Chapter 19 #2
That would have to change in the near future should the Basilisk Kingdom wish to integrate properly with the rest of the supernatural world. Something that I planned to bring about.
Yes, I was moving toward responding to my people’s call in the way they were beseeching me to.
Honestly, the way they clearly needed me to.
However, for now, the gap in knowledge regarding the Basilisk species enabled me to slip between those cracks. Quite literally, with my ability to camouflage into my surroundings and thereby move between cells without drawing notice in the slightest.
Rather nice cells in point of fact. Lush blankets and pillows adorning an actual bed, not merely a cot.
A bookshelf in each stocked full of all sorts of reading material to give those in custody something to entertain themselves with.
Changes of clothing in a chest of drawers. Even a fully-stocked bathroom.
Under the leadership of Ryker Morgan, the Guardian Movement had become a rather civil and humane institution, while also being a supernatural enforcement organization.
As I neared my first target at the rear of the facility, my boots moving soundlessly on the sleek light stone floors, my body slinking along the polished ivory walls etched with silver latticework, a disturbance in the vibrational resonance I was carefully outputting registered.
Something pushing up against it—another covert force at work.
I scented the air, but there was nothing there. Someone was performing a scent-wipe on themselves.
Hmm.
I continued on regardless.
This had to be done.
And it had to be done tonight, because all fourteen of these necromancers were being arraigned tomorrow, many would likely be moved. Scattered. Concealed in protective custody.
In large part because of Sylas.
There were warranted concerns as to what he would do to them given the chance. The Guardian Movement believed tonight would be off the table, because of the toll him death-tethering and mass-teleporting earlier had exacted on his body with him only just having healed.
I reached the first target on my list and passed through into the cell with a little vibrational resonance, moving through the walls, then immediately camouflaging myself to the interior.
But I started at what I discovered inside.
I honestly had to make a supreme effort not to react either physically or verbally.
Damnation.
He was here with one of those in custody.
Sylas was already here.
In Ansel’s cell.
One of Ruxnoth’s most loyal cultish fools.
The hulk of a man had those nasty shimmering white Nihilumbra binds coiled around the arms of his navy long-sleeve tee, also around the thighs of his white leather pants.
But unlike what Winter had been subjected to, this version of the substance was more…
portable. Ansel could move around, instead of having his feet set into the substance and forced into stasis.
It was only neutralizing his necromantic power and abilities.
His scuffed boots had the same shimmering white all over the soles, so that had to be the upgrade to what seemed to be an earlier version of Nihilumbra.
Although, he certainly wasn’t moving at this particular moment in time.
He was backed against the wall as Sylas drew close, one drawn out step at a time, which had Ansel tugging nervously at his white-blonde buzz cut in a bid to conceal his nerves.
It was not working in the least.
He tried a different tactic, narrowing his eyes and growling.
Ah, pretenders. They only ever made things worse for themselves.
There was no respect to be had in that.
“You can’t touch me while this poison is wrapped around me,” he sneered at Sylas.
Sylas snarled, his hand shooting out and snapping to Ansel’s throat, making the fool splutter and gag.
Temperance had allowed Sylas to be temporarily unaffected by it for the specific purpose of dealing with these necromancers, but as I saw him grimace and then heard him hiss when he remained touching Ansel, it seemed they’d meant it in the sense that it wouldn’t confine him, or impact his magic, not that it wouldn’t cause him physical pain.
“You motherfucking fool,” Sylas growled at him. “You should’ve let this go years back. I warned you then what would happen if you didn’t.”
“What can I say, Sy? I’m consistent.”
“Obsessive,” Sylas bit back. “Pathetically obsessive over someone—now someones—not worth the veneration. Always so desperate for a Daddy. It’s some depraved shit you’ve got going on there.
And now it’s Ruxnoth who you’re opening wide for.
Before that, Morien, the fucker who stoked that sick fire in you, hmm?
