Chapter Nine #2
“Because I am. You did exactly what I knew you would. You came to me, thinking you could control me as you did when I was a boy. It never even occurred to you I was playing you.” He tilted his head toward us.
“I could have killed those two at any time, but I needed them, so I played with them instead.” He smirked. “They were very entertaining.”
“‘Taurshit,” Dearg growled in my ear. “He’s lying. He might have needed you, but he didn’t need me. Yeah, he could have blasted me, but he wanted to kill me with a blade. And he couldn’t.” He bared his teeth. “I’ll wager he’s intensely frustrated about that.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” I muttered back.
Siobhan lifted her head, looking dazed. Despite my hatred of Respen, I felt a little thrill to watch him take her apart. “Treasonous brat…” she husked, her voice thready. Blood flowed from her nose and mouth, shockingly bright against her pale skin.
“I’m no brat, Mother,” he said coolly. “I’m the man who is about to put an end to you. I’m going to strip you of your power and your life. I’m going to drink all your magic and become a god, just as I swore to do as a boy all those centuries ago.”
“I have more… more power than you… know,” she rasped, though judging by the way her voice trembled, she hadn’t survived by much. Especially considering that the glow of power in her peridot eyes was scarcely bright enough to see. “I’m still alive.”
“Not for long.” He stepped up to her, sword in one hand, his eyes blazing with triumph.
He’s really going to kill her, I thought. I’m about to watch my brother murder my mother. The hero Grandmother thinks I am would do something. It seemed I wasn’t all that heroic after all. Demon Winds, this is going to devastate Maeve.
Then a new thought flashed through my mind: This is too easy. Something’s off.
Siobhan cried out as Respen grabbed a fistful of her green hair and dragged her up off the floor by it. She grabbed his fist, supporting herself so he wouldn’t rip it out of her skull.
My brother’s face contorted in triumph. “Take your last breath, Mother.” He locked his gaze with hers, and I realized eye contact must be the conduit for his power, just as it was Mother’s. He was going to drain her as he had Baareo.
Good, whispered my inner abused child again. Kill her so I never have to fear her again.
Except after he’s done with her, he’ll come for Dearg and me.
A stream of light began to stream from Siobhan, and she jerked in his fist, gasping. His body began to glow, brighter, brighter still.
“Demon winds!” The hair on my arms began to rise as the ozone smell of magic filled the air, heavy currents of power swirling around us.
Until Siobhan spoke, no longer panting, no longer strained. “That’s enough. Put me down.”
Respen stiffened, his eyes going wide. Slowly, he lowered her to the ground until her feet hit the floor.
Dearg breathed out exactly what I was thinking. “Oh, Gods and demons.”
“Did you really think you could take me that easily?” For once, she didn’t speak with that ranting, lunatic cadence I’d learned to know and fear.
She sounded almost sane. “You may have hurt me trying to syphon my power, but you also gave me a way into you. Now I’m going to show you the gift I gave you when you were a traitorous child. ” Her gaze locked with his.
The green eyes we all shared flew even wider with Respen’s terror, and powerful shoulders tensed as if to shove her away from him.
But though his arm shook, her hair remained locked in his hand, as if he’d grabbed a live wire.
His back bowed outward as if he was trying to pull free, but her grip on his hand didn’t relax.
“No, don’t,” he said, the strength and confidence gone from his voice. “Don’t do that. Stop…”
“I am the Goddess of Madness, and I am feared more than death.” It should have sounded melodramatic, but her tone was almost casual. “I planted the seeds of insanity in you years and years and years ago.” Her voice softened, almost gentle. “Waiting for me to harvest it. And that time is now.”
Respen howled, the sound so shocking I jumped against Dearg, who still sheltered me under his body.
Tears began to run down the killer’s cheeks, and there was something in his expression that wasn’t the monster he’d become…
A boy. I could see the boy he’d been a thousand years before I was born. “No. No, don’t. Not that… Mama, Mama… don’t…”
I didn’t want to care. He was a murderous fuck who’d killed poor Baareo and Claire Vilatte, the production assistant who’d wanted a movie career.
But that “Mama” broke me. I knew what his childhood had been like because she’d done the same to me -- tormented and manipulated him, made him crawl for a crumb of affection she always denied.
Just as I had.
I couldn’t just sit here and watch. I heaved upward, pushing Dearg away despite his startled grunt. He banished the shield before I could ram into it.
