The Wielder: Sworn Vengeance (The Wielder Series) (8 page)

I drag Percy down the hall by the arm.  The
whole way to Edgar’s office, he’s saying things like “It was my fault” and “she didn’t do anything.” There is other bullshit too… and honestly, I’m not listening or caring.

Damn, Sil put one helluva whammy on him. 

Regardless, Edgar needs to know that his very important person got compromised, again.

We reach his door and I knock
.  I knock again and still don’t hear an answer.  So I open the door and there he is, looking at the screens behind his desk.

He turns around to face us,
“Come in, you need to see this.”

We come in and are co
nfronted by multiple screens of various news organizations declaring things like the “Attack on Rome” to the “End of days?”  There are demons, devils and lesser creatures attacking people on some screens.

There is
another screen with a crumpled, robed figure lying on the ground. The camera pans up to a robed, cowled, winged demon flying above with the caption “Otsag Snool claims war on Christianity.”

I take in what is in front of me, in shock.
Ahtsag’s been called out by name, even if mispronounced.  And the demon flying above robed and cowled, is obviously his kind – if not him.

There is carnage about the TV screens.  On one
screen, a lady broadcaster is being harried by an imp that has apparently taken a liking to her.  But she obviously doesn’t care for him and swats him away. The imp returns and stings her on the neck with his tail, causing her to collapse.  The camera falls too, presumably the camera man has run away.

It is chaos.  It is happening right now.

Edgar spins around and regards us, looking briefly noting the obvious wet mark on Percy’s pants and then back to me. “We have real problems to deal with now, would you both not agree?”

Percy answers before I can. “Yes sir
.”

His eyes take bead on Percy
again looking him up and down, stopping at the stain on his paints, then returning to Percy's eyes. “Can I count on you or are you best left to Arthur’s succubus?”

Percy didn’t even flinch.  “You can count on me Sir, things are very serious – I see.  This is what we are here for.  Damn, they are destroying the holy city. We can’t let that stand.”

Edgar’s intense eyes turn to me.  “Arthur, this feels of what you said Maldgorath’s plan was. Gather your team. Analyze the footage, we need your point of view.

I nod to him, somewhat overwhelmed by what is unfolding before me on the monitors.

“Percy, get me feeds from the Vatican’s security cameras – now,” Edgar directs forcibly.

Percy grabs a communication device from his belt and gives some commands to someone on the other end. After a few moments two of Edgar’s screens change out to security feeds from the Vatican.  Percy steps over and begins to explain to Edgar how to use his remote control
pad to scroll through the various feeds.

What I see sickens me: people being
torn apart and eaten.  Cubati sucking the life from their victims. Torture. The savagery of it all is overwhelming. Blood is everywhere.

Buildings are burning. People are dying.  This is not right.

Edgar spins around to me, remote pad in hand.  “Whatever you two had to share with me is not important now. There will be a conference call soon” Edgar says. “Get yourself ready, it appears Mr. Znuul has chosen to speak to the media.”

As I
am leaving the room, Percy follows me, adamant in telling me that he forced himself upon Sil.  In fact he goes as far as to grab my arm.

Not smart on his part. I lock
his wrist and take him to his knees.  One advantage of being as old as I am is that I have many years of martial arts training in many different systems, not to mention the experience of the gritty fighting in World War II.  I remind Percy know Sil is multiples stronger than an average human.  That Percy could overwhelm her is hard to believe.  He is insistent. I let him go unharmed, after all Edgar needs him and Sil is a mind-bender.

First of my crew I run into is
Pffiferil. I tell him what’s going on and task him with getting everyone to come to our room.

I head to
my room and it fills with my summonling gang. I look over my crew and share with them what I saw from the video feeds.  Shey’s response is quick and predictable.

“What would you expect from General Znuul? He’s evil
, and evil does as evil is.”

The only real surprise was from Arix
. “I find it very hard to believe that Ahtsag Znuul would in any way fall back into fellowship with Maldgorath,” he tells us all matter of factly.

I looked at Arix and ask him point blank – “
Do you think that is Znuul?” All I get is a shrug and “It could be another Baalig, his kind of demon, or a shape-shifted creature.” 

That d
oesn’t help.  Sil I know has slept with Znuul, so she would have a good perspective as she seems to tell so much by just a kiss. She is nowhere to be seen. Pffiferil ensures me he told her to come, but did mention she was acting “a wee bit unusual.”

So I instruct Arix to go get her.
He leaves our room.

I stand dumbfounded at w
hat has been laid out before me – Znuul and Maldgorath’s forces have laid waste to the Vatican in less than a day.

A short while goes by and Arix returns
- alone.

He smiles in his artificial way looking around the room then tak
ing bead on me. “Might we talk privately, Master Arthur?” I nod to him and step outside. Before I can say “what the hell,” I am asked “Just what exactly did you do to our fine succubus?”

That throws me off
-base – big-time. “I don’t know,” I stammer out.

“Well she is basically unreachable, totally introverted and not responding to external input.
Best I can tell she has been compelled one way or another.”

I shake my head at him
in genuine confusion.

