Bunny at reading scents and subtle body language and all the rest that makes keeping secrets and telling lies so difficult. So it is like a shared joke, what’s passed between them, these instincts that their conscious minds can easily overcome, and Merri feels Cherry’s tension relax as she too understands that this is no enemy, that whoever this is, however sharp her teeth and big her eyes, this wolf is a friend, even family, for is not anyone who wears the uniform welcome here in the Burrow? They are Alma’s family, and that makes them a Guardia family, for sure and certain.

Merri sets her bag aside, leaning it against the wall, and walks straight up to the woman, holding out her hand. Well not exactly straight – there’s those hydrangeas with their lovely blue and purple masses of blossoms to dodge. “I’m so sorry we were nae here to welcome ye before…Sergeant, isn’t it? I’m Merri, and this here is Cherry, and it’s a pleasure to make yer acquaintance.”

The woman smiles back and shakes Merri’s hand. “It is, isn’t it? I’m Pavia. Nice to meet you.” Her gaze is intense, but only stays on Merri for a moment before flicking toward the door, eyes following ears.

“Ha! I like her,” Cherry says, smiling. “Hey there. You been here long? You want us to scare you up somethin’ to eat or drink?” She sniffs, looking toward the kitchen. “Though it smells like you already got somethin’ cookin’.”

Pavia shakes Cherry’s hand as well. “Not me, I don’t. But the way it sounded a minute ago, he was definitely trying to scare something into becoming edible.” Though she looks at Cherry as she speaks, her ears remain turned toward the door.

Cherry glances at the kitchen. “Somrak? Hope he ain’t doin’ anything weird to our kitchen.”

“Oh, Cherry, now what would he do?” She hasn’t taken her eyes off Pavia. She can hear the voices in the breezeway. Does she know Dion? A former girlfriend…oh dear. Or perhaps it’s Mum she knows? “Pardon my askin’ but are ye a wolf goddess?”

Pavia shrugs. Her self-deprecating smile sends a thrill through Merri. “Just a demi,” she says. “Part of the Wolf Clan–”

The door opens and Pavia stands, looking as if she’s utterly forgotten the Bunnies, terrified hope on her face and in her stance. Merri turns to follow her gaze and sees Alma at the door, frozen in shock, and Merri feels a sudden rush of empathy for her new acquaintance. Och, is there to be heartache? Poor dear…

After a slow heartbeat of paralysis, a smile spreads across Alma’s face. “Pavia? Pavia! What are you doing here?” She radiates joy at the sight of the wolf-sergeant, but Merri can tell there is a hint of worry. She steps out of the way just in time for Pavia to walk past her, tail wagging happily.

There is just an almost-unnoticeable moment of hesitation between the two, but then they embrace each other. Pavia laughs softly as she holds Alma, and murmurs, “Hey, I got asked to make sure Mr Torch-Man didn’t burn the place down.”

Merri looks over at Cherry and sees she’s reflecting back the same worries about the two. Aloud, though, Merri asks, “Cherry, did ye hear that? There’s a whole clan of ‘em! Maybe we should have a clan…”

The wheels that begin to spin in Merri’s head, of a world that has a place in it for Bunnies, of Bunny children, of old Bunnies, of Bunnies thinking of themselves as something more than just seven siblings, well it fairly makes her head swim. But before she can say anything more, a voice from the kitchen doorway sends her thoughts scattering like petals on the wind.

“And finally this place is going to get back to normal.” Somrak is leaning on the frame of the kitchen door, smiling, drying his hands on a towel. Cherry runs to him and he straightens up to catch her as she jumps up a little to give him a hug. She holds onto him tightly, and as Merri watches, smiling, Cherry touches her forehead to Somrak’s. He looks a little surprised but happy, and Cherry whispers to him in a voice that only a Bunny (or maybe one of the Wolf Clan) could catch from this distance, “How you doin’, hon?”

“Better,” he whispers back.

Cherry points up at the rooftop. “Later, huh?” Somrak nods, and grins as she gives him a kiss on the cheek, lets him go, and says aloud, “Now what the heck you makin’ in our kitchen?”

“Kaeng phet,” he says. “Or at least the closest I could come to it with local ingredients. Nice and spicy. You’ll love it.”

“Uh huh,” Cherry responds with false doubt. “Smells good… Is that coconut milk?” Her voice fades as she goes into the kitchen.

Somrak walks toward Alma, slipping an arm around Merri on the way and giving her a friendly squeeze. “She’s looking better,” he says to Merri in a low voice.

