Chapter 7 #2
“He’s already got the ability to know what people don’t want. That’s why he ate the banwyn stone. Those fuckers feed on panic and fear, so now he has the subtle magical ability to sense what people fear the most.”
That wasn’t a subtle ability; it was powerful as heck, especially if that fear was something you wanted to keep hidden. Knowing someone’s fears meant that you could exploit them. That’s why he was finding it easy to round up the disenfranchised shifters for his little army.
Cecil was still talking. “... genies give you what you want, if you catch one, but they don’t instinctively know what you want.
You have to tell them. And even then, their main magical gift is the ability to misinterpret your wishes so hard that when you respectfully request a long vacation somewhere exotic, hot and steamy, you end up doing a life sentence in a jail in Delhi. ”
“Connor’s not that drawn to the positives,” I said. “I bet he’d be going after more negatives. He’d want to know what else scares people. Is there something else like that, apart from the banwyn?”
He shrugged. “The wraiths deal in misery. There’s a goth club downtown that’s full of them.”
“Hmm,” I said, tapping my chin. “Misery isn’t known for motivating people, though.
It’s more for wallowing. I’m looking for something that Connor could use to drive people to do what he wants them to do.
Something that makes them lose their mind a little bit.
Like with fear. Is there something like that? ”
Cecil wrinkled his furry nose, thinking. “Not exactly. Not really. But there is a stone that might give him the power to know what frustrates people.”
“Hmm. That could work. Frustration is motivating.” I pointed my pencil at him. “What spark stone can do that?”
“There is a Middle World supernatural species that we in Faerie call biùrocrat. They call themselves the brethren, and the other Middle Worlders call them ‘those fucking little demon assholes.’”
“Demons?”
He shrugged. “Demon seems to be used as an umbrella term in the Middle World for anyone who might annoy you. And the brethren are the kings of annoying. The brethren stone specifically gives them the power to know exactly what will frustrate you, and they build their hives to entrap people so they can frustrate the shit out of them.”
“Perfect,” I breathed out. “Why would any species need to know what frustrates people, though?”
“Take a guess, Einstein. Why do you think?”
I thought about it for a moment. “They feed on frustration.”
“They feed on frustration,” Cecil confirmed, nodding. “Just like the succubus feed on sexual desire and the banwyn feed on fear. The brethren know what to do to provoke feelings of intense frustration, and they build their hives around milking this feeling out of humans for all its worth.”
I wrote it all down on my notepad—brethren, frustration, hives. “So, what kind of creature are the brethren? Are they creepy little kids like the banwyn?”
“Nope. Even though frustration is a negative emotion, they’re strictly Middle World creatures.”
“Okay… What do they look like?”
He shrugged. “They look like normal humans. They’re not conventionally attractive, and it’s deliberate. They do tend to get a little sweaty, especially when they’re hungry. They like wearing brown, and only shaving to the chin, leaving the neck bare.” He shrugged again. “That’s all I got.”
“They look like normal humans?”
“Yep. Oh, no. Wait. They’ve got horns.”
“Horns?”
“That’s another reason they get called demons. You can’t see their horns, though.
“And they’re fairly benign?”
“I mean, as benign as you possibly can be, considering they do stuff like block traffic as construction workers while making sure everyone can see that they’re not actually fixing the road, they’re just having a nice cup of coffee with their construction pals.”
“They don’t swarm like the banwyn?”
“Nope. It doesn’t take much to keep them fed. Frustration is a particular emotion, and it’s quite easy to slip into despair if you push it too hard, so they’re careful about what kind of stuff they do.”
I tapped the marker in my hand. “That fits Connor’s MO.
You’re right, frustration is a particular emotion, and it’s also a very powerful emotion.
When you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to see clearly, and you’d just about do anything to get through whatever they’re putting you through.
Maybe he’s targeting the brethren stone next, just to give himself more power over people’s emotions.
If he’s building an army, it will make him much stronger. ”
Cecil inclined his head. “You could be onto something there, Chosen.”
Another wave of exhaustion hit me. I stood and started pacing, suddenly gripped with the impulse to keep moving. I felt strangely unsettled. Moving would help. “Now, would it be easy to find a portal to their realm?”
“No. Of course not. They feed on frustration, Chosen. Their portal is probably somewhere on the showroom floor of Ikea. We’ll never find it. That place is worse than the Labyrinth. And it doesn’t even have a sexy elf king with a giant codpiece at the center.”
“Oh, right.”
