Ethereal Entanglements (22 page)

Claire wanted to barf at the gross display. Iulia had mentioned Caius’s ego, and this drove home how highly he thought of himself. She put on a burst of speed to run through Caius’s monument to his own godly magnificence.

“No!” Djembe shouted from far too close behind her.

The portal shrank. Claire redoubled her efforts to imagine it there and dove through before it could snap shut.

Djembe followed.

Chapter 34

Justin

Enion plunged through a wall of fire, taking Claire and Drew down the Thoroughfare and leaving a hole open long enough for Mutt to charge after them. Justin wanted to follow them too. Fifteen angry Knights currently prevented him from going anywhere. He stood in the shadow of a dragon, using his baseball bat like a sword to fight these men. Khalil did the same with his crowbar. Avery climbed onto a dragon’s back and let it fight for him. He blasted into the crowd with his shotgun. His target took the slug in the chest and fell, knocking another man down.

Enion galloped into the mess with only Claire on his back. For some reason, she wore a silver breastplate and battle skirt reminiscent of Caius’s with a flowing white cape. She carried a long spear with silver-white energy crackling along its length and used it to impale a man. Enion snatched another in his jaws, crunched him and flung him aside.

Horrified, Justin missed the block against his opponent’s swing and hissed as the sword sliced up his thumb, wrist, and arm. The bat fell out of his hand and clattered on the floor. Left with no weapon, he ducked and scraped a foot out to corral the bat. To his relief, the dragon behind him stuck its face in the Knight’s and blew fire at him. The burning knight staggered back.

“Claire!” he called out as loud as he could. “What are you doing?” Keeping his hand and arm close, he kicked the bat into reach.

Claire ignored him and skewered another man.

As much as Justin abhorred Claire’s actions, he could at least take advantage of the respite she gave him. He snatched up the bat and clambered onto the dragon’s back. “Claire! Where’s Drew?”

It had seemed like Enion understood not to kill anyone, yet he roasted men mercilessly, not easing up like the rest of the dragons when they caught fire. Claire continued to ignore him. As they paused to kill more of his friends and colleagues, Justin noticed something about the horns on Claire’s dragon seemed different. Enion, he thought, had six horns pointing back from his head. This dragon had only four.

“That’s not Claire, it must be…” His eyes widened with realization. “Iulia!”

Her head snapped around. “What?” Iulia shook a man off the end of her spear. Her dragon caught him in its mouth before he hit the ground and crunched him.

Justin blanched. He knew that man. David had three teenage kids and protected half of New Hampshire. “Stop killing them! They’re not in their right minds. We only need to get to Caius, not murder everyone in the Palace!”

Iulia’s lip curled. “Fine. Leeloo, no killing.”

Water splashed down from the ceiling in a wave, extinguishing all the fires. Elder Yun rose on a pillar of stone under his feet. He smacked the butt of his staff on the stone, filling the hallway with a thunderous crack. “Everyone stop fighting,” he growled, his breathy, wheezing voice sharp in the sudden silence.

“Why should I?” Iulia’s dragon turned and lunged at the old man.

Elder Yun smacked his staff on the dragon’s head so hard it yelped and shied away. “Because I told you to, young lady.” Either the elder hadn’t heard Justin addressing her, or he chose to ignore it.

Iulia sneered, but she remained quiet and held back her spear.

Elder Yun nodded his satisfaction and his pillar moved him through the growing crowd of Knights. “Justin, Khalil, John. Boys. What are you doing?”

Justin worked his thumb with a grimace, finding it healed slower than he was used to. “Our job. What are you doing?”

Elder Yun raised a sparse eyebrow and pointed his staff at Iulia. “Your job is to defend the Palace from witches like her.”

“No, it’s not.” Justin sighed. He didn’t know if Kurt had taught him something different from other Knights or Caius had made them all forget the mission. “My job is to destroy harmful ghosts, preferably before they can ruin lives. That’s always been the job. The Palace is just the place we use to hide from reality when it’s too unpleasant. I guess that’s why I don’t spend much time here. Reality is pretty good to me.”

Elder Yun’s weathered, spotted face crinkled in a disgusted scowl. “We aren’t hiding here,” he snapped.

“Then why don’t you ever leave? Because if you did, you’d have to face death? You know it’ll come for you here eventually, don’t you?”