“She is, dear. We all are. Oh, it’s ever so good to be home.” She walks with him to where Alma is asking Pavia about her children.

“Oh, they’re fine,” Pavia is saying, looking over her shoulder at Merri. She sounds as if she doesn’t much want to talk about her own children. “And I guess these are your kids, huh? Cute.” There is a worried air about her, lurking behind her joy at being reunited with Alma. She is holding one of Alma’s hands, perhaps a little tightly.

“Two of them, yes. The others are…” Alma raises her voice a little with an accusing glance at Merri. “…outside dealing with all the extra luggage a certain Bunny brought along.”

Merri slumps in Somrak’s arm, dismayed. “It’s not all mine!” she insists. “Tulip brought back all them pinecones and shiny rocks! As if one pinecone don’t look like another…”

Just then, Kori and Chime enter from the breezeway, their arms full of silk blouses, gold-trimmed skirts, random socks, frilly undergarments, and some things Merri herself can’t identify right off, even though they are all her clothes. “Merri, two of your suitcases burst open!” Kori complains. “D and Geryon are trying to fly all your stuff upstairs!”

“Oh bother!” Merri slips free of Somrak and rushes up and takes a double armload of clothes from the boys. “I’m terribly sorry…thought those bags could take the strain…” Tottering, dropping articles of clothing along the way, barely able to see around them, she runs up the stairs to her room to open the window.

By the time she returns, the bed she shares with Cherry is heaped with clothes, only the most precious articles hung up to avoid further wrinkling, a smaller pile made of ones that got dirty when the bags burst outside, and of course a complete change of clothing from her travel outfit – a pea-green jacket over a dusty-rose blouse and a matching houndstooth skirt – for something more suited to work – a simple t-shirt and shorts, with the apron to add to it waiting in the kitchen, assuming Somrak hasn’t borrowed it at some point.

She finds that most everyone is seated and about to start digging in on Somrak’s reddish, vegetable-filled curry, which he is serving in large bowls alongside smaller ones filled with steaming fluffy rice. It smells divine! she thinks, and she rushes to join them, sitting in an empty chair just as Somrak ladles her bowl full of steaming liquid. He gives her a wink and continues with what he had been saying.

“He was this kid with one leg. It’s all in the reports, stuff he got up to. Let’s just say it was a pain in the…nether regions getting him locked away.”

Merri’s eyes go wide and she feels herself blush as she remembers the bottle in the wine cellar, the one that almost seemed to leap into her way, and fall, and release a little one-legged boy who disappeared, just before they left for the estate. Oh no…oh I simply forgot all about it! Strange things are always happening here and Mum and Dion seemed so fretful and goodness of course I wouldn’t have wanted to worry Cherry and then when they felt better well I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to make them feel worse again and oh my is this trouble my fault?

Pavia is chuckling at him as she takes a spoonful and glances at Alma. “Yeah, you’re in for some funny reading. Right, Sergeant Scorpionpants?” She pats Somrak’s back amicably as he goes past her to set down the nearly empty pot and sit at his own place.

“Scorpionpants?” Sage asks, mystified.

Somrak gives Pavia a weary look. “You really didn’t have to go into so much detail in your reports.”

“Ahh, come on… it ended up well and you even got to fraternize with the boss.” Pavia’s tail wags a little where it hangs from the back of the seat of her chair.

Somrak rolls his eyes. “Because that’s always so much fun.” To Alma, he says, “You’ll be glad to know we had some oversight. Or at least someone to be amused at our antics. I think your aunt is starting to like this place.”

Alma stops eating, spoon suspended halfway between bowl and mouth. She looks at Somrak with wide eyes. “Varah likes Three Rats? Oh no…she didn’t go on a rampage, did she?” She closes her eyes and sets down her spoon. “How many killed or otherwise horribly mutilated?”

Somrak shares a look with Pavia and then back at Alma, then, leaning forward, chin on hand, he asks slyly, “And just what sets her on these rampages? Just in case, you know, I ever want to send her on a rampage against someone I don’t like.”

Alma opens one eye and furrows her brow at him. “Nice try, Ponytail but you are not hearing it from me.” Her voice is a gruff imitation of the Fencer’s.

“Oooh, I got chills from that,” Somrak jokes, shivering his shoulders. “No rampages this time. And,” he adds proudly, “not one report of murder or maiming in the whole ward this past week, last I checked, which was…two hours ago. Well, there was a stabbing, but the guy will be fine, according to your doc.”

“It seems Three Rats did great without us,” Dion says after swallowing a mouthful of curry and rice. “I say we take another vacation. Maybe visit that oceanfront resort down in the Fifth Ring?”

