Earth Awakened, page 17
And they’d actually caught the spirit on film.
Her breath caught in her throat as she saw her, and a warm feeling spread through her chest.
She was little more than a shadow. The silhouette of a woman walking along the forest path with leaves in her hair. She appeared naked, with skin the russet color of the surrounding trees, and wherever she moved, the trees bent to touch her path.
After a few seconds, she walked out into the cloudy forest light and seemed to pause. Her head swiveled.
A jolt hit McKay’s chest when the spirit looked straight into the camera.
It felt like she was looking through it. Like she’d caught her in her sights and was giving her a look-over.
A warmth spread under her ribs.
Then, between one second and the next, she vanished.
But the trees didn’t stop when she left. They still bent, trying to touch the place where she had been. The photographer kept filming, and McKay lost herself in the shake and shiver of branches, replaying those last few seconds where the spirit had turned to look at the camera.
Dryad. She was a dryad. Nan had told her stories of dryads in the forest. But she’d called them something else—something from an older language.
She snapped her fingers. “Malik. She’s a Malik. A forest spirit. Like a dryad.”
Kitty swiveled her head to stare at her. “You know her?”
“Not personally. Nan used to tell me stories.” She dipped her head. “Can I see that again?”
Gobardon obliged. McKay leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the screen as they caught sight of the Malik again.
The spirit walked out of the forest again, the trees bowing for her touch. A mossy sheen struck her skin as she came into the light.
Then she looked to the camera and vanished.
The image of her eyes meeting the camera stuck inside McKay’s head, repeating on a loop.
The warmth in her chest didn’t go away.
A Malik. An honest-to-goodness, genuine Malik.
And she’d thought the world had gotten weird when the Mages had arrived. What was next? A shtriga? Ogres? A revenant?
A shiver ran through her.
Had the Mages actually had to deal with monsters like those in their old world?
“Malik,” Gobardon said, testing the word on his tongue. “Is that the same ‘mal’ as in ‘malcontent’?”
She shook her head, distracted. “No, it’s not English. Before this continent went through its colonial period, a bunch of our ancestors used to be nomadic through the mountains, following the grazing paths and the weather. It’s from their language. Pretty sure it just literally means tree spirit.”
“Names have power,” he said. “It gives me more information. Something more specific than the English ‘dryad.’”
“See?” Kitty said. “McKay’s already being helpful. She’ll definitely be even more helpful in Seola.”
McKay frowned.
Since when have I agreed to go to Seola?
She knew why Kitty was pushing, though. She had talked to her about the ‘whispers in her spirit’ that were apparently telling her McKay needed to go to Seola, and that she should probably go with Gobardon.
She let out a breath.
Well, what have I got to lose?
Quite a lot, actually. In her assessment, traveling to Seola with Gobardon would put her pretty much at his mercy, and give him ample opportunity to attack her and try to take the cat again.
But would he try that a second time? Now that he knew it wasn’t going to happen?
He’s an asshole. A conniving, unapologetic asshole. Why should I run with him?
Because he could teach her. Because he could help. Because she was just as curious about the Malik as he was. Because, now that she’d seen it, there was a part deep in her core that was driving her to go to it, and he was a convenient route.
She didn’t know what it was, but she couldn’t get the feeling of those eyes out of her head. And the warmth had buried itself deep in her chest, like a seed that was growing roots.
I have to go to her. I have to go to her and find out what she is. I have to know her.
Her fingers itched to teleport over there—right now.
As if reading her mind, Gobardon said, “I can teach you, McKay.”
She jerked from her thoughts to find him watching her, his head turned in her direction. She realized she’d stepped closer to the screen, coming even with him.
She hadn’t even felt herself move.
God, and there was just something about his eyes—the darkness of them. They seemed bottomless, without end. Or like a serpent coiled in a deep pit.
She repressed another shiver and crossed her arms over her chest, cocking an eyebrow. “Yeah? The same way you taught me yesterday? I think I’ll pass.”
“That won’t happen again. I can promise you that. Only if you are a danger to others.”
She held his stare, searching it for a trace of a lie.
Nothing.
She let out a sigh and broke eye contact, stepping toward the glass wall that separated her from the outside drop. It had begun to rain again, part of the city darkening to the right. The clouds were so thick, there wasn’t even a pale disc of a sun today, just a gradual brightening in one sector.
“It’s not me you have to convince,” she said softly. “The cat’s not over it, either. And even if I trusted you, which I don’t, I wouldn’t be able to relax with it in your presence.”
He twisted to follow her—she heard the creak of the chair, felt the cat tag his movement in her mind. She felt his eyes on her back, making the spot between her shoulder blades itch.
Then, he made to get up.
God, he was tall. Almost everyone was tall for her, but he seemed like a goddamn tower.
He hid it well when he sat—like he just folded into the chair—but the second his legs came into play and she realized the full scale of his height, she felt like a cocker spaniel in comparison.
Well, I’ve always been a bit of a bitch.
She swiveled around to face him, only half of the movement hers—the cat had been alerted, and did not like the idea of him standing behind her—and braced for action.
