Chapter 9 Abigail
Abigail sped back to the house in the golf cart, her eyes on the columns rising above hedges.
She jumped the curb, floored it all the way to her place, got out, rushed up the steps and inside the front door.
Once inside, she slammed it shut and locked every single lock, then hurried to the elevator, wishing she had time to say spells.
Inside, she pressed the button and sank against the wall, clutching her chest and drawing in long breaths, unable to recall a single spell anyway.
The elevator chugged to the second floor and the doors slid open. Abigail stepped out, muttering, “Ethedra, have to get to Ethedra…”
She shuffled down the hallway, back to her suite that led to the attic.
Inside, she closed the door to the bathroom, the one up to the attic, and the door out to the hallway.
She sat on the single bed, where she caught her breath for a few precious moments, then lay down in the middle and held on to the sides.
The bed spun like a merry-go-round, once, twice, three times, and the portal activated, turning here to there, and there to here.
Abigail lay still until her brain stopped spinning and then she fought her way to her feet, feeling wrong somehow.
She turned and saw her cask had fallen to the bed.
She snatched it up and slung it around her shoulders, then stood as tall as she was able, taking a few more precious seconds to rest, looking around the room.
Abigail hurried up the inset stairs into the attic.
On the wall, Paisley’s veil glowed, making Abigail’s stomach hurt.
The veil was a representation of the magical protection in Paisley’s brain that would descend upon her mind, dropping her into an unwakeable sleep, if ever the unthinkable were to happen.
Abigail had placed the veil at the moment of Paisley’s birth…
and the unthinkable was fucking upon them.
She crested the top step and turned away from the veil, hurrying into the far dark recesses of the attic with her hands out, able to see almost nothing, but knowing exactly where the rotation room was.
Panicked in a way she hadn’t been in a hundred years, she groped her way to it, then found the door and moved inside to the chair situated in the very center of the room.
She sat, and the room spun around her with a ‘whiiizzzzzzz’ noise, as the portal activated.
The room spun to a slow stop. Abigail stood and plunged forward to the door.
She was now in the Templum—a natural cavern buried in the rock of Morning Bluff, a mile away from where she’d just sat down.
The Templum was a place of power with seven world portals and a pinprick hole to the Pravus, which oozed power like a geyser sprays water.
Abigail had found the cavern centuries ago and tried to never stray too far from it and the protection and power it offered her.
Abigail opened the door and peeked out of the rotation room into the vast cavern of the Templum.
The electric lights were off, casting the center of the area into darkness.
Torches lined the walls, lighting the stone steps that led to a rooftop exit, and the various furniture and implements placed here and there.
To the left was a long rock slab fashioned like an altar—the Bofox Sanctum—where she’d attempted to summon the bofox so many times.
The openings to the seven portals were visible—she’d had wells built over each of them—and they were all dark.
In the center was a hole to the Pravus that oozed hazy vvyst to slide along the floor and collect in the corners.
Above the hole, just below the rocky ceiling, was a metal box floating in mid-air, held there with a whole ton of vvyst. A pipe extended into the box, piping a misty haze from it down to the floor.
There, it joined with more pipes and flowed to equipment that collected power for Abigail’s uses.
Inside the box was her granddaughter’s shiftsegen, a divine gift of power Abigail had appropriated for the good of her family.
It had been down inside the mine, collecting vvyst from the Pravus at an unbelievable rate, until a month ago when there’d been an incident, and it had rebelled.
Now the shiftsegen was encased and vvyst was being extracted directly, but it was slow.
On the cavern floor, one of the wells filled with light and Ethedra stepped above it.
She was dressed in a floor-length ceremonial black gown with a hood up over her head and was holding a vortex of energy between her two hands.
The vortex was one of Ethedra’s most powerful contrivances, able to see the future and transmute energy.
Ethedra was Abigail’s ‘counterpart’ from the world Orion.
They’d met in a magical accident, and grown into staunch allies over the last century, each useful to the other in uncommon ways.
Abigail lurched forward. Thank Rhen! Thank Ethedra!
Ethedra slowly turned her way.
“He took Paisley!” Abigail yelled, the raw cry hurting her throat, the cavern amplifying her words. “Khain took Paisley!”
She doubled over, and coughed, emotional pain ripping through her, because Paisley was her favorite, and full of hidden power. Paisley was likely to be the one to succeed where Abigail had failed so many times at summoning the bofox, and until the bofox was summoned, not one of them would be free.
No one knew exactly who or what the bofox was, but foxen myth and legend said the bofox would break the Tether to Khain for all foxen, and instill them as equal to wolven, bearen, and felen.
Abigail coughed again and again, her mind swimming with her failures. It had been over a century since any of her grandbabies had been stolen, and the thought of Paisley in the Pravus with the demon made Abigail’s coughs turn to retching. Her chest tightened and her head pounded with sudden pain.
She grabbed at her chest, groaning at the pressure there, then she tipped, finally losing her battle with life.
She fell over, the full mental weight of her death crashing in on her.
She knew exactly how it would go—the knowledge of her clan that she kept from Khain would immediately rush to him.
He would know where all of her progeny lived, down to the most useless half-cur, and he’d be able to find each of them in the Ula immediately.
Those who had magic would scramble to protect themselves and some would succeed but most would fail.