“Ooh…I’ve never been to it. Sounds lovely,” Alma replies. “And we’re already packed, too.”

Merri gasps and squeals around a mouthful of delicious curry. Then she can see that Alma and Dion are just teasing. And Somrak shakes his head anyway. “The Subcommander left me with some orders you’d better read before you go off on any more adventures. But we can go over those after lunch.” Something not to be discussed in front of us, eh? Merri thinks. And Mum looks worried. Oh I do hate all these secrets, but I suppose it can’t be helped.

In a quick change of subjects amid the clatter of spoons on china and the chatter of the younger Bunnies, Somrak says, “Speaking of adventures, what did you get up to, aside from Merri buying out the Second Ring’s clothing shops?”

“Oh she didn’t buy them,” Alma says. “They were all waiting for her in a closet.”

“The clothing fairy was busy preparing our arrival, it seems,” Dion agrees.

Somrak looks confused. “The clothing fairy?”

“Grandmama,” Merri explains. “A lovely present to all of us.”

“Well, aren’t you lucky,” Somraks says. “But how come you were the only one who brought loads of clothes home?” He gives her a teasing look.

Cherry interrupts to answer. “She always loved havin’ her closets bustin’ with clothes. Like it ain’t a proper closet if you can shut the door all the way.” She rubs Merri’s knee to show her love. “We started out not really bein’ able to buy much in the way of clothes, and then when we had a successful bar, Mer just loved havin’ so many outfits to choose from. And her closets invaded mine and took ‘em over, ‘cause I never really needed all that much closet space.”

“Except for fallin’ in love with every leather jacket ye see,” Merri retorts, but she leans a little against Cherry, her bare arm pressing against Cherry’s warm skin.

“Oh, I do miss some of them…” Cherry says mournfully.

Dion says to Somrak, “This is about the extent of adventuring we got up to. Arguing about clothes. Gardening.”

“We did meet some dryads,” Cherry says. “They were great, after they figured out we didn’t want to damage their trees. It was real calm and relaxing.”

Somrak picks up on her wry smile. “Got to missing the excitement of Three Rats?”

Cherry grins. “Yeah…don’t want any of the new places startin’ up to take our loyal customers, either.”

“The estate is a lovely place to visit but moving there is not something any of us would want right now,” Alma says. She looks at Dion and takes his hand. “We’re fine where we are.”

“Yes,” he agrees, sharing a smile with her. “It’s a place to be taken in small doses.”

Merri glances at Pavia and sees that she is watching the two of them as if she is in pain. Pavia’s gaze flicks away and she catches Somrak looking at her in sympathy, and the Wolf Clan sergeant looks down at her food, her appetite apparently lost for the moment.

“Good to hear,” Somrak says, looking back at Alma and Dion. “I don’t know…you guys retiring to the country just doesn’t sound right.” He grimaces. “And every single person we talked to here asked when you’d be back.”

“‘Where are the usual Dei?’, they’d ask,” Pavia adds, trying to sound cheerful again. “‘They know what they’re doing.’”

Alma and Dion, unaware of the undercurrents of emotion flowing around them, look touched at the account.

“Hey, didn’t anybody ask when the bar’s opening again?” Cherry asks.

Somrak nods. “Some of them sounded quite worried.”

Geryon, dabbing at his beak with a napkin held in his semi-prehensile forepaw, comments, “The people of this ward have come to expect those who are capable of leaving on vacations are unlikely to return.”

“Then we’d better get the place up and running for the evening crowd!” Merri says. “Show them we’re back in Three Rats!”

“Yes, and then we can get to work,” Alma says. She sighs, looking over at Merri and Cherry. “You know, for a week there, I did have a kitchen.”

Cherry scoops the last of her curry into her mouth and swallows, then starts to get up to collect plates from those who are finished. “Mmm, well I’m just about ready to turn ours over to Sommy. But any time you want, Momma, you can borrow ours. You just gotta promise to make more chocolate mousse!”

Alma smiles and chuckles. “It’s a deal.”

Ch7.27 Revelations

The lock clacks as it turns, and the door opens. A slim but muscular silhouette stands in the doorway for a moment, moonlight behind him, then the door closes and the lock turns again. Footsteps, sounding confident in the near-absence of light as they echo among chairs and tables and the leaves and blossoms of plants that grow from walls and floor here and there, move to the bar, and behind it. There is a clink of glass, liquid-filled bottles kissing each others’ sides. A small flame lights the end of a cigarillo, and the glow shows Somrak’s face for a moment as he uses the visible light to read the label of the bottle he is holding. He nods and, taking out a shotglass, pours as the room falls into almost total darkness again, but for the one red-glowing ember a few inches from his mouth.