To her and the cat’s surprise, he dropped to a knee in front of them and bowed his head.
“Then I will make her the promise.”
When he spoke next, it was in Lürian.
She didn’t know what he said—she didn’t have nearly enough Lürian under her belt to even start to parse out the words, not like Meese who had been studying her ass off the last few months—but, by his intonation, it started with a statement and a question.
Instantly, the cat came to life. Magic flashed through her veins, light dancing across her skin in shivers and motes that reflected in the window beside her. The cat’s presence flared in her mind.
A second later, her eyes began to tingle.
They’d be glowing, then.
That had happened a few dozen times over the past few months. Either someone would push them hard, or something peculiar would catch the cat’s eye. In the early days, when they were first getting to know each other, it had happened almost hourly.
Not so much now.
Meese got it, too, sometimes. She had a lot more control over it, though. As Gobardon said, she wasn’t an Elemental—her specific brand of magic was wired to channel magic. She was literally built to house a spirit inside her.
It spoke to her. Not in words or thoughts, but in impressions and feelings.
She nodded down to Gobardon, the cat’s power lining her eyes. “Proceed.”
He did. His head came up, those dark eyes fixing on hers—God, she could see the green in them, see how the sigils on her hands reflected over his skin.
He began to speak in what sounded like very eloquent and formal Lürian.
Bildanese, she reminded herself. Lür is a planet, not a country. It had many languages.
As she listened, she felt the cat listening in. Its presence was huge in her mind, like a great, towering tree with roots that dove deep into the building around them, brushing even the neighboring towers with their awareness. She felt connected, like she was a part of something bigger.
It reminded her of what she’d felt when she’d seen the Malik.
The memory of the spirit’s eyes slid into the forefront of her brain again, that warmth spreading anew in her chest.
Her jaw tightened, mind churning.
She had to go to Seola. She had to find the spirit. What was it that Kitty had said, that ‘whisper in her spirit’ that felt like a preternatural message?
This was a divine urge.
Finally, Gobardon finished.
A few moments of silence played out while the cat considered him.
Then, a single rumble came out. A single, physical word that she did not understand rippled through her throat and tongue, its timber so deep and loud that it made the glass rattle in the nearby cabinet.
And with that, the cat faded from her mind.
Chapter 20
“Holy fucking shit, that was bad ass. How did you make that noise with your mouth bones?” Kitty gaped at her, mouth opening in shock and awe. “Like—can I do that? I can’t do that. Can I? Bird—bird! Menathesemane!”
A second later, she’d broken off, eyes flashing with internal light as she turned to the next room, presumably to have a halfway internal debate with the Thunderbird that used her as a vessel.
McKay watched her. Slowly, she closed her mouth and ran a tongue over her teeth.
Her entire mouth and gums tingled from the cat’s vocalization. She couldn’t answer even if she’d tried.
Fortunately, Gobardon saved her the trouble. “She can’t. That was a communication from the spirit herself. She has accepted my plea.” He stood up, brushing off his knee before reaching his full height, and looking to her. “How does she feel, McKay?”
She frowned.
The cat felt… at ease.
“She’s not on guard anymore.” She blinked, attempting to size up her change in mental state. She felt…
Well, not relaxed. She never felt relaxed. But somewhere in the area of relaxed. Like she could look over across a gorge and see it resting happily above the tree line from where she stood.
“What did you say to her?” she asked. “How did you get her to stand down?”
“Spirits are not like humans. They have less of a gray area when it comes to decisions and states of alert, and are masters of bargains. Simply put, she doesn’t give too much of a shit about morals, only her own sense of right and wrong, which does not align completely with ours. I explained myself and gave her a binding promise of my intentions and how I would not be attacking her unless I informed her otherwise.”
McKay’s eyebrows twitched. “Unless you informed her otherwise? So you could attack again, but you have to say that you’re gonna do it first?”
“Yes. Otherwise, it would be a statement of intention in perpetuity.”
McKay snorted. “I don’t think that would fly with the cat.”
“No, no it wouldn’t. If I attacked, she would have no problem with crushing me to death and cleaning her claws after—but she is more complicated than you think. This is a being who has seen the rise and fall of several civilizations, and risen with each subsequent one. She is that complicated, but she is also that black and white. There is little nuance with her, no room for gray sections or uncertainty.” He walked a little ways to the counter. For a second, it looked like he was gonna pour himself a drink, but he thought better of it and brought a glass to the sink instead.
Kitty snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Man, you know who would be fucking great for this mission? Fucking Darren.”
McKay frowned. “Who’s Darren?”
“He’s this guy we met—actually, he’s the one that really killed Michael, even though it was kind-of-sort-of an accident. Anyway, he’s got Reaper abilities.”
“Reaper abilities?”
“He reads and drains life energy.” Kitty turned to Gobardon. “God, I haven’t heard from him in months. It’s like he ghosted me after the mission. Do you think he’s gone on another assassination job or something?”
Assassination job? McKay’s eyebrows quirked.
