Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) (26 page)

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Authors: Megan Joel Peterson,Skye Malone

BOOK: Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood)
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As a hostage, the man was essentially useless, and as a human, Katherine believed he couldn’t really testify to the ‘Blood’ even existing. They could still be just Taliesin wizards Ashe had mistaken for something else, or a creation by the same. And though no one said it, she knew that beneath the wizards’ obedience lurked fears that she might actually be crazy, or else distraught with grief, which amounted to nearly the same thing.

She ignored Elias as he and Nathaniel walked up beside her, their tension clear. When it came to the Blood, they were playing along with her as much as she was with them. And the clock was ticking on how much longer they’d entertain their charade. With Darius after them and the Taliesin inexplicably everywhere, the others’ tolerance of her endangering them all was swiftly fading.

“Your highness!” Elias hissed.

She looked up. On a rooftop two blocks away, a group of Taliesin wizards emerged from a stairwell door.

Swiftly, she dropped behind the concrete barrier, Elias and Nathaniel following suit. By the door, the other guards ducked away.

“How the hell are there so many of them?” she whispered to Elias.

“Because there are.”

She glared. “That’s not an answer.” At his silence, her irritation grew. “I’m serious. The city is crawling with Taliesin. I thought this place was Merlin territory or something.”

For a second, he didn’t respond, but at her insistent expression, he frowned. “There’s no such thing as Merlin territory,” he said. “But yes, their numbers have been increasing in the city lately. And until now, we’ve done a pretty good job of making sure they don’t know we’re here.”

The last was pointed, but as with everything else, she ignored the tone. “Why?”

“Because it’s good strategy.”

She gave him a flat look, but he returned the favor and pretended not to see it. “Are they still there?” he asked Nathaniel.

The man motioned to the guards.

Cautiously, one leaned out of the stairwell hutch. “Clear,” he called.

Nathaniel stood, checking for himself before letting Ashe and Elias rise.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, ignoring the twinge in her chest as she reached down to brush the rooftop grit from her jeans. “Why isn’t there Merlin territory?”

“Because there are more of them than us,” he said shortly. “There always have been.”

Turning away, he directed the guards to scout the area surrounding the building.

Brow furrowing, she watched him briefly before returning her gaze to the street. Traffic was slow at this time of day and the people on the sidewalks still gave every sign of being human. As Nathaniel’s footsteps moved off, she glanced back again.

“Elias,” she called quietly.

Irritation still on his face, he looked over at her.

“Are we losing?”

He paused, the expression fading. For a moment, he said nothing, and then crossed to the barrier and rested his hands on the rough surface.

“We’re doing the best we can,” he said finally, watching the changing stoplights below.

She swallowed, unsure what to say.

“In the beginning, we tracked the Taliesin,” he told her. “Made sure we knew who and where they were. But five hundred years is a long time. And we got lazy. Complacent, really. And they’re making us pay for it.”

He glanced over, seeing her expression.

“I don’t mean that like it sounds,” he said. “I’m not saying we should have tagged them like animals. Hell, we did that. We did all of it. Any stupid, vain atrocity you can think of in the name of keeping the ‘Taliesin Threat’ under control. And after a couple centuries or so, when that got to be too much work… we gave it up. Got bored. Wandered off to study magic while thumbing our noses at the losing team. But the losing team kept growing, and while we blithely enjoyed our unassailable supremacy, they surrounded us on all sides.”

“You sound like you sympathize with them,” she said, obscurely shocked.

He shook his head. “I don’t sympathize with what they’ve become. Or what they’re doing. Murder is murder, regardless of the justifications they give themselves. I mean, what did our children ever have to do with it? Or kids your age? They never asked for this. They’ve never been in a position to do anything but suffer from it either.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t pity Taliesin, and I’ll damn well kill any of them that try to hurt you or any other Merlin at my side. But I get what started this, and how it’s ended us up where we are.”

She looked away. Cars pulled to a stop at the lights and then drove on. She didn’t see them.

“Was that what my family was like?” she asked.

“No,” he replied emphatically.

The answer was too quick. She glanced over, and watched as he turned away.

