Chapter Two #4
“How loyal are vampires to Uraeus?”
Marcus asked.
“Uraeus created vampires to do his bidding, but honestly, he rarely calls upon us anymore. We don’t have a holy book or morals to follow,”
Ivy said. “The vampires don’t worship Uraeus; we just know he created us. I don’t think Uraeus cares if we murder people. That’s why vampires are more atheistic— not that we don’t believe in our god, but that we live our lives on our own terms, because Uraeus won’t interfere one way or another. He’s a very uninvolved god, but if he shows up to ask you to do something, a vampire better damn well do it, or face his wrath.”
“So we can’t count on the vampire god to help us, because he’ll want the benefits of working for the Warden,”
Kallie said. “Isn’t the Almighty One worried about the Warden and what he's doing? I’m sure the so-called king of heaven doesn’t want to be kicked off his high horse.”
“Well it’s clear he hasn’t done anything about it yet, has he?”
Chancey asked. “The Almighty One allowed the Deacons of the Celestial Church to rise to power and make the Warden what he is. Maybe there’s another angle.”
“There are other gods,”
I insisted. “Who else is on our side?”
“The merfolk worship an ancient pantheon called the Twelve Titans, but since the merfolk have joined the Warden, we don’t know if they’ll be of any help, because the merfolk have turned against their gods in favor of following The Mission,”
Cassiel said. “The Twelve Titans could be preparing to fight against their ex-followers. We aren’t completely sure.”
“Anyone else?”
I was beginning to lose hope that we weren’t on our own.
“There are the shinrei of the Astromancer culture. They are spirits, divinities and forces of nature that possess both positive and negative qualities, who love and destroy in equal measure. They are unpredictable, and extremely dangerous,”
Cassiel said. “The Astromancers believe that their powerful ancestors or rulers can become shinrei after death, although the main concept behind the spirits of the Astromancer world is animism— that objects, places, and creatures all possess an individual spirit, such as a mountain taking on a life of its own.”
“It sounds similar to Hawkei culture. We too believe that everything has a soul, even if it doesn’t appear alive,” I said.
“Correct.”
Cassiel inclined his head to me. “The thought of what these spirits are is ever-changing, and the religion expands and grows, shifting to include new thoughts as they are conceived. A shinrei can be an ancestral hero, or something as simple as an idea that is worshiped as a god. From what I’ve heard, the numbers of shinrei rival the gods in the Hawkei religion, in the thousands. Since we’re not Astromancers, these spirits will be difficult to connect with, as they will most likely ignore our requests.”
“Do we have an Astromancer who’s willing to help us commune with them, so they can help us find the Astromancer key?” I asked.
“We’ve been searching,”
Cassiel said. “We’ll continue to look until we find someone who’s willing to lend their aid.”
“What about a half-Astromancer? There are plenty of those, kicked out of Astromancer society,”
Marcus said.
“Unfortunately, those with mixed blood are ignored by the shinrei as equally as those who have no Astromancer heritage at all. We will need a pure-blooded Astromancer if we would like the help of the spirits in locating the Astromancer key,”
Cassiel clarified.
“We could ask Professor Takahashi,”
I said. “He’s a full-blooded Astromancer. He would help us.”
The room became very quiet, and Daddy said, “We’re very sorry to tell you this, peanut, but it seems Professor Takahashi has vanished. We can’t find him anywhere.”
“Professor Hemlock is also missing,”
Queen Emmaline added. “We haven’t been able to locate either of them since the Institute was abandoned by Doctor Taurus.”
“They must’ve been kidnapped before the Warden set fire to the Institute. We couldn’t find them before we went down to Cellblock 9,”
Kallie said.
Cassiel nodded. “That is what we believe happened. It is our best guess that Takahashi and Hemlock are being imprisoned somewhere by The Mission. We’ve made efforts to find them, although we are unsure if they are dead or alive.”
I felt very ill. If our teachers were still breathing, they were definitely being tortured by the Warden, and it was because they’d protected us. Hemlock and Takahashi had guided and mentored us for years. Besides aiding us with our demigod quest, they’d made life at the Institute bearable, sometimes even fun. I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened to either one of them.
“We won’t give up until we find them,”
Daddy said, noticing the stricken look on my face. “I promise.”
Cameron gave a huff. “Not like the Elvish goddesses have been any help. We haven’t been able to commune with Idril and Caralyn for some time. They’ve been ignoring our offerings and prayers for help.”
He nearly sneered the words.