” He released him roughly. “I’m not knocking a kink, to be clear. I wish that was what this was.”
“Never thought you would. Although you couldn’t quite hide your distaste when it came to me and your father.”
“You mean the maniac who used you—for everything?”
“He didn’t! He didn’t do that!”
“Of course he did. And it’s never normal attachment with you. Is it, you demented motherfucker? You can’t function without being a bitch to a perceived wielder of supreme power, and the more twisted and dark the better for you.”
“What is it to you now? Ruxnoth is gone. You murdered your own father years back.”
“There it is. I murdered Morien.”
“Not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Sure you are. You want justice. Urgh, even using the word ‘justice’ when it comes to that piece of shit makes me sick. But that’s the way your twisted mind views it.
You still believe he never intended to include you in the culling.
He did. You weren’t an exception to him.
One of those who was murdered was your girlfriend, if you recall?
The woman you were with for several years? Ringing any bells?”
“Because he didn’t want a complication weakening my loyalty to him!” Ansel burst out with. “Do you get that? He trusted in me! I was his favorite! The son he never had!”
Sylas screwed up his face. “Urgh, never say that in this context again. Although, I’m always fine with being considered ‘not his son’. Anytime, Ansel.”
Ansel lunged forward, but a single slam from Sylas’ glowing crimson palm had him smacking back against the wall.
“You never even tried to understand him, Sy! Instead, you ripped me from him! You ruined what we had!”
“I was protecting you, you fucking fool!” He got up close and snagged Ansel’s jaw. “You know the most foolish thing you’ve ever done, though? And, my, do you keep escalating as the years wear on. The most foolish thing was locking onto my son!”
Ansel’s eyes shot wide. “Uh… what?”
“I know, so save your denial. I’ve been duly informed, you sick fuck.”
“Wesley?”
“So many sources.” He squeezed his throat and hissed, “You’ll never lay hands on him! What you intended to do… it’s beyond sick and I won’t allow even the threat of that to exist.”
Ansel let out a choked laugh. “You kill me, you’ll lose everything.”
Sylas released him roughly. “You think I’m here in this cell to end you right this instant?
Oh no, you shortsighted, simpleton. I’m here to ensure I’ll always have a direct link to you, that I’ll know exactly where you are, through any spell that attempts to conceal your whereabouts.
The Guardian Movement thinks a lot of you loyalists here can be rehabilitated.
I know better where you’re concerned. And there are several here much like you.
Not everyone can be saved. Let me rephrase: not everyone wants to be saved. ”
“You tag me the way you’re talking about, it won’t be like the necromantic link those traitors forged so you could death-tether us all in one shot. You’d have to keep a part of me in you. Rotting you, feeling it in you.”
“A small price to pay to protect my son from your depravity.”
“Sy, wait, I—”
“I will come for you,” Sylas rumbled. “You won’t know where or when. But it will happen and it will happen brutally.”
“They’ll trace it back to you. They already think you’re gonna do something to us, take us out.”
“There’s a big difference between accusation and proof. I run a covert organization, I’m deeply connected to another. Do you really think I can’t cover my tracks exceptionally well? You’re back on my turf now. I’m the Almighty Necromancer. There is nowhere you can go where you’ll be safe from me.”
I grimaced. I couldn’t allow Sylas to connect himself to this disgusting being in the manner that had been revealed.
Nor any others here who he clearly also had on his list—he’d mentioned “several” out of the fourteen here.
The other six had already proven their loyalty and weren’t being held here, instead they’d been settled in apartments that doubled as Guardian Movement safehouses.
I stepped out from my concealment and dropped my camouflage.
“Sylas,” I spoke.
He jolted and spun around, while automatically holding up a flaming crimson palm to Ansel to prevent any attempted rush he might make at him while Sylas had his attention elsewhere.
“Vaxan,” he breathed. “What are you doing here? I’m not currently trackable.”
“Neither am I.”
He registered my meaning. “Interesting.”