“Not recently,” he amended reluctantly. “But politics are politics, your majesty. And five hundred years of bigotry and bad blood – on both sides – doesn’t disappear overnight. King Nicholas tried. God knows, he tried. But, in all honesty, even with his reconciliation programs and attempts at dialogue, it ultimately came down to Taliesin wanting something your grandfather just wasn’t sure he could give.”

A moment passed and then Elias sighed.

“We should head back,” he said.

“There are more places we need to check. We’ve barely touched the eastern side of town.”

Frustration moved over his face. “How much farther are you going to push this?” he asked, keeping his voice low as he tossed a glance at the others. Several yards away and out of earshot, Nathaniel was conferring with the guards. “You haven’t slept. You’ve barely eaten. And, in case you forgot, you nearly
died
twelve hours ago.” He grimaced. “There are plenty of people who’d love to finish the job that human started, highness, and I’m not too interested in giving them the opportunity. We should leave town. The cripples aren’t here anymore. And these Blood–”

“Don’t say it,” she warned.

“I wasn’t going to. But Darius’ people could be anywhere. And our luck in avoiding Taliesin can’t last forever. I serve you, yes. I’ve done what you asked. But if we stick around here, out in the open like this, it’s going to get you or someone else killed.”

At her silence, he sighed. “If the Blood exist, there’s as good a chance they’ll be elsewhere as here. And a better chance the cripples will be.”

She didn’t answer, her eyes on the street below. He was right and she knew it. A handful of crime scenes and near misses proved it, no matter what she’d hoped to find.

Picking through the ruins left by the dead and their murderers wouldn’t change what’d happened. It wouldn’t bring anyone back.

Letting a breath out slowly, she nodded.

“Thank you,” he said.

Quickly, he turned and ordered the guards to get ready to go.

Her hands on the barrier, she watched the people milling around beneath the buildings’ shadows. School kids with backpacks on their shoulders and cell phones in their hands walked and texted simultaneously, while businessmen hurried to late afternoon meetings. Traffic was gradually picking up, joined by an increase in city busses depositing people on the street corners.

And every one of them looked human.

She felt the portal forming behind her and she sighed. Perhaps she could convince Elias to head south. Brogan and the others had followed her there; they might still be in the area.

“We’re ready,” Elias called.

She scanned the streets one last time, and then turned away from the view. Crossing the rooftop, she followed the others into the portal.

Landmarks appeared and disappeared in rapid succession, leaving her head spinning by the time they emerged through a white trellis archway on the fringe of a massive lawn. The smell of lilacs hit her in a cloud, emanating from carefully cultivated bushes all around them. She sneezed, and then winced at the twinge it sent through her chest.

Turning immediately, Elias began crafting the next portal to carry them closer to the suburb where Katherine and the others were hiding. Warily, the guards watched the enormous houses of the historic neighborhood, while on the porch of a Queen Anne nearby, a toy poodle began barking madly as it retreated toward the door.

Ashe grimaced and hurried into the portal to escape the high-pitched yapping.

Pigeons fled to the sky as the wizards stepped out of a picnic gazebo and into a park on the edge of the suburbs. In the distance, Ashe could see skyscrapers glinting in the late afternoon light, and several dozen yards away, a group of mothers chatted on benches while their children ran shrieking through the playground.

“Almost there,” Elias said.

The others didn’t answer. Ashe just closed her eyes, relieved to escape the noise and smog of the city. Taking a breath of comparatively fresh air, she waited for her head to clear.

“You sons of bitches, get away from me!”

Her eyes snapped open.

Two Merlin raced into the park, a few steps behind a man so lost beneath layers of coats, he could barely be seen. With sleeves flapping around his pumping arms, the man dashed across the grass, throwing panicked looks over his shoulder as he ran.

His hood fell back. An absence of magic registered on her.

Elias yelled at her as she took off.

On the playground, the mothers left their benches and gathered their children hastily, their attention locked on the crazy homeless man screaming at nothing. Ashe raced past them. Eyes widening at the sight of her, the man skidded to a halt, his feet sliding from beneath him to deposit him on the grass. Scrambling sideways, he tried frantically to keep simultaneous focus on the wizard in front of him and the wizards behind.