“They are not ignoring us,”
Cassiel said, sounding annoyed. “They simply cannot hear us. Something is wrong.”
“The gods are having trouble reaching across the spiritual plane to communicate with us. Coyote Spirit told me so, before I left Cellblock 9,” I said.
“You’ve spoken with a Hawkei god?!”
Daddy yelped in alarm, and he leapt out of his chair.
“I’ve talked with Coyote, like, a million times, Daddy, get with the program,”
I said, rolling my eyes.
I guess I never had told anyone beyond my little group that I’d had full conversations multiple times with gods, because almost everyone else in the room appeared completely shocked. But it was old news to me, so we needed to move on with it.
“This is not information to glaze over,”
Daddy grumbled as he fell back in his seat, but Mama cut him off.
“What did Coyote Spirit say?”
she asked curiously. Everyone centered their attention on me.
I crossed my arms. “Well, Coyote told me that the connection between Earth and the spiritual realm is closing, so the spirits of the dead can no longer cross over to the afterlife. They’re stuck in-between, and because of that, the gods aren’t able to influence things like they were before. Coyote insisted that it was really important for Charlie to fulfill his prophecy, because if he doesn’t open the Elven Gate, the afterlife remains inaccessible for everyone, not just the Elves.”
“I’ve been trying to move the souls of the coven to the afterlife without success,”
Lucas explained. “I knew something was wrong, but assumed someone must’ve been targeting my reaper abilities personally. Now we understand things are happening on a much larger scale. My magic isn’t working correctly with the afterlife in such turmoil. I can’t help anyone from the coven cross over. They’re stuck, and I’m powerless to help them.”
“It is even worse than we feared,”
Cassiel said darkly.
“Maybe that’s why my birth mother, Neva, can’t speak with me, even though I’ve tried,”
Kallie said. “The fae goddess of time should’ve come to me by now, in a vision or in person, for all the times I’ve requested her help. I’m her blood— she should be honor-bound to visit me. But I don’t know if she can, with the boundary between the realms being broken.”
“Princess Ava, if there’s any hope of contacting the gods, especially our Elven goddesses, it is through you,”
Cassiel said to me. “You are now the mother of the Elvish race, and the only spiritual bridge we have left to our deities. Your experience in the afterlife could give us the connection we need to speak with them.”
That was a huge responsibility. I nervously clasped my hands together under the table and managed to say, “I can try. I have a strong connection to the spiritual realm. I have ever since I came back from the Ancestral Lands. Perhaps if I can commune with the gods, they’ll be able to help us bring an end to the war on Earth, and we can help them stop the war in the Blessed Haven.”
“If Ava’s doing spiritual work to cross the broken boundary in order to speak with the gods, I can help, too,”
Marcus offered. “I can work on accessing visions in order to gain intel on the enemy with my magic. My mind reading abilities are growing. If I can access information that way, it’ll be really helpful.”
“Do you mean if we capture one of the Warden’s higher-ups, you could look into their mind and see what he’s got planned?”
Kallie asked.
“Maybe. I’ve been getting better at mind reading, but when you’re inside somebody’s head, there are so many thoughts and visions that not all of it is useful, and important people like the Warden have wards against my powers,”
Marcus explained.
“You’re a demigod. You should be able to get into anyone’s head, even if they have wards on them,”
Kallie insisted.
“It’s not that easy. Even if I can, that doesn’t mean I’ll find what I’m looking for,”
Marcus said. “When I’m in someone’s mind, it’s like I have access to a whole library, and what we need is a singular sentence in one book, so I don’t know where to start looking. Unless someone is thinking of the exact thing we’re trying to get information on, right at the moment I peek inside their head, I have to go searching, and rifling through someone’s thoughts takes longer than you’d think. The brain has over six thousand thoughts a day, and I have to skim through all of that, and sometimes more, to even narrow it down.”
“There are ways to make it quicker,”
Lucas said. “We’ll find a witch who can teach you to be more efficient at mind reading.”
“What I don’t understand is why the Warden is keeping Elves in concentration camps instead of executing them on a mass scale,”
I said. “Why does he need to keep them around in prison camps? He’s already unleashed the dark gods. What else does he need them for?”
“That may be the most worrying thing of all, princess,”
Cassiel mused.
“There’s just so much to do,”
Charlie said in frustration. “How are we going to manage finding the rest of these keys while fighting a war?”
