Chapter 15
Quinn
By the time we made it to the meeting spot and the new car Rollick had arranged to have waiting for us there, breathing was no longer a fight. The vise in my chest had eased off enough that I wasn’t afraid I was going to die right this moment. But an ache still gripped my sternum, prickling more sharply when I moved. If I turned my head too quickly, it started spinning again.
Crag yanked open the back door and set me down on the seat with the gentleness he could offer in contrast with his hardened body. Rollick immediately emerged into physical form next to him.
“Do you need water?” the gargoyle was already asking, flicking on the overhead light. “More of your medicines? Should we get you to a hospital?”
I shook my head—slowly so that I didn’t set off the dizziness. My voice came out with a rasp but not too wobbly. “No. There isn’t much they’d be able to do anyway. I think if I just rest a little, I’ll recover like I did before. It’s already getting better.”
“Get her that water,” Rollick instructed, and Crag leapt to the front of the car to grab the bottle. With shaky fingers, I peeled off my rain slicker and tossed it on the floor. Here beyond the reach of the storms, the air held only a hint of dampness.
As I tipped back on the seat, letting out a relieved sigh as soon as I was lying on the firm cushions, the demon leaned through the doorway. He peered down at me, his concern for me rolling through our collection to mingle with the jolts of fear I was picking up from Crag.
“I almost did it,” I muttered. “I got him halfway there. I wasn’t strong enough.” A sense of hopelessness swept over me that was far more uncomfortable than the physical pains.
Rollick’s mouth twisted. “You’re plenty strong. The leviathan is a menace beyond anything any of us has ever had to deal with. Including the Highest, I suspect, or they’d have…”
He trailed off with a furrowing of his brow, his gaze veering away from me. The emotion that wafted from him next was a mix of shock and horror that set my own nerves jangling.
“What?” I gasped out, moving to push myself upright again.
Rollick jerked out his hand to nudge me back down. “All you need to focus on right now is recovering that strength of yours. We can talk about everything else once you’re back to your regular self. I want you contributing to the full extent of your abilities.” He managed a tight smirk.
I grumbled inarticulately at him, but he’d dampened his emotional response down to a faint, dull current of uneasiness that reassured me a tad. It didn’t seem like whatever had upset him was an immediate emergency, anyway.
Crag got into the back seat at the opposite end so he could help me drink some water without my having to get up. I leaned my head against his now human-like thigh, still pretty damned solid but a little less rocky than his gargoyle legs would have been, and he stroked my hair with careful fingers. His worry for me had barely ebbed.
Rollick must have called Torrent to let him know that no further distractions were needed. Several minutes after an engine rumbled by on some distant road, the tentacled man and Lance appeared by our car, presumably having hitched a secretive ride with that other lone traveler.
By that point, the pressure in my chest had eased off enough that it didn’t hurt at all when I sat up. My muscles still felt jellified, but I figured that was regular exhaustion more so than any kind of symptom. It was pretty late, and I had pushed myself hard.
Could I expend that kind of magic even once more without pushing my heart past its limits? I really wasn’t sure. What I’d experienced tonight had been at least twice as bad as any of the fits I’d experienced before. I was speeding my borrowed organ toward its end faster than any medical guidelines could account for, that was for sure.
“Quinn!” Lance exclaimed, and sprang past Rollick to dive into the back, yanking me into his arms. I nestled in his embrace with the contentment of knowing he’d survived creating his “diversions” without any significant problems.
I glanced past the dragon shifter to Torrent, who didn’t look any worse for wear than he normally did either. “The minions didn’t give you too much trouble?”
He shook his head, though his expression was even grimmer than usual. “We knew what we were doing. They weren’t difficult to dodge when that was always the plan.” He glanced to the west. “You weren’t able to compel the leviathan?”
“I did,” I said, with a twinge of shame as I remembered my failure. “I got him to follow us part of the way to the trap. But it wasn’t enough. He managed to throw off my sorcery before we made it there. And he sounded like he was sure that now that he’d figured out how to, I’d never be able to conquer him again.”
Crag frowned. “He said other things too. About summoning the shadow realm here. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Rollick sighed. “Actually, I think it does. If I’m right about what he was hinting at, it’s the first bit of information we’ve gotten that ties all his actions together into a coherent picture.”
I lifted my head from Lance’s shoulder. “What do you mean? You understood what he was talking about?”
“The pieces only clicked together after I’d had a little time to think about it.” Rollick folded his arms over his chest, unable to keep up his usual nonchalant expression. In the darkness beyond the interior of the car, his blue eyes glinted sharply. “He said he was going to bring ‘the depths’ of the shadow realm here—that he’d summon ‘them.’ He’s been expanding that one rift. And he’s been carrying on for the past several days as if he doesn’t care whether the chaos he’s causing here gets noticed.”
Torrent sucked in a breath, the chill of his surprise reaching me. “You don’t really think—how could that even be possible?”
“What?” I demanded, looking from one of them to the other. “The rest of us would like to be completely filled in, please.”
Rollick glanced away for a moment before meeting my eyes. “I’ve told you before about who the Highest are—that they’re the most ancient and powerful shadowkind in existence, and to some extent they monitor what happens here in the mortal realm through their underlings to make sure no one gets out of hand. They live in the deepest parts of the shadow realm. The trouble the leviathan has been stirring up is exactly the sort of thing I’d expect to draw their notice.”