The ferals stopped. Their eyes ran over her contemptuously. “Well, fancy seeing you here,” one said as the other glanced back at the guards running to catch up.

Instantly the wizards’ magic rose, lashing out at her and the cripple. In rapid succession, it vanished. Derision gave way to shock on the men’s faces, and then surrendered to horror as the magic of Nathaniel and the guards swept around her and struck them hard.

The two wizards toppled to the ground, their vacant eyes staring at the sky. Jogging past her, the guards approached them, nudging the bodies before dismissing them from attention. Coming up beside her, Nathaniel said nothing, though she could feel the displeasure radiating from him in waves.

Breathing hard, the cripple scrambled to his feet. Raising his hands defensively, he stared at them.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Ashe said.

He didn’t respond. Amid the dirt crusting his scruffy face, his gaze darted from one wizard to the next, seeking an opening.

She motioned for the others to move back. Coming to a stop nearby, Elias paused and then nodded to the guards. The cripple’s eyes narrowed warily at the sight.

“I promise,” Ashe continued. “We won’t hurt you. We want your help.”

The wariness melted into terror. “Oh, hell,” the man swore, looking around in a panic.

“It’s okay!”

“Hell it is,” he protested, inching toward a space between two guards that was wider than the others. “I know that line. Everybody knows that line. They trust wizards. Then they end up dead. Well, not this cripple. Uh-uh.”

She paused. “We’re not–”

“Oh, pull the other one, girl,” he retorted, his voice tremulous despite the forced bravado in his tone. “’Cause I’m
damn
sure it’s got bells on.”

Under his layers of coats, she could see the man shaking. His skin was bloodless beneath the dirt, and she couldn’t tell if he was breathing anymore.

“It’s not–”

His scoff spoke volumes.

She fell silent. Her gaze dropped to the dead ferals behind him.

Somehow, she’d just thought it would be that easy. Or at least hoped it would be. Everyone she’d known was dead and everything she’d had was gone, but she could still do something for the people who were left. Help them. Change their minds.

And somehow undo part of the damage Darius had done.

Feeling like an idiot as her stomach twisted inside, she nodded. “Right,” she said quietly.

His brow drew down.

Distantly, she jerked her chin at the guards. “Step aside. Just… let him go.”

He stared as the wizards moved back, creating a path. Darting forward, he made it a few feet before skidding to a stop, a renewed expression of dread flashing across his face.

“Oh, no way,” he said emphatically. “You’re just going to kill me when my back’s turned. That’s what wizards do. You think it’s okay to say no to them and then…”

Making an illustrative noise, he shuffled from one foot to the other, trying to keep them all in view. “You just want me to think it’s safe, because that’ll make it more fun. Well, I’m not falling for that either.”

“It’s not like that,” Ashe said.

The fearful certainty in his eyes grew.

She looked down, grimacing. “I want you to go so you can warn them. Every cripple still out there. Warn them never to trust a wizard.” She paused, her gaze returning to the dead ferals. “No matter who that wizard says sent them.”

Incredulity pushed through his panic. “W-what?” he sputtered. He hesitated, his brow furrowing suspiciously. “Who are you?”

“I’m the one who’s actually trying to destroy the Blood.” She jerked her chin at the ferals. “They’re the ones who used my name to get my friends killed.”

The sickened feeling grew and she turned away, walking back toward the gazebo.

“You’re Ashe, aren’t you?”

She glanced back. “Yeah.”

“Well… what are you going to do?” he called as she started away again.

“What I said.”

Nathaniel and Elias fell in beside her as the guards pulled back, their eyes still on the cripple standing in the middle of the empty park.

“Well, then… what if I did help you?” the man yelled.

She stopped. Looking back over her shoulder, she watched as he hesitantly started toward them. Eyeing the wizards around her, he came to a stop a few yards away.

“You’d let me kill them?” he asked, a hint of challenge in his tone. “Some of the Blood, I mean?”

Pausing a moment, she nodded. “Yeah.”

Still watching the wizards, he edged closer. “You for real about this?”

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