Of course, given his title of ‘Reaper,’ she probably shouldn’t be surprised.
It was around that point, when Kitty had stopped talking and was waiting for an answer from Gobardon, that she realized the man was being rather silent.
He had his back to them, standing at the sink with a somewhat stiff posture. The water was running, but he still had the glass in his hand, resting it on the sink’s rim.
Kitty frowned. “Gobardon?”
Oh. Oh, shit.
It was like she could feel the change in the air. Gobardon’s posture was still and rigid. Cold. Like he’d shut down all of his emotions except hard logic.
“Come on,” Kitty said. “You can’t still be mad that he took the kill. We were a team. We got the kill. If you don’t feel like talking to him, I’ll make the call. Where’s your phone?”
“Kitty…”
He pulled his phone from his front pants’ pocket, and she snatched it from him before he actually handed it to her, quickly typing in his passcode and opening his contacts. She stepped away as she searched, wandering closer to the windows.
Gobardon settled into his seemingly go-to position, leaning against the counter in his kitchen. His face was like stone.
“Gobby…”
Kitty held up the phone. Varying emotions rippled across her face in waves. Her brow furrowed. Tiny tears brimmed across the bottom of her eyes.
McKay’s jaws clenched.
This was not going to be good.
“Um.” Her voice caught for a moment, but she recovered quickly. Her words tumbled out with growing intensity. “His name isn’t here… and I know you. I know how you keep your phone. Fuck, you’re anal about your phone. No nicknames. None. It has to be proper names. Sayers, Darren. Should be here, but it isn’t. And, I know you. You keep very accurate phone lists. You go the fuck off if you need a number, think you have it, and you don’t. Even if you never plan on talking to someone again, you keep their number. Just in case. You delete it if it isn’t accurate. Remember that time you smashed your phone against a wall because you tried to call someone and their number was dead? You are fucking anal about this, so if his number isn’t here…”
Kitty waited a beat, staring at him. McKay stared, too, waiting for him to complete Kitty’s words.
But he didn’t. Instead, his expression remained hard. Unyielding.
Kitty choked. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” he answered, his voice barely above a whisper.
“When?”
“In Ryarne. The same day as Michael.”
“Did Michael kill him?”
Gobardon withdrew again.
Kitty stared at him, chest heaving as tears welled in her eyes. Her fingers gripped the phone in her hand hard enough for the tendons to stretch her skin. Runes slowly migrated across her arm until a spark of electricity shot through the phone with a loud pop.
Her hand released, and the phone dropped to the floor, a charred carcass reeking of ozone.
“I can’t fucking believe you.”
Gobardon stared at the husk of melted plastic that used to be his phone. Then, those black eyes flicked back up to Kitty. “Darren was the one who made the hit. He told me. It was him.”
“That was his fucking job, Gobardon,” she said, kicking the phone across the floor. It hit the base of the kitchen island and spun away. “And you know it. Fuck, he even took down Michael for us.”
“And added a load of unstable Maanai to the Underground. We went to Ryarne to kill her killer. That is exactly what I did.”
“You know he didn’t mean to do that. And there is no way he would have done the hit if he’d known who he was hitting.”
Gobardon lunged, the island stopping him from rushing toward Kitty. A burst of power flew through the floor and rattled the windows, sending the cat on edge.
“He killed her, Kitty! He killed her! He put his hands on her and killed her! At my father’s command!”
Kitty stopped. Her fists clenched at her side. For a second, she didn’t speak.
When she continued, her voice shook.
“Fuck you. Fuck you. You are so fucking caught up in your own goddamn asshole.”
She made a disgusted noise in her throat and headed for the door.
McKay clamped her jaws together.
So, he killed this dude. He really just killed this dude. In cold fucking blood.
Well, not cold blood. Not with the pain and anger that had been in his voice. There was nothing cold about that.
Her brain replayed his last sentence over and over again.
He killed her, Kitty. He killed her. He put his hands on her and killed her. At my father’s command.
It might’ve been an old wound, but there’d been fresh anger, and a little of something that was broken.
Still, she couldn’t stay. Not after that.
She glanced over at him, shook her head, and made to follow Kitty. “Well, it was nice knowing you.”
“I can teach you.”
She stopped. She didn’t need to lift her head to know that his gaze had settled on her. She could feel it, same as she could feel it before.
She resisted the shiver that threatened her spine.
The floor creaked as he drew closer, the sole of his shoe shuffling against the hardwood. In her mind, she could feel his presence as surely as she could feel the cat.
He was an Earth Mage. A very powerful Earth Mage. And he’d made the cat back down with a few simple words.
She clenched her jaw.
No. She couldn’t. He’d killed a man—and not just anyone, someone Kitty had liked—and he’d done so with little remorse.
But I’ve killed people, too. I’ve killed people and gotten paid to do it.
War made things blurry. On the field, everything was laid out in crystal-clear morality: you killed who you needed to kill, based on perceived threat level, and the military provided a neat little flowchart to help you do it and settle any moral qualms you might have.