“The rabbits are going to smell that when they get home tomorrow.”

There is a clink of shotglass against bottle, and a mild curse. A sourceless ball of flame appears over Somrak’s shoulder, a swirling sphere of orange fire, like a miniature sun, about the size of a grape. It is enough to reveal the Fencer sitting at the bar two seats down.

“Masking your body temperature?” he asks. “Or did you just appear?” He takes another shot glass from under the bar and pours her some bourbon. Ignoring her lack of an answer, he asks, “What, can’t sleep? Kuhn snoring?” He slides the glass to her, and she catches it with casual ease.

“Sleep is an acquired taste to death gods,” she replies. “And I usually have more work than hours in a day to do it. What’s your excuse?”

Somrak shrugs. “Nightcap. You missed a celebration. I tried to invite you, but you were nowhere to be found.”

She takes a sip. “Like I said, busy. Too busy for drinks with the ladies. So your bottle-imp is in maximum security.”

“That he is. Went like clockwork.” He raises his glass toward her before he drinks.

She ignores this. “The advantages of actually having a plan. You’d think after a century on the force you’d have figured that out.”

He shakes his head, smiling at the way she never lets up. Getting to be hard to remember how she used to rile me, he thinks. “Wasure was here. I didn’t mention it in our last talk, though I’m sure you knew that already.”

“Something needed forgetting?” Her tone isn’t even of curiosity. The question might as well have been a statement.

“You saw my report,” Somrak says. “I saw…Margrave’s master. One of the Princes of Hell. Saw its face.” He slides the glass around on the bar-top, idly, but tracing a crude outline of something that could be a face. “Heard stories of course. How it’s like a disease, to see one of them. An infection that gets in your brain and poisons it, turning it to mush. Turning you into a devil-worshipper. Or just killing you with endless nightmares. I never really believed it.” He waves his hand over the vague moisture-image and it evaporates with a barely audible hiss, and he silently thanks Wasure for hiding that memory away from him. He knows he saw it. He knows that thinking of it hurt him, kept sleep away, corroded memories of happiness. Wasure had had to endure that himself, briefly, second-hand. Wasure doesn’t just provide a service. He follows a calling, one that Somrak is beginning to realize is much harder than even his own. He has been thinking ever since how to thank the good doctor for helping him.

“They’re not exactly the prettiest things around, no,” Fencer agrees, taking a longer sip of her drink. “Getting past it never gets easier. But you could have done it.”

He looks at her in surprise. That was almost praise! “Thanks the vote of confidence,” he says after a moment, then finishes his drink and pours himself another. “Sky pushed me to call the Doc. Said, with the torn soul and all, I didn’t need to be dealing with that nastiness, too. I’d never used Wasure’s services before, but…it’s not the worst thing, putting something like that away.”

“Anything else you put away?” she asks. She slides her empty glass back at him.

Without looking, he catches it and shakes his head. As he refills it, he says, “Not that I wasn’t tempted. But I need to live with the mistakes I’ve made.” He looks at her as he refills her glass. “I suppose you’ve never had a memory you couldn’t beat into submission.” He slides it back to her.

Eyes locked on his, she scoops it from the bar, not a drop spilled between the two of them. “People like Wasure weren’t around back in the day. Before the Guardia was even Guardia, the attempted Hell uprising just after the Guardia was created, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Mistakes, failure, loss, anger, betrayal. It was either live with it or let it slowly poison you to death. I know the ins and outs of your job, Ponytail. I used to do it for a living.”

He corks the bottle. She was in the Hell uprising. Of course she was. He nearly shudders at the thought. And with Hell sending out agents like Sky, before he switched sides, and trying to start a new Necromancer War, maybe she’ll be in another one. Aloud, he says, “My job… Please tell me it’s not going to be station commander forever.” He gives her a smirk. “Though I haven’t blown the place up yet.”

“‘Yet’ being the operative word,” she retorts. She pauses. “What do you want, Ponytail?”

He swirls his drink, sips. “That’s a big question. I want to be doing my job. It’s what I’m good at. And sometimes, I think I’m doing some kind of good. But some of the things we’ve been asked to do…it’s just not right. The off-blues, they’re not the same anymore. You know what I mean, right?”

