Chapter 32 Rhiannon
RHIANNON
Rain blew sideways in sheets as we dropped through the sky. My feet hit the roof with a heavy thud that reverberated through my bones. I drew my sword as I recoiled from the impact. The Asylum guards hadn’t had a chance to prepare, so they weren’t wearing armor.
This was going to be just like the swan and the fox.
They stood no chance against us. They were humans playing war with the descendants of gods.
If they had armies, that would be different.
But these were just men. Just a few fragile, mortal men, with egos as big as the sun.
A sinister smile spread over my face as I moved into formation with my sistren.
The guards tensed. I’m sure when the helicopter dropped out of the cloud cover, they were perplexed, but they could not have expected us.
The trouble with binding the Maere to the Consulate had always been that our parapsych overlords felt a little too free to make deals that tied our hands.
The Authority and all its nasty institutions hadn’t felt the bite of our swords for centuries.
Now, the humans stepped back as Ember let out a low laugh.
“Do you want to reconsider your choice of jobs?” Max called out with a dry chuckle.
“There’s still time to run,” Calypso added. Even with her auburn hair plastered to her head by the rain, somehow her makeup was perfectly intact.
“I need the name of your setting spray,” I said casually as the first of the guards ran forward.
She cut them down with a happy little roll of her neck. “Breedlove’s Facial Fix.”
“Damn,” Lara said with a look of admiration. “You split him in half.”
A few of the guards did turn back as the rest of us moved. The slaughter was a macabre ballet, and the guards hadn’t been to rehearsal. Bullets traveled down erratic paths, missing their mark every time. Fear made them weak, and they were drowning in it.
Humans had forgotten who we were, but we were here to remind them.
My sword glowed as I fed it blood, the humans’ lifeforce flowing into me, giving me strength. It had been too long since I had this feeling. Nearly drunk with power, I moved faster, batting bullets out of the air with my sword as I butchered my way to the stairs.
When the swords had been forged, many on the island had called them evil things.
And perhaps they were. The magic that fused them to our souls made us immortal, and it connected our three cohorts in unimaginable ways.
When we fought together, rather than alone, the more we killed the more invincible we became.
It was ugly business, and I’d never been more grateful for it than I was now.
Guards kept coming as Max kicked the door to the stairs open, let out a wild cry, and dove into the fray with an acrobatic flair I hadn’t seen in years. The high of fighting together, really fighting, without holding back to appease the Consulate, was getting to us all.
Lara sliced through the first guards up the stairs, pushing them towards Calypso who shoved them towards the remaining guards who made to follow us. The blood of their comrades splattered over their faces, and several wailed in horror.
Lara grinned at us, stepping up onto the steel stair rail. “See ya at the bottom.” As she disappeared, Calypso, Ember, and I readjusted, fighting our way down the stairs. We were silent as the new wave of humans coming up the stairs found themselves trapped between us and Lara.
Ember smirked. “You’ve got a choice, babes. Take your chances with a jump, or let me kill you.”
They opened fire on us, but humans in this day and age had no idea how our power worked. They had no idea that our swords had been crafted to siphon lifeforce off each drop of human blood they ate, a sacrifice that created a feedback loop of power between us and the island’s magic.
This was a secret we’d kept so well, many in Consulate leadership had likely forgotten it. The night we’d gotten our swords back, we’d been fractured. Calypso hadn’t arrived yet. But now we were a true cohort again, and the swords’ power reactivated.
The reason the Maere were feared in the beginning was because human blood, killing humans, made us nearly as strong as our gods.
And because we could not die, we were that much more divine.
Humans were lucky we’d never wanted revenge.
All we’d ever wanted was to be left in peace. For our people to be left in peace.
All these fools had to do was be happy they’d won.
All they had to do was leave us alone and turn their vile machinations on one another.
But instead they’d massacred their way through innocent people, and when that hadn’t been enough for them, they had ostracized us.
Made our people poor. Forced us into the shadows.
Humiliated us, villainized us, until we were criminals.
They’d taken almost everything from us, and now they wanted the scraps of what we had left.
The words, this has to end, repeated in my mind, a low drumbeat of terror, as I cut through the last of the guards. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, no one slowed down. Ember and I stepped over the bodies at the bottom of the stairs and headed straight for the elevators.
I looked back. Blood seeped out of our victims, but I felt none of the old remorse. There wasn’t a single urge to vomit left in me. Calypso pressed the “down” button on the elevator.
A soft ding played as it rose towards us. All they had to do was leave us alone. Ding. I took a shuddering breath, steadying myself for whatever came next. Ding. This has to end. Ding.
“They’re keeping her in the basement,” Lara said as the elevator crept towards our floor, breaking the thrum of the only two thoughts I could manage in my head. Her jaw twitched. “That’s where they do the worst shit.”
Instantly, guilt washed over me. I hadn’t even thought of what it would be like for her to come back here.
She’d spent twenty years in this place, biding her time to do what we now knew was the island’s dirty work.
Whatever she’d endured here, it had to have left its scars on her heart, if not her body.
I reached for her hand, but she sidestepped me, flinching a little. “You okay?”
Lara smiled, but the expression didn’t make its way past her lips as her fists clenched tight. “Sure. This is fun.”
Calypso and Max both rolled their eyes as the elevator doors opened with a cheerful chime. There was nothing to do but play along with Lara. If we broke open the feelings box now, we were all fucked.
We’d done this together long enough to know that.
“To the basement, then,” Ember said as the five of us, covered in blood, crowded into the tiny space.