“But they couldn’t stop him before,” I said. “He and the behemoth overpowered the warriors they sent.”
“They may have sent more since then. Or after that initial defeat, they may be waiting to see how far he’ll go and if he’ll betray any clear weaknesses before making another attempt. But I believe the fiend wants them to come. The Highest themselves, entering the mortal realm.”
Lance let out a startled sound. “They don’t go anywhere! They stay in their cavern and let beings come to them.”
“But maybe the leviathan thought that if he disrupted the mortal world enough and subdued their underlings, they’d have to venture out,” Crag put in, his expression still gloomy.
Torrent nodded. “It hasn’t worked. I’m not sure how easily the Highest even could come through a rift at their size and how strongly they’re tied to our home.” He glanced at Rollick. “But you figure that’s why the leviathan has continued expanding the rift. It’s not to allow more beings to come through. It’s to ensure that it’s large enough for the largest of us all to fit.”
“Yes. And believe me, I’d love to be proven wrong.” Rollick sighed. “But it makes an unnerving amount of sense when you have that piece of the puzzle. Even the sorcerer-killing—why the leviathan has amassed so much of that human-based magic.”
A chill of my own washed over me. “He’s going to summon these Highest beings right out into the mortal realm? Can he do that?” Could he really have gotten that powerful?
“I don’t know,” Rollick admitted. “I’d imagine it’d take a tremendous amount of sorcery—possibly more than anyone could gather. But he seems to think he has a chance.”
I shivered. “And from the way he talked about it, he figures that bringing the Highest here will make the mortal realm belong to shadowkind. Would it really change things that much?”
“It might,” Torrent said quietly. “They might bring a lot of the shadow realm’s energies through with them, whether they want to or not. And their very existence contains so much power that there’s no way of knowing what impact their presence will have on this world. I can’t imagine it’ll be good.”
Lance drew a breath through his teeth with a hiss. “The leviathan thinks it’ll change the mortal world to be better for shadowkind. That’s what he was telling his minions—that we’d own this world when he’s done. I don’t want to own it. I like it the way it is.”
“Me too,” I said, my heart thumping faster. “What can we do? I tried using my own sorcery on him. There’s not much chance we’d be able to come up with another trick to get him into our trap, is there?”
We all sat in silence for a minute, pondering. “Well,” Rollick said slowly, “I believe if he’s hoping to summon the Highest, he’d need to put every shred of sorcery he has to that task. So he’ll have to let the magic he’s cast on all his minions fade rather than continuing to hold them bound to him. And while he’s actually doing the summoning, it’s unlikely he’d be able to enslave anyone else without risking his whole scheme falling apart.”
A flicker of hope lit in my chest. “Then we’d have a chance once he actually makes a move. The shadowkind who’ve come to help us—they’d be able to intervene without getting swept over to his side. And I wouldn’t have to worry about protecting the four of you quite as much, maybe. Then I’d have a little more of my own magic—maybe enough to overwhelm him after all.”
Rollick rubbed his chin. “We can’t be sure of that. And I doubt that our current motley crew of beings would have much hope of making an impact on him. But we can gather more, call on every shadowkind we can find in the mortal realm who’ll have seen what’s at stake. The damage he’s causing is becoming increasingly obvious.” He paused. “We should also make another appeal to the Highest. Let them know our suspicions. If they could send more of their underlings to join us, that’d give us even more of a fighting chance.”
Crag bared his teeth with a brutal smile. “If Quinn can’t compel him to the trap, we’d get together and drag him there.”
Lance chuckled. “Yes. I’d like to see him squirming.”
“Or even better,” Rollick said, “we could bring the trap to him. If we know where he’ll be, there by the rift, maybe my mortal contractors can work out a somewhat portable version. All we need is to fling a lot of iron and silver into him. He’ll have to be in physical form to use his sorcery, since it requires a voice. I’ll get them at the ready, since we can’t put anything in place near the rift ahead of time or he’ll notice and destroy it.”
A spark of hope lit inside me. “All right. We do have a chance then.” Even if it was a small one. I tipped my head toward Rollick. “Will you go appeal to the Highest again?”
He grimaced. “I’m not sure that would be the most ideal option. They might not be very pleased with me if they feel I didn’t sufficiently prepare them for what their warriors would face.”
“And you’re needed here to continue appealing to your own contacts, as much as you can convince them to take part in the battle,” Torrent said. He raised his chin with a resigned but determined expression. “I’ll go. I’ll be the least useful here. Any beings we could reach out to as potential allies who are strong enough to be much help will look down on my weaknesses—they won’t see me as someone worth banding together with. The rest of you can focus on building our army and our weapons, and I can go to the Highest. They might not respect me, but they don’t much of anyone. I don’t need their respect to deliver a warning.”
A pang shot through me at the thought of Torrent going off on his own again. “Are you sure?” I asked. “You’ve taken on so many of the jobs like that.” And, selfishly, I didn’t like how little I’d gotten to see him in the past several days.
He offered me a small but warm smile. “I’ve got to take the jobs I’m best equipped for. I’ll speak to the Highest as quickly as I can manage and then come straight back.”
Rollick clapped his hands together. “It’s settled then—the start of a new strategy, anyway. Let’s get back to the house, ensure Quinn gets a proper rest, and begin some real recruiting.”