“I think it’s best if we sort our efforts into three groups,”
Cassiel began. “My grandson, the princess, and their friends will spend their time investigating the Midnighters and searching for the vampire key. Myself and my son will do what we can to locate the Main Facility, and put an end to the Elvish concentration camps for good. We will also do what we can to learn more about the Astromancer key. The rest of us will occupy ourselves with helping the other races who’ve been displaced settle into Ilamanthe.”
“That’s a job for us parents,”
King Ethan stated.
“Agreed. We’ll have the resources,”
Daddy added.
It was weird to see them working together, but I guess we all had to, now. There wasn’t any other option.
Kazim rose from the table. “I’m going to focus my time on learning everything I can about the Warden and his defenses. I want to know what his weak points are, and if there are any gaps in The Mission we can use to gain the advantage. The Malovian army is large and strong, and the various races living here together in Ilamanthe are no small force. We have a shot at winning. The Mission won’t be easy to conquer, but if we stick together, we just might pull through this.”
“If you wanna kill the Warden, you better come up with a damn good plan, because nothing we’ve tried has worked,”
Alistair said dully.
“Did you get a chance to work your Mentalist powers on him, like you did Professor Mazur?”
Charlie asked.
I shuddered at the memory. Before we’d left the Institute, Alistair had used his powers on Mazur to make her turn her own life-energy magic against her, draining her until she was nothing but a husk. Angels were all but impossible to kill, yet Alistair had done it, so we were hoping he could do the same thing to the Warden.
“I did. We ran into him before we stole the bus,”
Alistair said. “I tried casting the spell, and forcing him to drain his own life-energy, but it instantly rebounded. I don’t think he had a ward on him, either. He was just so strong that the magic immediately backfired the second it hit him.”
“We only got away because he was in too much of a hurry to summon the dark gods than to deal with us,”
Chancey said. “But he did send a nasty spell back, one that nearly cut me in half. If I wasn’t an angel and didn’t have self-healing abilities, I would’ve been sliced in two.”
Chancey stood and lifted his shirt. A deep scar ran across his abs. Ivy winced, like recalling the moment pained them greatly.
Alistair was a talented warlock. If the Warden could brush off one of his spells like it was a nuisance and not an actual threat, we were in big trouble.
“The Warden has to die if we’re ever going to finish this,”
I insisted. “There has to be a way to kill him.”
“I’ll research it,”
Ez offered. “I’m spending all my time learning about healing magic. I can learn about the systems of angels, too, and figure out any potential weak spots.”
I slightly winced when Ez spoke. I hadn’t had time to tell my brother what we’d discovered in the Warden’s office. We’d found medical records from angel surgeons, who’d done a live autopsy on me during my spinal surgery after I’d gotten hurt in the Underground. Because they’d been experimenting on my body while my Anichi magic was attempting to heal my spine, the injury had set wrong, and there would never be a cure. Ez still thought there was a chance I could walk, and had been researching ideas on how I could make a full recovery for months. He was going to be devastated to learn the truth.
I’d tell him later. He didn’t need to know right now. Not when he was doing the hard work of figuring out how we could kill the Warden.
“We can kill the Warden after we get the Divinity Keys,”
Charlie said. “And they’re not here, so we need to pack our things and go looking for them again.”
“I understand your impatience, but it’s best for all of us to remain within the safety of Ilamanthe until we have iron-clad clues on where the keys might be. The supernatural world isn’t safe,”
Cameron said.
“Don’t tell me what to do,”
Charlie shot at him, and I watched Cameron recoil. “This is my responsibility. I’ll fulfill my prophecy the way I see fit, and we can’t be expected to find the keys while sitting around here, because they’re obviously not in this city.”
“Ehh…”
Chancey started, and he shook his head. “Sorry to tell you this, pal, but it’s not gonna be easy searching for these keys outside of Ilamanthe. The Warden’s got wanted posters of you four painted all over every town.”
“What?”
Charlie’s expression became dark.
“He put out a huge bounty on your heads,”
Chancey stated. “He’s promised millions of dollars to the supe who can bring the four of you in, dead or alive, so you’ve got bounty hunters crawling all over the place just looking for a clue on where they can find ya.”
I bet that sleazeball at the pharmacy recognized you, and called it in hoping to get the reward, Oberi remarked.
“That’s great,”
Charlie growled. “Like we needed more complications. Guess we have no choice but to stay here.”
“You’ll manage. We all will,”
Mama said gently.
Daddy huffed. “Not like we all don’t know what it’s like to be hunted down.”
“Very true.”
King Ethan nodded.
“This shit’s getting kind of old,”
Nadine mumbled. Lucas reached out to grab her hand.