“Choose, Justin.” Elder Yun swung his staff until it pointed at Iulia again. “Enough of this foolishness. Either you stand with that witch, or you stand with your brothers.”

Iulia sneered at him. “Do not speak of me as if I’m the slime beneath your shoe.”

Though his face twitched to show he’d heard Iulia, Elder Yun ignored her.

Justin saw that Khalil and Avery each sat astride a dragon and seemed as ready for a run as possible. He patted his dragon’s neck, hoping it would take that as a signal. “I’ve made my choices.”

The dragon launched into a run, proving smarter than Justin expected. The other three dragons carried their riders in his wake. Behind them, Justin heard the men devolve into a cacophony of angry shouting.

Elder Yun’s voice rang out. “Kill the traitors!”

“Justin,” Avery yelled, “we need a plan!”

“I’m thinking!”

“Stop thinking and start doing,” Iulia snapped.

Justin scowled back at her as they sped down the Thoroughfare. In the distance, he saw a throng of men running after them. “I don’t see you coming up with a brilliant idea!”

Iulia’s dragon surged ahead. The double doors of the library came into view and blew open. Rondy dragged two unconscious Knights out and tossed them into a heap. Iulia pointed for her dragon and everyone darted inside the library. Justin’s dragon darted past the tall shelves of memory experience books and only stopped when everyone else fit inside.

“Are we winning?” Rondy asked as he pulled the doors shut.

Justin slid off his dragon’s back. He stomped a bench into pieces and slid it through the handles of the double doors. “Depends on how you look at it. We’re now trapped inside a dead end.”

Iulia laughed. “It’s not.”

Avery pressed his hand to his forehead. “Less being pleased with yourself, more getting things done. My head is trying to kill me. I may not be able to fight Caius like this.”

“We go to the end,” Iulia said with a smirk, “which is most certainly not dead.” Her dragon loped down the spiraling hallway, carrying her away before she could elaborate.

The doors rattled against the makeshift brace.

Rondy patted Justin’s shoulder. “This wood won’t keep them out for long. I’ll hold the door. I can handle that for a few minutes.”

Justin nodded and jogged with Avery, following Khalil and the dragons. They passed row after row of twenty foot high shelves filled with books. He saw Avery grimace and curl an arm around his head.

“Maybe you should stay behind,” he said to Avery. “With Rondy.”

“No. The tide of Knights will just kill me. You heard Yun. At least this way, I stand a chance.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came. You didn’t have to.”

Avery flashed a weak, pained smile. “Then you won’t mind when I ask your sister-in-law out on a date?”

Justin snorted. “Don’t push it.”

They rounded the last curve to find Khalil with three tiny dragons on his shoulders. Iulia stood next to her dragon, still full size, with her arms crossed and glaring at the large mural at the end of the walkway. The images depicted her as the central villain of every story, along with dragons and other mythological beasts. Caius and his equites were clearly the heroes. Justin had never spent much time here.

“That arrogant bastard,” she growled. “Burn everything here.”

The dragon trilled in assent and stuck its head past the three men to blow fire at the shelves.

Khalil gasped and reached for the dragon. “What are you doing? This library has the collected wisdom of the Knights! Documents in here date back two millennia. These are priceless, irreplaceable artifacts and manuscripts.”

“And they’re all tainted by Caius. Every last one.” Iulia’s hand hovered over the most prominent carved and painted image of herself. “Lies. So many lies. They infect this place like a disease.”

Justin patted Khalil’s shoulder. He had no particular interest in the texts, but could understand the horror of watching something precious being destroyed. “I don’t know that I trust her, but I trust what I’ve seen and felt. I think she’s probably right.”

“Shall we?” Iulia offered her hand to them all. “We’ll have to find the way through his lies, but I’m confident three Knights and a witch can manage it.”

The temperature rose as the fire spread. Flames licked up shelves and leaped to cushions. Justin swore he could hear the distant shrieks of everyone inside the books.

“That sounds like madness,” Avery said. “But that’s what I signed up for when I agreed to this. And we can’t stay here for long anyway. Thanks to you,” he snapped at Iulia, “we don’t have a choice.”

“Let’s get moving,” Justin said. Sweat evaporated from his face as quickly as it appeared.