She looks away a moment, then drinks and puts her glass down, empty. Her mouth is hard, her jaw muscles like stone. “The off-blues were never meant to last so long. They were a temporary fix, back when off-blue wasn’t even a word and all we were were assassins. Agents.” The word sounds sour. “When we needed to go places the law hasn’t been written to reach. Thing is, most alternatives we thought of are just too risky. You know what level of loyalty and secrecy the job demands. And coming across those things isn’t exactly easy.”

“Yeah…” Looking at nothing, listening to her words but seeing before his eyes those things that he thought about having Wasure lock away. Alma whipping him. The dream sent by Margrave’s demons. And things has has been ordered to do over the years. Killings and coverups. Nobody innocent, maybe, but always worthy of death? “And all the loyalty in the world doesn’t stop you from being a cruel bastard who can’t spell ‘morality’.” Like me? He drinks and looks at her again. “I just want to know I’m being pointed at the right target. I thought I was, always. But sometimes… It was targets the Council needed hushed up, wasn’t it? It was favors being traded.”

She gives him a cold look. “You have one leash around your neck. I have at least three. Someone pulls on mine and yours is bound to tug. Believe it or not, Somrak, yours hasn’t been yanked even half as many times as mine.” She lets the implications of that settle. “Trust and sacrifice: two things best not asked for if not given.”

“So why’s the Commander been putting you in charge more and more, then?” he asks. “Off-blues were always his directly, for a long time anyway. If you have three leashes…”

“Just because you see me more, doesn’t mean I wasn’t there all along.” She shakes her head, and for the first time it occurs to Somrak, She’s confiding in me. The thought chills him with its implications. In me? “Disbanding the off-blues is inevitable. We’ve known that for a long time. I’ve been choosing the ones that can still be of some use. The ones that aren’t too fixed on the old way of doing things.” She snorts. “And I count myself lucky that I only have three leashes. Your Commander could use a few more necks these days.”

“I never wanted to have more than the one,” Somrak murmurs. “But…I couldn’t just follow procedure where Sky was concerned. I couldn’t. I’m loyal to him, too.”

She leans toward him, her arms crossed on the bar top, eyes fixed on his, the crimson one and the milky, empty one. Her expression is blank, unusually so for her, no sardonicism, no contempt, just blank. “You are lucky.” Her voice is flat, cold, stating the simple case. “Your soul looks like a cat had a good time playing with the living room curtains, but you are lucky. The pain will fade away, eventually. Loyalty makes us do stupid things. Makes us think we’re the only ones who can go in and fix things.” The eyelid over her milky eye closes slowly and reopens, a lazy blink that could never be confused with a playful sign of complicity. “There are people loyal to you. They will be ready to follow you. Where you lead them is your own responsibility. Where you allow yourself to be led, is your own choice. Right here and right now, you are free. Perhaps for the first time in your life. Take that freedom and use it to make your next move. And make sure to be certain of it when you do.”

Does she want me to quit? Does she want me to go free? Few agents have lasted anywhere near as long as Somrak. The only ones he knows of who’ve lasted longer are the ones who’ve been around longer than the Guardia itself, like Fencer and the Commander. Is that what I want to become? Am I staying just because I can’t think of anything else to do? He looks at her, her eyes fixed on his face, as if she’s trying to stare him down. But I really can’t think of anything else. This is what I am.

“I’m not quitting just yet.” He downs the last of his drink, then puts the glass in the sink to wash in the morning. “But I am calling it a day.” He picks up the bottle and comes around the bar, his little fireball trailing him as if it is attached by a string, and pauses next to her. He sets the bottle next to her elbow. “Let me know when you need me.”

She shakes her head. “Enjoy your vacation while it lasts, Ponytail. And keep your bags packed.” She sounds tired. When he hesitates, she growls, “Get some rest. You won’t get much once you’re back where you think you belong.”

He leans against the bar. What am I going to do? Walk away while she sits here? “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat.”

She looks up at him quizzically. “The Hell has gotten into you?” But she stands, slowly. For all her springy muscle, she takes her time.

“I know another curry place, open all night. You’ll love it. They have cats.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. Then she whistles. There is a grunt from upstairs, then soft padding of large, broad feet. Louder descending the narrow, steep stairs, and then Kuhn, his glossy blue-grey fur almost hiding him in the shadows, trots into view, looking alert and curious. The tiger rattles the leaves of an elephant-ear philodendron as he passes, then rubs his cheek against Somrak’s leg hard enough to nearly make the god fall to the floor.

Gripping the bar to stay upright with one hand, scratching the cat’s ear with the other, Somrak says, “The owner’s going to love this.”