Terra's Victory (Destiny's Trinities Book 7) (18 page)

“The disease in you will not help with what lies ahead, elf.”

Lindal knew it was Aria before he looked. She was wearing the same light robes as always and she didn’t look the least bit cold. It made him feel even more frozen. “I’m not sick,” he told her.

She stepped closer. “
Dis
-ease,” she repeated. “It is a sickness of a sort, especially for our kind.”

The snow was not touching her, he realized. It wasn’t falling anywhere near her. As she moved even closer, he could feel the warmth of a pleasant summer day radiating from her. It enveloped him and he almost groaned with the pleasure of it. He straightened up, letting his arms fall back to his sides.

“Your father’s father’s father once laughed at us, did you know?” Aria said.

He looked at her. “Is that why you sent them all back to my father with their tails between their legs?”

Aria didn’t seem to have any trouble with the human idioms that he had spent months and months trying to wrap his mind around.

“He was right to laugh,” she said soberly. “At that time, this world was in peril because of our mismanagement. We had so much to learn, to understand about control. Your people withdrew, leaving us to learn alone and that was right, too. This is our world to care for. We
did
learn how. It took generations, but we learned.”

“I can tell,” Lindal admitted. “It’s a pity humans are so intent on destroying the place all by themselves. It ruins all your work.”

“What makes you think our work is ruined?” Aria asked curiously. “If not for our work, this world would no longer exist.”

“You off-set human negligence…” Lindal breathed, astonished.

“We compensate, while humans themselves learn something of the mastery we found. They will become apprentices, caring for their world properly and in the meantime, we adjust and wait.”

Lindal stared at her. He couldn’t help it. “My father’s brother, Kiirian, has spent many human lifetimes looking for that knowledge, the control you have found. He has shunned glory, comforts, even a home, in the search for answers. He would serve our world as you have served Terra.”

“Your father’s brother seeks knowledge only for the power it would bring him,” Aria said coldly. “He brought your father’s message to you for the same reason.”

“Currying royal favor,” Lindal said, “while pretending he was on our side?”

Aria nodded.

“I appreciate the insight,” Lindal told her honestly.

She leaned forward. “You are the same kind as we, only your people have not learned what we have. They continue to seek all-encompassing power over their world. We have learned it is a matter of balance between the energies of the world.”

“The elements,” Lindal said, as it fell into place with an almost audible click in his mind.

“We would teach you this balance and how to control it,” Aria said.

“Me? Why me? I’m not of this world.”

Aria laid her hand against his chest, over his heart. “You have become of this world. Your power has shifted. Just as your sister’s has. Love has the ability to make great changes.”

Peace fell over him. Lindal remembered to breathe and it didn’t hurt, as breathing had sometimes made his chest ache lately. “That is a lot to think about. Perhaps I may accept your most kind offer. Just not now.”

Aria stepped back and let her hand fall. “For now, there are more important things to take care of.”

“And now I know what to do,” Lindal told her.

* * * * *

Beth took Blake back to the pile of hay she had been using as a chair and they sat facing each other.

“I thought at first I was imagining it,” Blake said, speaking quietly. “All of this has been stirring up memories, so I thought the voice in my head was just another dirty memory.”

“
Dirty
?” Beth frowned. “Then you’re not talking about when your daughter died?”

“That, too,” Blake admitted. “The voices I have been hearing in the last few hours were whispers. Remembered commands. Only, they weren’t memories, because what they were telling me to do wasn’t something from the past.”

“They were telling you to do something?”

Blake nodded. “Kill everyone. Enjoy eating them. Speak of where I am, where the bright ones are.”

“Bright ones.” Beth blew out her breath. “Us. The Trinities.”

“The trinities stand like beacons in their minds,” Blake said. He picked up a stalk of hay and twirled it in his fingers. “When I was bitten, when I was…turning, I could hear the same voices. They were angry, demanding we find the bright ones. They couldn’t see you.”

“The bunker is shielded.” Beth said.