Khalil pointed at Iulia. “Look me in the eye and tell me your insanity is better for the world than Caius’s.”

Iulia met his gaze without flinching. “I’m doing this because Caius did it wrong and I mean to do it right.”

Khalil clenched his jaw. “Fine. Then let’s do this.”

Justin took Iulia’s hand. So did Avery and Khalil.

Chapter 35

Claire

Wind rushed past Claire. She fell head-first through a cool, gray, damp void. Trust Caius to make his front door out of gloomy clouds. Uninterested in hitting the ground like this, she flipped her body around. In doing so, she saw Djembe falling with her, only a few yards behind. His expression hovered between confusion and rage. She ignored him. Dealing with Caius and his demesne would take all of her attention, especially once he figured out why she came. Djembe would make sure that didn’t take him long.

Knowing the ground would come sooner or later, Claire focused her will on making it as soft a landing as possible. She hit the ground and fell to one knee with the impact, then threw herself to the side and rolled to her feet. Without looking back, she ran as fast as she could. A loud thud and a groan announced Djembe’s arrival. He hadn’t anticipated the impact, so he’d need a minute or two to heal, giving her some time.

“How did you get here?” Caius asked, a scowl evident in his voice even though Claire couldn’t see him. The clouds dissipated and she ran into a wall of stone. Caius jumped down from the top of the cliff to land behind her.

“Ow.” Claire rubbed her face where she’d hit. “You could’ve let me see that soon enough to stop.”

Caius laughed. “I had no reason to. What do you want, and why didn’t you enter the normal way?”

No backup meant Claire had to think fast to avoid becoming a kebab. She couldn’t tell if Caius was playing dumb or really didn’t know. He could have been controlling the Knights subconsciously, thought she had no idea if a ghost could do that. Maybe he had some default thing that controlled the Knights in case of an incursion or witch accusation. Like a computer program. He may have even suspected this might eventually happen with her.

“The Palace is a madhouse,” she said. “Everyone’s gone berserk. Someone said you could help, but everyone’s fighting. I’m not that great a fighter, so I came.”

“I’ve noticed there’s some tumult,” Caius said, stroking his beard.

“Whatever she’s telling you, it’s a lie!” Djembe shouted, his voice pinched and strained.

“Something is wrong with him. He thinks I’m a witch. Actually, I think he’s convinced I’m Iulia. He won’t stop threatening me.”

Caius eyed Claire. “The resemblance is remarkable, I’ve noted that before.” He gazed off to the side and seemed pleased, maybe even wistful. “But you’re clearly not her. She’s gone forever. I took care of her.”

Considering how Claire found Iulia, Caius’s reaction disgusted her. But she had to keep that to herself. She rubbed her mouth, trying to wipe off the grimace he’d provoked. “Good to know. The Palace is still going nuts, though, and so is Djembe.” In a flash of insight, she realized she had no idea what Caius could accomplish or not, and this moment offered her the opportunity to find out. Knowing might make a difference. Since he seemed unaware of what she thought he’d been causing all along, she pressed her luck.

“Can’t you do something about all the chaos in the Palace?”

“Yes.” Caius crossed his arms over his chest and watched her so intently she felt like a bug pinned to a board. “But it takes a great deal of effort. I don’t just float around here all the time, doing nothing. I have to maintain the Palace, my Knights, and all the gear I’ve enchanted. It’s curious to me, though, why you’re not wearing the armor I gave you.”

Claire couldn’t tell if he suspected something or only asked out of curiosity. “I didn’t happen to be wearing it when I came back. It’s not like I expected a giant battle to explode in the Thoroughfare.” She tugged at the hem of her shirt, pondering what he might believe and how she could make him underestimate her. “I guess I could have made another suit when the fighting started, but I…didn’t think of it.”

Caius bellowed such a full, hearty laugh that Claire wanted to punch him in the face. She considered springing at him with her knife, but had a feeling that wouldn’t do more than annoy him. Killing a ghost took a weapon designed to kill a ghost. She needed an enchanted blade, and the only one she had was made by the ghost she needed to kill.

A tiny thought sparked in her mind. With the power of the ley line behind her locket, maybe she could make her own dagger. If she created it to look the same as the one Caius made, would he notice? How could she do that without him watching so she could surprise him? The idea and questions swirled in her head.