“Iona!” he hissed as he scrambled to his feet to follow me toward my mother and the man she was torturing. “What the Egg…”
My heart began to hammer in the familiar out-of-control way of a building panic attack. It wasn’t going to stop me this time. Respen had weakened her -- I’d felt it. I could use that. Would use that. My fear would not control me this time.
My brother had begun to beg, his voice broken, tears running silently down his face. I’d have one chance. I lifted my sword as the green blaze of Dragon’s Breath spilled over the chamber. Dearg backing me up. The thought was comforting, steadying me, making my panicked heartbeat slow.
Siobhan didn’t appear to notice me until I drew back the sword to run her through. Her head snapped around and her eyes locked on mine. “Fear me.” Not a spell, just the two words.
A trigger. Respen wasn’t the only one whose mind she’d booby-trapped.
The fear roared up and broke over me with the impact of a tsunami, icy and brutal, ripping the air from my lungs. I froze…
Her hand flashed out and grabbed Maeve’s knife from my duty belt. Before I could react, she slashed it across her palm. My ears popped again as the geas snapped.
“Bitch!” Dearg snarled, lunging past me, coming up off the floor with Dragon’s Breath pouring light and sparks, about to cut her in two.
She thrust up a hand and caught his wrist, stopping the blow before it hit her. He barely had time to shield before she blasted him across the room like a feather in a hurricane.
Then her power clamped over my mind. I fought not to scream as fear paralyzed me even worse than it had in the troll’s grip. It was all I could do not to echo my broken brother’s helpless howls.
Gods and devils, how I wanted to scream as the fear and madness boiled out of my subconscious -- twisted nightmare images of death and torment and beatings and sexual abuse until I felt my mind start to crack.
No. The thought rang in my mind, cold and sharp and sane. She didn’t break me when I was a kid. She’s not going to do it now. I snarled at the demonic images. Not real, not real, I am not going to break!
Respen was begging now, his voice high and cracking. The sound of his sanity crumbling was the worst thing I’d ever heard.
Yes, she’d made a monster out of him, but she’d had to break him to do it. As I met her vicious green stare, I knew she intended to break me too.
“No.” Dearg was back, looming up black and furry beside her, Dragon’s Breath blazing like the afternoon sun, green and bleeding sparks. He bared his fangs. “Let’s try that again.”
Siobhan’s head snapped toward him, freeing me, and I knew she was going to turn all that vicious power on him. He’d fight her to his last breath -- but I also knew it wouldn’t be enough.
Dearg’s eyes widened as she stormed his mind, trying to break that iron will. He set his teeth and fought to bring the great sword down, but she held him locked in her power. Completely focused on his destruction.
No. Just fucking no! The frozen panic shredded like wrapping paper. I stepped back, brought up my sword and chopped straight down through the top of her head. Maeve’s enchanted blade sliced through her skull like paper maché.
Every one of us -- Siobhan included -- fell like marionettes with cut strings.
I lay there on the cold marble, my whole body shaking, though the vicious psychic pressure had vanished with her death.
Long, looong seconds ticked past as I fought to breathe, to drive the echoing horrors from my mind.
I’d come so fucking close to snapping like a dry twig.
If it hadn’t been for Dearg’s distracting her…
Dearg! I reached for him with my magic, checking feverishly.
“Gods and Demons…” he muttered, his voice raw.
Sane. He was still sane. I could feel it. He’d fought her off just long enough.
Rolling over, I levered myself to my hands and knees, though my arms and thighs shook.
I crawled past Siobhan’s corpse and the sword still lodged in her skull, to pull Dearg into my arms. I sighed in relief at the feel of his werewolf-hot body, his thick fur surprisingly soft.
He felt solid. Safe. He’s safe. I did it.
“I thought I was gone,” Dearg told me, panting, as he slid his arms around me. “I could feel her ripping me away. It took everything I had to hold on.”
“But you did, of course,” Cachamwri’s Mark said, emerging from the thick mane around his head to perch on one thick shoulder.
Sitting up on his rear legs, tail curving around his clawed feet, the dragon gave us both a grin with an astronomical number of teeth.
“You did well, my children. Even I thought the situation had gone to hell.”
That was Cachamwri himself manifesting through the Mark -- his power beat on my battered senses.
“We managed,” Dearg told the god, though his Galatyn eyes were focused on mine.
“Barely,” I agreed, and dared to believe we had. “But I’ve got a feeling we’ll have some ugly nightmares for very long time.” I grimaced. “Though we’re still going to have to deal with my bro…”