15. I Am Me. We Are Us #2
No, I… Charlie stopped. I am me.
You are you, huh? What does that mean? Eyros appeared bored. Despite being able to know every thought in every person’s head–if he so wished to know–he found personal reflection uninteresting.
I am… It doesn’t matter. Maybe the War did kill me. I… I don’t know, Charlie said.
You realize how fucked up that sounds, don’t you? Oh, and I love that word: fuck, fucked, ah, so satisfying! And so evocative! Eyros hummed in pleasure.
It’s not a nice thing to say to someone, Balky, Charlie said with a frown. I mean, Eyros. Eyros.
Charlie. Balthazar. Caemorn, Grayson. Ryder. Fiona. All of us with new names! New faces! We could all be Mirryrs, couldn’t we in a way? Eyros chuckled.
You are you. I am me. We all are different, but the same, Charlie answered.
Are you having an identity crisis, Mirryr? You are Mirryr, you know? Eyros’ voice was surprisingly kind.
I…
You really are. I know even if you don’t, Eyros assured him. It’s not a dream, Mirryr. You really are you.
We shall see. Charlie smoothed his hands down the front of his toga. Do any of these people know of a different way into the ziggurat than the front door?
Let me see–ah! Damn, we are running out of time. Like really running out, Eyros’ tone had changed and was rushed, worried.
What’s wrong? Charlie almost put a finger to his ear as if they were speaking through an earpiece. He dropped his hand. That was ridiculous and strange and people would notice. He was really out of practice.
Grayson is dying. Right now, Mirryr.
Charlie began to briskly walk towards the ziggurat. He passed by the two whose faces and forms he copied. With a brief twitch of his fingers and of his mind, he covered the other two with the glamour. Khos also had changed. Its rib cage was exposed and half its jaw missing. Or appeared to be.
Tell the others to come into the ziggurat through any other door than the front, Charlie commanded Eyros.
Wait! What are you going to do? Eyros asked.
I’m going to go in the front, Charlie said simply as he continued to walk in a brisk yet seemingly unhurried way to the ziggurat and the two Vampires who stood guard.
How did you change Fiona, Ryder and Khos’ forms without touching them? I thought you had to touch them at least! Eyros asked.
I might have misled you if I said that I had to touch them. I don’t, Charlie admitted.
Ah…
Don’t you remember when I obscured our whole army in the swamp as reeds? You think I cannot make three people look different a few blocks away? Charlie heard a proud tone enter his voice. A tone of command.
I… yes, of course, you did, but I thought… I don’t know what I thought.
You thought what Daemon had you think. What I asked him to make you think, Charlie answered.
What? Wait–
Eyros, I am the true Spy. What I can and cannot do must be kept secret. Now you know more of it than you ever have. Be satisfied with that, Charlie insisted.
You’re afraid of me, Eyros said after a long moment. Afraid of all of us.
Only a fool wouldn’t be, Charle admitted. But saving Grayson is all that matters. I won’t have him harmed again if I can help it. Now I must concentrate. And I will need you to concentrate.
I cannot help you once you pass within those walls, Mirryr, Eyros warned.
Hopefully, I will not need your help, Charlie answered.
The two guards had seemed unconcerned as he had approached.
At first, at any event. But when he continued to move towards them with that half smile on his lips and his chin lifted just so, they had begun to shift uncomfortably.
The one to the right was the first to move.
He stepped forward, one hand extended, rather like that of a crossing guard.
“You cannot enter here. Go back–”
The guard got no further than that as Charlie shattered into three images of the Kaly Vampire.
The guard’s eyes widened, but then they glossed over as Charlie snapped his neck then crushed his head under foot with one of his forms while the other two turned to the guard to the left.
He drew power from the touch, transforming into the guard he’d killed, adding to his Kaly power.
The other guard opened his mouth to shout, but Charlie had one of his forms grab the man’s head.
Another pinned his arms. The final form had his legs.
He was taken down and silenced, bones broken, head a smashed pumpkin against the ground.
He now had two forms. He looked like both guards.
Good gods, Mirryr, Eyros breathed. I had no idea…
There were cries of surprise from down the street. He spilled handfuls of soul gems onto the ground behind him, releasing the creatures within. While they would, undoubtedly, be captured in time, they would cause havoc before then.
Are the others almost here? Charlie asked Eyros.
Yes, they’re bringing death, too, Eyros answered.
Good. I’m going in. Charlie grabbed the door handle.
We’ll lose contact while you’re inside, Eyros warned again.
I know. Just… just be here when we come out again, Balky, Charlie said.
There was a momentary pause. I will be, Charlie.
Charlie’s two forms smiled and he turned the handle. The door was not locked. Of course, it would not be. Such a thing would have shown weakness. He hoped that Artemis would be too enamored of his prey to have heard these noises outside. He went inside.
The room was darker than it should have been. There were spilled burning soul gems on the ground. They smoldered and gave off noxious fumes that had Charlie’s lungs seizing. What the fumes were doing to Grayson couldn’t be fathomed.