“At that time, the command was overwhelming. I couldn’t have resisted it. I was getting closer to being able to obey, to talk back to them.”

Beth pressed her fingers to her temples. “You would have shown them where we were. It never even occurred to me that it was possible. We were so focused on fixing you.”

“You kept thinking of me as a person, an individual with self-awareness,” Blake said. “When I had very little free will left. That girl on the table over there…you couldn’t think of her as a person until just now. That is why you brought her here instead of the bunker.”

“Then she is hearing the same commands?” Beth asked. “The demand to kill us and tell them where we are?”

Blake nodded. “When she was fully vampeen, she had no control over it. She had to obey. Now, it may simply be the whisper of a remembered voice in her mind. There is no compulsion in it anymore.”

“You can hear the Grimoré talking,” Beth said.

“Only when I’m near the vampeen. They act like aerials. The more of them in one place, the stronger the signal and the more overwhelming it becomes.”

“I’ll bear that in mind. Do you know what this means, Blake?”

Blake shook his head. “If you’re thinking this will let you anticipate the Grimoré, then you’re wrong. They don’t discuss war strategies with the vampeen. They just give direct and short term orders. What it
does
mean is that you were right about the control they exert.”

He nodded his head toward the child on the table. She looked as if she was sleeping. “It’s not conditioning that drives the vampeen. It’s control, pure and simple. Take away Grimoré control and they will scatter, their cohesiveness lost.”

“Which means we can move against the Grimoré and cure the vampeen once they’re gone.” Beth gripped her hands together. “We’re in the end game, Blake.”

The girl on the table stirred and gave a small cry of pain.

Blake moved with vampire speed, over to her side. “You’re safe,” he told her.

Declan suddenly appeared on the other side of the table. “Consciousness,” he said. “Faster than I thought would happen.”

Beth hurried over, too.

“Is it safe to remove the rope, doc?” Blake asked.

“Maybe just leave one around her middle?” Beth suggested. “Leave her arms and legs free to move.”

Declan nodded.

Blake snapped the ropes with a twist of his wrist and looked at her. “Can you hear me?”

She blinked. Her eyes were a silver gray and clear. She studied Blake. Then she nodded and brought her fist up to her eyes to rub them.

“Can you talk? What is your name?” Declan asked her.

She stared at Declan, her eyes growing troubled.

“You don’t know your name, do you?” Blake said gently.

She shook her head, just a little. Her chin quivered.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart,” Declan told her.

“She doesn’t remember.” Blake brushed the fine locks of hair off her forehead, which was pale and very human-normal. “Thank God,” he breathed.

Three days later, Beth regathered everyone upon the informal little plank benches. This time, someone had brought a sawn-in-two oil barrel with holes punched in the side and turned it into a campfire, sitting in the middle of the rough circle.

There were bottles of spirits being passed around among those who could drink it, too.

Despite the camp atmosphere, Beth could tell everyone was listening to her with close attention. The cure of the vampeen child they were now calling Eve had stirred them. For the first time in a long while, Beth could feel the hope and determination in them. They were no longer just going through the motions while waiting for an end to a war that they never really believed would
end.

Now they knew it could end and that made all the difference in the world.

“I am going to share all of my thinking with you,” Beth told them. “I want you to find the holes in my reasoning. I want you to help me find our way. I trust every single one of you sitting here tonight with my life, so there is no reason to keep any of this from you. However, for now, this stays among us. The elves, the vampire clans, the hunters out there and the ranger forces…they will all be informed in time, when they need to know. Is that clear?”

A lot of heads nodded. No one spoke. Beth was satisfied, anyway. Knowledge, even intimate knowledge, tended to pass among the trinities as most people talked about the weather forecast, especially here in the bunker, where privacy was almost completely lacking. They had become experts at keeping essentials to themselves and passing on what should be shared. Their bond would help reinforce that sense of solidarity, too.

“Lindal had a discussion with Aria the other day,” Beth began. “It was about control and balance. At the same time, although I didn’t know it then, Blake was explaining to me that the Grimoré
do
control the vampeen, mentally and physically. They move them around like Warhammer armies, with as little regard for individuals as a Warhammer player would have for his pieces of plastic.”

