Chapter 19 #3
“Yes. You’re authorizing the creation of a division that will essentially bridge the gap between the Guardian Movement and The Shadowed, that will also act as a conduit of sorts, and will both check The Shadowed to an extent that won’t harm its effectiveness, but will also take pressure of Remnant and offer him protections so he can emerge above ground.
He would have influence over both, as I would with this and The Shadowed.
There would be limited oversight from you, and this division would also not be knowingly affiliated with the Guardian Movement, nor known to be authorized by you personally in order to keep plausible deniability and allow you to walk the fine line that you must to project stability and confidence in the supernatural populace. ”
“Yes. Requital.”
“Apt name.”
“Indeed.” He shifted his weight. “There is somebody else who will also have a role in it.”
I tensed. “That wasn’t in the proposal.”
“Because I hadn’t been able to locate him to offer up the position at the time. I have now.”
“Who is it?”
“Charles Petrone.”
“Really?”
“Someone you trust, your chief underground contact—before Remnant, anyway.” He smiled back at me. “I thought you’d approve.”
“I do.”
“Change takes time, those who are willing and courageous enough to challenge the status quo, and to often suffer for it in the process.” His lips quirked. “Charles Petrone’s mantra, I believe.”
“How do you—”
“He’s been consulted regarding our proposal. He’s also been a person of note for a long time.”
“You’ve been secretly looking into and lining up people like him and me for something like this to be rolled out?”
“We can’t remain stagnant. As the world shifts, so must we.”
I took a few moments to digest it all. “I’m not the only one on board with this. Remnant has given his go-ahead.”
“He wants to rebuild with his son. Just like you want to be there for your child.”
I jolted. “My… what?”
“Yes, I know about Velra’s pregnancy.”
“You… no… I protected that information.”
“During our extraction mission of Lazriel from Victor Halrow’s captivity, you stepped into my magic, I snatched your arm.”
“You read me,” I choked.
“You were very close to Remnant, I needed to determine your intent. Especially before I allowed you to see to Victor Halrow without due process.”
To murder him, he meant.
“No one else has been informed. It will stay with me. I know what it’s like to be desperate to protect a supremely powerful child who you fear the world won’t take well to.”
“Yeah, Ariana went through a lot where that’s concerned.”
“You will do better for your child. Each new generation is granted that chance.”
I shoved a hand through my hair. “I can’t begin to do any of that until he’s dealt with. If he knew about this…” I turned away, the weight of it, of all of it threatening to get the best of me, especially with all this heaviness added on top.
My phone buzzed in my leather coat pocket.
Four times in a row.
I turned back to Ryker and pulled it out to find a series of texts.
Velra: My parents are gone. Darethor took them out. Stopped Dark Fae mind-meddling, dozens apprehended by Thryne. Cassius absorbed Celestial magic. We’re okay.
Cassius: We are with Ketheron who has absorbed it into himself well. No damage will come to him, given his unique makeup. Velra and our child are well.
Velra: They weren’t using black magic with the Celestial power and mind-meddling, so don’t worry. Cassius wasn’t infected. The baby and me weren’t around it either.
Kai: See them texting you. Here with them at Solumira.
What Ketheron took is the max he can absorb.
The rest that the Dark Fae under Morien’s control are using and those Dark Fae Gregor has need to be contained somewhere else.
I suggested the Celestial children at Haven Initiative, but Ketheron didn’t take well to that.
Run it by Ryker, though. But with those fuckers fusing it with black magic, you need to get Ambrose involved. The kids can’t ingest that.
“Motherfucker,” I uttered, as I absorbed all of that rapidly—too rapidly. Even for me.
Instead of dictating it all, I showed my phone to Ryker, and he read over it quickly.
As I pocketed it, he said, “It needs to be the Celestial children. Ariana and Ketheron can act as conduits to provide a protective layering and to filter the power according to each child’s capacity to contain it.
It would need to be contained eternally, so the capacity has to be correct.
Going another route would require channeling all that power into an object.
All it would take then would be the wrong person accessing it and we find ourselves back in a similar situation again.