Khain would gather all he could and force them to serve him in disgusting ways.
He’d tear their secrets from them, and then he’d know where to find the Van Crimsons and the Van Boesons.
Once he’d pilfered most of the foxen from the Ula, his stolen knowledge and powers would return to him, and he would immediately know how to access Rhen’s body, his main goal.
Within days of Abigail’s death, Khain would march into Serenity with hundreds of foxen forced to do his bidding, and no one would be able to stop him, not wolven, not felen, not bearen, not all of them working together.
Abigail fell, unable to fight anymore. She gave up and gave in, not caring for a blissful second, crashing to… …. …to a cushion made of translucent vvyst. It fluffed around her like a cloud, rushing to cup her body, seeking entry inside via her nostrils, her mouth, and her ears.
The pain eased, Abigail’s head cleared, and her body relaxed.
Energy poured into her and helped her to her feet.
Standing firmly, she lifted her chin to see Ethedra holding the vortex over her head, a bright light swirling with grey and black matter flowing in a stream from it across the Templum, directly to Abigail’s chest, swarming her and filling her with healing power.
Abigail closed her eyes. Thank Rhen. Her eyes flew open and she ran for Ethedra’s well. The vortex-light moved with her for a few feet, then the stream collapsed to the ground like water, the energy dissipating while Ethedra tucked the vortex away in the folds of her cloak.
Abigail shouted, “You said it would be a human child! He took Paisley!”
Ethedra pulled the vortex back out of her cloak and held it between her hands, one over and one under. Abigail stopped ten feet from Ethedra’s well and stared, transfixed by the pull of the thing.
“Because your protections are so complete and biological—” Ethedra intoned, her voice deeper and louder than normal, reverberating through the vortex. “—the Augury was fooled and saw a human child, but the Tether is ever at work in your family, drawing Khain to you, even when he intends a human.”
Twisted emotion flooded Abigail, filling her throat with fire.
She stomped her foot and magic crackled around her like electricity.
“The Tether, the Tether, the Tether!” she shouted.
“Of course it’s the motherfucking Tether!
I’ll never be free! Always will I have to watch my fucking back, watch my fucking voice, watch my fucking grandbabies!
” She shrieked like a warrior, filled with a young woman’s voice, expressing the agony of living as the demon’s spawn.
“The bofox will break the Tether,” Ethedra intoned in that same reverberating voice.
“But Paisley!”
“She is protected. Your veil is protecting her mind.”
“Her body?”
“Khain has needs for it to be whole and well. He has The Use for it. She will be untouched, if the vodvod Crew Arcoal gives up his mate, and if his mate gives up her life.”
“They both will?”
“They both have promised again and again.”
“Khain will give up my granddaughter?”
Ethedra smirked but the voice did not lose its resonant sound. “Without ever knowing what he had in his hands. The wolves will recover her. She’ll be taken to the hospital, where you’ll retrieve her without incident, if you are quick and ready and everyone plays their part well.”
“Will Crew Arcoal sense Paisley’s veil?”
“Perhaps.”
“What will he do?”
“The fates offer several replies.”
“Sweet fuck,” Abigail whispered, knowing that meant no one knew what any filthy vodvod would do in the moment.
“The fates reveal you’ll be talking to him sometime today, before Paisley is recovered.”
Abigail moved to the closest well and held on, expecting her legs to give out at the news, but they didn’t. She stayed standing, musing, running her fingers over the brick of the well, with Ethedra silent behind her.
Abigail turned to face her. “What about you?”
“The fates have long foreseen the vodvod seeking the counsel of the augur, as this day turns to the next. The seeds have been planted and nurtured and only await eruption and bloom.”
Abigail thought that meant Crew Arcoal would be going to Orion and meeting with Ethedra around midnight. Ethedra had influenced someone close to him in that world years ago, in preparation for this moment.
Ethedra lifted a hand from the vortex, raising it over her head.
She snapped her fingers, then drew her hand down her body.
Her clothing changed from the black ceremonial gown with hood to a lacy purple dress drawn at the waist with a leather corset, high-laced black boots, and fringed headwear, her gray hair loose down her back, her eyes dark and luminous, staring at nothing in particular.
Abigail backed up against the well, clutching imaginary pearls. “You look like you should be telling fortunes at the county fair!”
“The wolves expect garishness,” Ethedra intoned, her hand drifting back to cup the vortex. She tucked it into a secret pocket, and her voice became normal again.
“I look forward to meeting with your precious vodvod today,” she sneered. “I have a very important task for him in Dilmet.” She pouted theatrically. “My babies are trapped and hungry.”
Abigail snapped her fingers in the air, shouting, “As long as he recovers Paisley first!”
Ethedra nodded down at her, her eyes narrowed. “Of course. Paisley is most important; my babies are secondary.”
Abigail nodded viciously. Damn right. She looked around, her mind whirring fast. She put a hand to her head, muttering, “How can I possibly meet with the vodvod Crew Arcoal? He can dig into my mind. If I block his attempts, he’ll know immediately what I am, and then he’ll arrest me, and if he arrests me, the seal is broken, and all is lost. If I don’t block him, he’ll know immediately what I am, then he’ll arrest me, and if. ..”
Her voice trailed off as the only way out filled her mind. She hooked a finger at Ethedra, hissing, “I know what to do and I need your help.”