Chapter 29
Feather
Distraction was our only hope. I prayed it would be enough.
The room was as silent as it could be while filled with thousands of unsettled, winged ashholes. Tradition conferred quietly with some of the other Guides as they moved chairs around, strapping Sunny, Hope, Ry, Percy, and me down with strips of white cloth.
This is not the kind of bondage I wanted to try. I used some of my remaining energy to send that thought to Sunny who was slumped on my left, while Hope sobbed quietly on my right. Ry and Percy were on the other side of Hope, and a little farther back.
Perception’s gaze was fixed on me, and I sent him the crazy idea that the glitter had given me.
“They should not be gagged, Guide,” he called out.
“Even the lowest criminals on Earth are given the chance to speak last words. Or pray.” Tradition obviously agreed since he motioned for one of the Guides to remove the gags.
Unfortunately, they then used those bands of cloth to tie our ankles together.
I was freed first, and I called out as soon as my mouth was uncovered, “Ry, do you like being tied up?” He craned his head to see me, his eyebrows flying up. “No, not right now. Not like this. I mean, in general.”
“She means sexually,” Sunny explained when her gag was removed, and sent me a tired wink.
I could tell the realm was draining her, too.
“Feather is very sexually inventive. If you’re not into bondage, you should still try it a few times, find out if it might appeal.
Eternity can be long, even with a hot mate like my best birch.
Pegging, maybe? Mikhail could watch.” She had everyone’s attention now.
Hope cleared her throat as well when her gag came off, and chimed in.
“I could watch. I’ve had fun with pegging on Earth and in Sanctuary.
Right, Endurance?” she called across the Hall.
A scuffle broke out a few rows back, and I watched as two Protectors were escorted out of the room. Murmurs rose up at the rough treatment.
“Stop talking,” Valor hissed. “No one wants to hear about your perversions.”
“We’re allowed,” I retorted. “Last words.” I turned away, ignoring him and chattering some more about safe words and soft limits.
A Guide had entered from the far end of the Hall through the main doorway, carrying something on a golden cushion. They walked slowly, ponderously even, and finally got close enough for me to see what was on the pillow. Crapsticks. It was the soul knife.
The Guide was ten feet away from the podium when I said, “Knife play. I guess we should have talked about hard limits before we merged, Ry. Have you ever had fun with a knife? The first time Gavriel ever saw me, he used his soul knife on me, and… whew! A girl never forgets that kind of meet-cute, am I right?”
“I don’t know,” Righteous said, looking vaguely disturbed. “I never once thought of using a knife. For that.” He craned his head and winked. “But I’ll try anything with you once.”
“A threesome?” I chirped.
He hummed. “With knives? Think we can get Mikhail to whittle pleasure out of me one nick at a time?”
I almost choked on my own spit. “We’d really better make sure you have a safe word.
Mikhail gets excited and forgets.” I had hoped to distract the Guide who was bringing the knife in, and it worked like a charm.
They’d been marching like a solo pallbearer at a doll funeral, mounting the steps with the pillow up at chest height.
At my last comment, they tripped. The knife tumbled off the pillow and went skidding down the stairs and across the floor, and I suddenly smelled the familiar stench of cooking person-meat and smut.
Somebody had gotten nicked, that was for sure.
When the Protectors all around stopped screaming like four-year-olds on their first roller coaster, the Guide reclaimed the smoky blade and set it on the pillow again.
Their robe hood had fallen back, and they set their expression in what I thought of as “Politician Offering Thoughts and Prayers” mode, trying to recapture the sense of dignity, but it was way too late for that.
The robe had tangled around their scrawny legs as they’d crawled across the floor to get the knife, and the edge of the cloth had gotten stuck in the belt, leaving one hairy leg bare to mid-thigh.
Staring at the exposed thigh brought attention to the bulge under their robe, about a foot up and to the right. Ew. The dude had a semi from holding a sacred knife at a ritual sacrifice? Why did this seem so familiar?
When they mounted the stair and bowed at Tradition’s feet, I remembered. “That’s where it’s from! Indiana Johnson and the Sacred Phallus!” I yelled, making the Guide fall over again, dropping the knife onto one of Tradition’s toes.
Tradition let out a very traditional curse, bringing the parentage of the kneeling Guide into question. I ignored the fallen knife, turning my head to Sunny, though even that small movement seemed to take more energy than a hundred jumping jacks.
“No, wait, the one with the knife play was Indiana Johnson and the Blood-Stone Cock. Or was it the Blood-Cock Stone?” In my peripheral vision, I saw Tradition’s eyes bulge.
“I get them mixed up. I know there was blood, and a lot of cocks. And a stone, which—spoiler alert—turned out to be a butt plug. And it detonated inside the head Nazi’s ashhole—”
“Shut up!” Valor yelled. “No one even knows what you’re talking about, you attention-seeking whore!”
Sunny was fighting a laugh, but she explained loud enough for everyone to hear, “She’s talking about Earth pornography.
When the Guide carried that knife in here, it was straight out of a porn movie with knife play.
It’s a classic—and the Guide had an erection under their robe, just like in the movie.
I didn’t know Guides got off on pain. It’s starting to make sense.
The way you’ve all been acting, the cutting and the threats.
This is how you get your rocks off, right? ”
Half the room laughed, the other half gasped.
But they stopped laughing, and I started worrying, when they wrestled Sunny out of her chair and dragged her to the center of the podium.