“How
is
Eve?” someone asked.

“She ate carbohydrates today,” Blake said. “And kept them down.”

Then everyone looked back at Beth.

“
Control
is the key,” she told them. “The Grimoré understood this better than I did. They came after our leaders, who in a way, control the rest of us. Aubrey, then Amrod…they were targets. So was I. The Grimoré have worked hard to eliminate the trinities, because they perceive us as being the ones who control everyone else; vampires, elves, hunters, every single ranger, everyone who has aligned themselves with us. Which made me ask the question; if the Grimoré control the hounds and the vampeen, who controls the Grimoré?”

After a small silence, Alexander said diffidently, “Why is anyone controlling them at all? Aren’t they the real enemy?”

“There are hundreds of Grimoré,” Beth pointed out. “They are not all making decisions. There is a cohesive, single direction in everything they do.”

“A leader,” Cora said. “There is a Grimoré leader.”

“Not just a leader,” Beth said. “
Control
defines everything they do. The leader doesn’t just give orders. He…
it
…controls the Grimoré, just as they in turn control the vampeen.”

“That’s abhorrent, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Remmy said.

“It is,” Beth agreed. “Only, everything points to a top level source for directions, orders and commands. As we’ve just demonstrated with Eve, if we can remove the source of control, then the rest of their forces will fall apart. We’ve seen what happens to the vampeen when the Grimoré grow too sick to control them. They fall back into chaos, running on pure instinct. They are incapable of thinking for themselves.”

This time, the silence throbbed with emotion. There were smiles, growing elation on their faces as they understood what this meant.

“We just have to find the leader and we can win,” Diego said.

“There’s one other thing we
have
to do, in order to win,” Beth warned them.

This time, surprise showed.

Lindal, though, was well ahead of her, as he naturally would be. “We have to find the portal they used to get here and close it, so no more Grimoré can come through.”

Some of the jubilation in the room faded.

“How the fuck are we supposed to do that?” Barrett demanded.

“I suspect,” Beth told them, “that if we find the portal, we’ll find their leader close by. He would not risk exposing himself by moving too far away from his escape route.”

“What says the leader isn’t sitting on their world, firing off mental commands from there?” Dane asked.

Lindal answered that with a shake of his head. “I can talk to Sera using telepathy here on Earth. When she was still on my world, neither of us could reach the other. The portals just fold space and time. They don’t eliminate it. Our world isn’t even in this continuum. Perhaps theirs isn’t either. Even if it is, the distance is too great for
any
communication. They have to come here to control their forces. If we shut down the portal, then they can’t reach here.”

“Wyatt,” Beth said. “You had some theories about their migratory pattern.”

“They
migrate
?” Ángel said, sounding amused.

Wyatt got to his feet. “It’s an old hunter trick. Lay everything on a map—sightings, reports, secondary associated phenomena—and see if a pattern emerges. And it did. They moved north at first, then headed south as the winter came in. They’ve done that every year they’ve been here.”

“Were there any other patterns?” Zack asked.

Wyatt scrubbed at his hair. “So far, it’s all been North America only. I don’t think they can cross open water.”

“Where did they first come from?” Beth asked him. “The earliest reports came from where?”

Wyatt shrugged. “New York.”

“City?”

“Mid-state.”

Beth nodded. “It’s a good bet the portal is there.”

“Yeah, but where?” Diego demanded. “New York covers a lot of territory,
amigo
.”

Sera lifted her hand. “Why don’t we ask the pixies where the leader is, or the portal? They’re good at finding things.”

“Have you even seen one lately?” Zoe asked. “I mean, around here. My dozen are still cavorting on the mantelshelf at home.”

“They stay away from the bunker because they’re afraid,” Lindal said.

“Of what?” Beth asked.

Lindal nodded toward Aria. “The boss lady.”

Zack snorted. “Finally, someone who can get them to toe the line.”