“I’ll see to this. I came here to tag them all with a vibrational tether. For me, the way I do it, I won’t feel them in the way you clearly will. It won’t touch me the same.”
Sylas rolled his eyes. “You think this fool can make me feel him and his “rot” in the way he thinks? No.”
“You’re certain?”
He stepped up to me and grasped my hand and I felt the illusion he was erecting encompass me, then he employed an auditory reduction spell that wouldn’t be felt beyond the illusion, and also would ensure Ansel didn’t overhear.
Apparently his small bursts of power like slamming Ansel against the wall were just below the detection radar of the Guardian Movement.
“Considering I was carrying a Death Seal forged with Morien’s death, and it didn’t touch me for two decades, yes. ”
“I see. It would be a similar undertaking.” I knew more about Necromancy than a lot of non-necromantic beings, but this was duly intricate, even for me. “And you mentioned the Death Seal in the past tense. You’ve dissolved it? Because you discovered it could incidentally be used to unmake Winter?”
“Take away his Necromancy, yes.” He eyed me intensely. “No one can know I’ve broken this. No one.”
“I know. You were supposed to keep it as a fail-safe.”
“With everything that’s happened, things have altered.”
“I understand. Believe me. But what about you employing it in the first place to prevent you ever being used to track Winter?”
“He’s beyond that now. He’s come into his power. He doesn’t need that level of protection from me anymore. What he did… how he not only survived Sanctus, but was key to engineering its destruction… he’s a force on his own now.”
This was… incredible. “I’m sure he’d like to hear that from you.”
“You mean, he needs to hear it.”
I started. “What precisely happened in the Veil? He was rooted there for far too long, given his nature.”
“He reacted to the pull of the Valley.”
“He wanted to remain?”
“It was a consideration, yes.”
“You intervened?”
“I didn’t pull him out. He did that on his own. It had to be his choice.”
“I see. Now the pull to the Valley won’t remain with him.”
“Yes.” He sighed. “Ruxnoth had reframed Winter’s rage and wish to inflict violence upon him as a defect he’d created in Winter, one that would forever remain. He had Winter believing that he’s tainted now, no longer ‘good’ or his former gentle self.”
“That could never be true.”
“I agree. But we’re not the ones who need to see and believe that, are we?”
“We’re monitoring him, and now you’ve told me this, it’ll help the three of us with our approach to Winter’s recovery. And given this, I need to fill you in on the interaction Winter and Zayn had with Ruxnoth before I arrived on the scene inside Sanctus.”
He scrubbed his hand over his face. “Tether the targets first, then we’ll discuss it.”
I frowned. “You do want me to employ my version?”
“Yeah. It’s untraceable. Mine could be compromised under certain circumstances.”
“My tether to Winter was broken. You need to be made aware of that.”
“That was an extreme circumstance with Sanctus being on another metaphysical plane. Not even just another realm, but also on a plane that no one, not nature itself, even knew existed. You do this, though, and you will technically be complicit. I will of course protect you, but morally, ethically, it will land on you. Because I will kill Ansel and the several others I’ve identified as beyond being rehabilitated.
I’ll also insist on you tethering me to your tether. ”
Of course he’d insist on that. It might be considered paranoid by many, but for somebody with his depth of trauma, the threats he’d dealt with, it was justified hypervigilance.
“I understand. And regarding the eliminations you’re planning, that was already my intent anyway.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Are Evira and Zayn aware of this?”
“They’re aware that I’m here to tag the hostile necromancers so I can monitor them.”
“Your true intent is a lot to carry.”
“Not really, given my background. Besides there will be a great deal more to carry soon.”
“You’ve decided to become sovereign, then?”
“Something that would need to be discussed with my loves first if it were the case.”
His lips quirked. “Of course.” He gestured back at Ansel with his hand that was still glowing with his power and holding him at bay, “In the meantime, let’s see to this.”
“Indeed.”