Tradition bowed his head and intoned, “The consequences for the crimes of Sunny, the Light of Truth, have been decided. Guides? Extend her wings. Their sacrifice will atone for your willful disobedience.”
What. The. Fudge.
Even with us tied to our chairs, half the Guides on the stage had to hold Righteous, Hope and Percy down.
I scrambled for something to say, to distract until help arrived.
I had to believe it would. Truth would return with someone, something…
Our friends who weren’t here would get free and find us.
Heart and Glory would come bursting through the doors to reveal the Guides’ complicity in their abuse.
Mikhail would crash through the rooftop, knives flashing, and bring down the hammer fist of justice on the scene, like a bigger, burlier Thor.
The damn humming sound I kept hearing would turn out to be an army of bees coming to sting the smutty Guides into allergic comas. Something.
But help hadn’t arrived yet. And our conversational glitter wasn’t working.
Maybe Tradition could be sidetracked by a different kind of shiny.
Glitter was my favorite medium. His was…
“So, you do everything by tradition, huh? By the book.” Tradition nodded, his face still exposed, and I could see a hint of self-righteousness behind the somber expression.
“Punishment in public, everyone watching—is that tradition, too?” I asked calmly, though I was anything but calm inside.
I kept almost blacking out, and getting my words in order seemed harder by the moment.
But I would protect Sunny, and the rest of my friends.
I had to. “Punishment is delivered in public?”
“It is. We have nothing to hide,” he said gravely. “Unlike some.”
“Then why,” I shouted, feeling the entire Hall listening to me, “were Glory of Love and Heart of Sacrifice taken into a private room, where Guides cut out the mating feather Glory gave to Heart? Someone used Mikhail’s soul knife, which was left here for our protection, to carve out the feather that connected them.
With no trial, no judgment. Nothing. Then they left them to die. ”
Tradition frowned, but didn’t answer. In fact, he seemed taken aback. Not shocked, but a small worry line appeared in his brow. Had he not known exactly what had happened to Heart and Glory, or was he just miffed that I was calling him on it?
Gavriel had insisted Tradition was on the up and up. I’d seen in his thoughts that he wasn’t rotten. He was protecting what he loved: Sanctuary’s rules. Possibly, I could show him someone else was breaking vastly more significant rules than Sunny had.
“Where are the other Protectors who’ve been led out of this Hall been taken? Will you cut them, too, for daring to question your leadership? Why are you making these decisions anyway? Why not wait for Gavriel to return and guide you? Why the rush?”
The energy in the room started to pick up. No, I was feeling something from outside. It wasn’t the bees or whatever, though. It was something bigger.
On the plains of Tibet, centuries ago, I’d lived a short, cold life, brought to a messy end by a stampede of wild horses.
My only joy had been the evil woman I’d taken with me, who liked branding the newborn babies of the people who scratched out a life there, insisting she was burning out their evil.
This rumble reminded me of that, but it was… spiritual.
Something was coming. And when I felt a tingling on my nape, of all places, I had a feeling I knew who it was. At least, I knew who I hoped it was.
Mikhail? If that’s you, hurry. I could use some help here.
There was no answer. Time to stall.
I took a breath too fast, and my vision blurred. “Isn’t it true,” I shouted, “that Guides acted out of anger and jealousy, and injured—almost killed—two Protectors, without following any precedent or traditions at all?”
I felt a prickle of energy in my feet, as if Sanctuary were awakening again. Yes, I thought. It’s me. Help me, Sanctuary.
But Sanctuary’s power was weak and sluggish, and it was too late.
Tradition didn’t answer, merely turned away, choosing to ignore me as he watched Valor take the soul knife. Valor instructed the Guides to stretch Sunny’s wings out to each side, pulling them wide.
Righteous bellowed and lunged so violently that the Guides released him, and he tumbled, still tied to his chair, onto the marble floor of the podium. Helpless and still raging, he lay on his side, his wings trapped behind him. An answering rage bloomed in my heart.
How could this crowd watch this and not rise up?
Their cowardice and apathy had to be hurting Ry as much as the physical torture had.
These were his friends. His cohort, his students and colleagues.
They had known him for almost two thousand years, and yet no one would speak against this treatment now?
I scanned the crowd, hungry to find some sign that Sanctuary was better than the worst places I’d known on Earth.
Even in prisons, there could be a feeling of solidarity. Shared anger at the forces in power.
Many of the watching Protectors had tears coursing down their faces, but not one of them moved to stop what was happening.
They had been trained to obey. Taught by the very Guides who were perpetrating the crime in front of them.
They were helpless to sense how wrong this all was. To farking smell it.
The doors weren’t opening, which meant Heart and Glory wouldn’t arrive in time to yell “I object” and reveal the truth behind the Guides’ horrific acts.
But I wasn’t helpless.
“I can smell the chihuahua pee in your souls,” I shouted at the looming Guides. At Valor. “Valor, I can smell it inside you. I don’t know how you’re hiding it, but I can smell you.”
“She’s mad. She must be put down,” Tradition murmured to Valor, who looked shaken. They whispered back and forth, while I focused. What could I do to save us all?
I wasn’t strong enough to pull the power of Sanctuary through me—and Sanctuary wasn’t juiced up enough to give me what I’d need, anyway. But as Sunny cried out, and I was held down physically by the Guides near me, an idea sparked to life.
A really, really bad idea.