” He eyed me pointedly. “The instrument, or weapon, or whatever it is precisely, that Remnant has access to needs to be disposed of as well. I assume, given what I know of him, that he’s already aware being in possession of such a thing could only ever be temporary? ”
He knew about the Mystic Heart. Well, not precisely what form that Celestial magic was taking, but that Remnant had it, nonetheless. “We’re gonna use it to repair the Valley of the Dead. The damage is too severe for me to be able to fix it with my necromantic energy alone.”
“I know it is.”
“You ran the numbers too.” I arched an eyebrow. “What was your plan to fix it, then? You knew I’d be involved, but if you knew I wouldn’t be enough?”
“I was going to assist you, use my defensive magic to draw out the damage, then have you seal the tears.”
“Fuck, Ry, that would have drained you to near-death.”
“The near part being the acceptable aspect.”
“How many times have you been forced into that position?”
“I’ve stopped counting.”
It was spoken with dark humor, but there was definite pain there behind it. He wasn’t alone in that. And with the way he looked back at me, it was clear he knew that and recognized it in me.
“Thank fuck we don’t have to go that route now.
” I shifted my weight. “Regarding the siphoning, if I can get Ambrose in place, he’ll be the barrier to the black magic, then we’ll have him absorb it.
Only Celestial magic will pass through to Ariana and Ketheron, and they’ll distribute it to the Celestial children.
And at that point I’ll see to Morien. With the black magic pulled from his army of fools, they won’t be able to use Undead Domination on non-death-touched beings, so the Guardian Movement won’t be held completely helpless.
You’ll just need to keep the vampires, Wraiths, and Shadowmancers away at that point. ”
“We’ll move in and do a sweep, apprehend them all alongside Gregor Varsellis.
” He shifted his weight. “Now, while Ketheron and I were able to determine that we can ascertain the energy signatures of those under Morien and Gregor using Celestial power and have the siphoning from the children lock onto that from a distance to draw it out, there is something we couldn’t determine. ”
“What’s that?”
“There is no known signature to identify hybrid beings.”
I started. “There was for Ketheron. You developed something to contain him when he was being puppeted by Corvin Morvain a while back.”
“We identified his chaos signature. He’s a Polygenus Entity. He has so many aspects, utterly hybridized. Hybrid beings in the sense that we’re referring to are of two natures combined only. Not… chaotic enough to discern a single signature.”
“Hold on. It was my father’s claim that he would do that for Puritas, identify that signature, latch onto it, then use Risen Reckoning to specifically target hybrids and wipe them out in one extinction-level event from hell.
Why would he—” A chill rolled down my spine and I saw the realization Ryker had already come to.
“A set up.”
“Yes,” Ryker confirmed.
“To get us to move all hybrids into one location for him to target. We actually have three sanctuaries, but that is still obviously dangerous. We’re creating the illusion of the locations moving using powerful magics employed by my daughter.
They also exist in pocket dimensions, like our enemies are so fond of employing against us.
But hybrids are coming to us constantly wanting sanctuary, so the danger lies in the moments of them being transferred to the locations causing a security risk, the potential for the locations to be tracked.
At the same time, they can’t be denied a place of safety. ”
“You’re saying it’s only a matter of time before they’re found.”
“We need to find the enemy first. I have Guardians scouring the supernatural world. Kai and Cornelius are also sweeping it with a tracking spell constantly. Morien is in hiding. As is Gregor. Very likely they’re together.
With the Guardian Movement and The Shadowed taking down over thirty Puritas cells in a matter of days, they’re running scared. ”
“But when people like Morien run scared, they come back wielding hell itself.”
“They do, yes.”
“Ambrose is off the grid. I’ve been trying to get a hold of him, my theory being that I can track Morien through Ambrose’s black magic signature, as Corvin infused Morien with Ambrose’s power—one of the things that made it possible to resurrect that motherfucker in the first place.”
“Keep trying to contact him. But I’ll also have Calla Coretti track him via black magic means. She’s incorruptible due to a nasty process that Cornelius put her through years ago. Black magic can’t harm her either.”
“She did that for your father? To be with him?”
“Partly, yeah. Also because she saw what it can do to people when my father was corrupted by it for a long time, and it became a point of trauma for her and that process was the cure. But most don’t survive it. So much so that Cornelius destroyed the spell, one that took centuries to crack.”
Him and his unilateral decisions that impacted so many. The danger of that sort of thinking had been slammed into me over and over lately, and this was yet another instance of it.