“Besides, it would be pointless to go to their realm anyway. They all come here to the human realm during daylight hours to feed, so there would be no one there.”
“But if Connor were targeting their stone, wouldn’t he go there?”
“I imagine the brethren would keep it secured in a warded pocket dimension like the berserkers did. Everyone knows not to leave their stones unguarded now that the Devourer is on the loose. No, I think we’d have to find one of their hives and talk them into letting us close their stone so Connor can’t get his hands on it. ”
I grimaced. “How do we find one of their hives?” I was itching to throw off this brain fog, and the only way I could do that was with a little forward motion.
“Should we just go and find some construction workers? No.” I dismissed the idea with a shake of my head.
“That’s probably too time-consuming. I need something more direct. ”
“Maybe we should crash a HOA meeting?”
“That’s a good idea as any, I suppose, if we could find one.
It would have to be somewhere local, though,” I said, checking my watch.
“I could get away with sneaking out for an hour, but I don’t want anyone to think I’m slacking off now that I’ve got the department manager job.
Except the chances of finding a homeowners association meeting taking place within the next hour somewhere in the general city area are probably zero.
” I frowned. “Hmm. Somewhere… frustrating.”
I tapped my chin for a second, thinking about it. What situation would frustrate the ever-loving hell out of me? It was a tricky emotion to isolate; it wasn’t as potent as fear. My fears were far more?—
A memory slammed into me, swallowing my whole vision, so visceral and loud and terrifying the breath left my lungs.
I was strapped to a table, harsh lights in my eyes, mad screams echoing from down the hall, a scratchy gown, no pants, oh, no no no, I had no pants on, and I was strapped to the table?—
“Chosen?” Cecil’s voice pulled me back out of the nightmare.
“Huh?” I blinked away the fog. My breath hitched in my throat—a shallow pant. Cold sweat beaded on my brow.
Cecil looked up at me from the chair, squinting. “Are you okay?”
“Uh… huh.” I swallowed roughly, getting control of myself.
That was weird. And scary. It felt like I’d fallen asleep on my feet for a second and accidently plunged right into my worst nightmare.
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the lingering dread.
It wasn’t going away as quickly as I needed it to, so I sat down again and rubbed my temples.
“I’m okay. Sorry, Cecil. I’m just tired. ”
“Are you sure? You looked like you were momentarily possessed.” He held up his paws in the air, bulged his eyes, and stuck out his tongue in a horrifying zombie-like rictus.
“I was trying to think of a place that I would find really frustrating, and I might have overshot the mark to ‘horrifying.’” I shook myself again, trying to get rid of the hellish image in my head. “And I think I drank too much at lunchtime.”
He nodded, mollified. “You go, girl.”
I chewed on my lip for a second. I couldn’t seem to get rid of the churning, unsettled feeling in my stomach. “Let’s get back to business.” I really shouldn’t have had that glass of wine at lunch.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Chosen?” Cecil sounded uncharacteristically gentle. My gaze shot towards him as he edged a cigarette out of a packet with his teeth. “If you’re tired, we don’t have to go searching for spark stones.”
I stood up. “We should, if there’s a good chance Connor is hunting the same one right now.
I have to do something. We can’t just sit around and wait for him to act.
” Quickly, I snatched the cigarette packet out of his paws and threw it into my purse.
“I need to keep moving.” Opening my laptop again, I checked my email, hoping a new work problem had come up, something that would take my mind off this weird lingering darkness in my head until I could go home and get some proper sleep.
My inbox was empty. I’d been a victim of my own efficiency only two days into the department manager role, and my to-do list was all crossed off for now.
That wasn’t frustrating; it was satisfying.
But now, gripped with the urge to keep moving ahead of the strange darkness in my head, it wasn’t what I wanted.
If I found the brethren and closed their spark stone, I could save them from Connor. If I was right, and he was going after something that would help him manipulate more people, then we needed to move fast. I could save a whole supernatural species from losing their magic.
I just had to find them. But where would they be?
“Trying to get Juliette to feel any shred of empathy was frustrating,” I said out loud. I didn’t know if Juliette was even capable of empathy, so I wasn’t sure why I’d even tried. Why did I agree to go to lunch with her, anyway?
Mentally, I chased that feeling of frustration. “Airport security is always frustrating, but it’s not somewhere I can go on my lunch break; we’d need a ticket to go through.” I was on the right train of thought, though. I could feel it.
Where else had I been intensely frustrated?
I snapped my fingers. “I got it. Let’s go.”