Framed by the orange glowing light, he saw one figure lying prone on his back while another, slighter form perched on top of him. The smaller figure drew a sharp fingernail along the inside of his wrist. Blood was dripping down it and pattering on the prone figure’s lips.
Oh, no.
“Stop!” Charlie called out of two mouths.
The slender figure–Artemis–spun around to look at him. Seeing his two guards standing there, ordering him to stop had the Kaly slice frowning.
“What are you doing here? You idiots, get out…” And then his voice stopped as he must have caught sight of the dead bodies as the door closed behind Charlie’s two forms. Or maybe he actually heard the shouts that were building in the street outside. “Who are you?”
“You must stop,” Charlie said in those two voices.
“It can’t be you,” Artemis whispered. “You died.”
“I am me,” Charlie said in two voices, but from one person.
Artemis did not debate him. Instead, he ripped open his wrist more and slammed his bleeding arm against Grayson’s lips. Grayson struggled, but it was weak and he had no choice, but to drink.
No…
Charlie took a step forward, but before he could do anything, a figure flew through the air and caught Artemis around the middle and slammed him into the far wall.
The wall buckled under the pressure, nearly breaking altogether.
There was a crater a foot deep. Artemis snarled and spat as Ryder pinned him by the throat.
“Too late!” Artemis laughed. “Too late! Are you going to kill Ashyr’s Master? Will you condemn him to a life of pain and madness, Weryn?”
“No!” Ryder’s head snapped towards where Grayson lay on the divan.
Grayson’s lips were parted and smeared with blood. Blood rained down his chin and cheeks. It coated his tongue. Artemis’ blood. Kaly’s blood.
“NO!” Ryder screamed.
“Fifi, you need to undo it!” Charlie cried as he advanced upon the young man, losing the two figures and becoming himself again.
Fiona flew to Grayson’s side. “What? Charlie, I don’t know how to turn back time!”
“You do, Wyvern. You know how. You can do this. You could have stopped the War before it began if you had been with Ashyr in this place so long ago,” Charlie told her. “You must do it now. You must!”
“I can’t! Daemon–Daemon can do it! Or he can use Armageddon to reverse this and Ryder can turn Grayson–”
“That won’t work on an Immortal, Wyvern,” Charlie said. “It would rip him apart. You must do this or it will begin again. We won’t be ourselves, but other people. Bad people. We must not let this happen again!”
“Fiona, please!” Ryder screamed.
“It’s too late! It’s too late! It’s too late!” Artemis sang like a demented school child.
“Like hell it is,” Fiona grimaced.
Fiona grasped Grayson’s shoulders with both her hands. She closed her eyes so tightly. She whispered a prayer and something like, “please, please, please let this work.”
Someone tried to get through the door. Khos body slammed it shut.
Ryder called out, “Do that again and you’ll find Artemis in a soul gem!”
“You can’t do that to me. And Ashyr is too weak to do anything at all,” Artemis laughed, blood bubbling on his lips.
Charlie lifted up a soul gem between two fingers of his right hand.
He advanced upon Artemis and slammed his left palm against the Kaly slice’s forehead.
He pulled all the essence he could, adding to what he had already taken from the three others.
His face and body morphed. Artemis stared with horror mixed with derision as he stared at his own face.
“You might look like me, but you aren’t me,” Artemis sneered.
The soul gems began to glow and a seed of doubt sprouted in Artemis’ eyes. “I am me and I have all the power of yours I need.”
“Fiona?” Ryder asked, his voice breaking. “Charlie, is anything happening? I’m not feeling anything!”
Charlie’s eyes darted back to where Grayson lay. Nothing was happening. Fiona’s eyes were squeezed shut, but it was clear her powers were not working or she couldn’t make the time change work or something. It was going to be too late. It was already too late.
But then there was a breeze. A small breeze.
A drop of blood left Grayson’s parted lips.
It flowed upwards as if towards an invisible wrist. More of the blood pulled out of Grayson.
The red that painted his tongue, teeth then lips then chin disappeared.
Fiona let out a ragged scream as she tried to rewind time.
The wind died. Fiona keeled over him, breathing raggedly.
There were still a few drops of Artemis’ blood on Grayson’s lips.
But had any gotten inside? Did it matter?
It was not enough to turn him. Not enough to make him Artemis’ Childe.
He didn’t think so anyways. He hoped not.
“Ryder, go now! Give Grayson your blood! I will handle Artemis,” Charlie told him.
Ryder nodded and was moving swiftly to Grayson’s side. Charlie heard him say, “Oh, my love, forgive me for this. I wanted it to be so different.”
“You cannot do this,” Artemis croaked. “You cannot. It has been foreseen.”
Charlie stared at the Kaly slice just as he pulled his goddamned soul into the soul gem in his hand. “We are doing this, Artemis. We make our fate. We are us.”