That gets me a nod from Arix
along with a knowing look.  “Let me guess, you were angry, you said some things in a declarative sense. Anger can touch upon the will greatly, Master Arthur. I taught you this with several castings. You many have compelled her without knowing you did.  We are ever so sensitive to you, you know."

I review the moment and remember telling her she was worthless.  I remember her reaction to that
as strange.  I tell Arix about it.

“Well, looks like our girl has realized she is of no worth
at all. That’s quite a hard fact to deal with.  Well done Arthur, that is positively a vile torture indeed.”  The smile on his face is what creeps me out the most – to him that’s a compliment.

Percy
breaks the moment running around the corner.  “Mr. MacInerny! Emergency meeting in the conference room. Edgar says you need to be there. We don’t have much time.”  He takes my arm and tells me, “Come on.”

I didn’t move quite fast enough for his taste, in fact I hold my ground and his hand breaks free of me.  He
turns and looks confused.  I look at Arix who has his smug face on.

“She could stand a little putting in place and I doubt she’s going anywhere soon.” Arix tells me.

Percy is again telling me to “Come on!”  Dammit.  I go with him and we take off trotting down the halls to the conference room.

We reach the conference room and there are no seats. Many are standing in the room and I find myself a nook amongst the filled room. The screens begin a count down from ten and then populate with faces and overviews of places from all over
the world. Of course Alistair’s face is front and center on the most prominent of screens.

“Are we all here?” he asks and one by one each
area acknowledges its presence, including Edgar for us.  “Good. Well then, I assume you all see we have an unprecedented attack and public relations nightmare.  Keeping ourselves protected from public eyes is paramount. We have heard from Gracia Potentia, they claim they are not involved.  We need to be skeptical.  Now, what do we know?”

A dissection of the event takes place using security camera footage.  The fact that tourist busses and shipping trucks were used was
shared along with facts proving these were taken by force earlier.  Nobody answers at the tour company and the owners of the trucks can’t be found.  There is analysis of the siege and of the creatures that laid waste to the Vatican.

Then the video stops
on an image of the cowled Ahtsag Znuul holding up a red bracelet to the media.

“Does anyone here have any idea what this is or why the creature Znuul would ma
ke a presentation of it,” asks Alistair.

There is a moment of silence, but that is broken by Karen’s voice.  “It is a locket of my hair, lacquered and made
into a bracelet.”

“For the sake of all that is good, Karen Redditch – you gave that thing a locket of your hair
?” Alistair booms. “Is there anything else you might wish to tell us?”

The screens switch to her face. She is not happy. “I have a matching bracelet of his hair
,” she tells the group.

That
revelation brings hushed tones from around all the conferences. Alistair’s voice carries over the top of them. “You have compromised yourself and also withheld valuable artifacts that could have been used to find this creature and prevent all of this.”

Karen bow
s up at that.  “Just what do you think I’ve been trying to do with it!  He has shielded himself somehow, does anyone here think they could scry him better than me?  Really?”

Alistair’s
tone changes to more fatherly. “Karen, you just can’t see it can you?  You have been manipulated.”

Karen’s response
is sudden and desperate. “You don’t see it. That creature in the video is too small. Ahtsag would never use a foci, he has no need of such things.  He’d never hide his face. And if he wanted to send me a personal message, he wouldn’t do it through the media!”

“You need to give us the bracelet
Karen,” Alistair tells her in that fatherly tone.  “And you need to step down from this investigation, you are emotionally compromised dear.”  From the screen I can see a hand on her shoulder and know it is his.  She wilts. 

“The Magerium is putting Karen under protective custody given what we have learned today
,” says Alistair. “Karen, you know you are not looking at things clearly?”

She nods her head and gets up from the table and
walks out of the screen’s view.

All screens are back on Al
istair again and he is taking a deep breath.  “Events are most unfortunate both at the Vatican and now, here.  Still, we must persevere. Let all heads of guilds meet in twelve hours to discuss plans for action.”

The screens go dark and people begin filtering from the room. I stand still. Karen laid it all out there.  She gave Znuul a lock of her hair. He did the same.  She does not believe the creature at the Vatican was him.  She’s emotionally compromised. 

Damn.

After the room
has mostly emptied out, I grab my phone and dial her up.  “The number you have called is no longer in service,” greets me. 

Protective custody works pretty damn fast.

So many thoughts run through my mind on the way back to my room. Znuul’s complicity.  Karen’s well being.  My family’s safety, they are mostly Catholic and definitely all Christian after all. Upon entering my room, I make a decision to call them immediately.  My bunk mate Pffiferil stops me though with a simple question.

“Did ye undo whatever it was ye did to the wench?”

I look him in the eyes and he grins. “Glad to be reminding ye then.  I’ll be taking it as things are pretty bad?”

“Yea
,” I tell him, then I spill my guts on everything, including my concerns for family.

He
nods and gives me one of those knowing looks he has, when he’s not pie faced from his flask. “Aye, best we pays attention to those things we can be doin’ something about. Like settin’ temptress free from yer curse.  She may be a demoness, but she's still one of us.  From what I be hearin’ from the sorcerer she’s got a nasty little taste of her own personal hell goin’ on now.”

I agree that needs to be first course of business and thank him for his sage advice.  Pffif offers me his flask for a “wee bit O’ liquid courage.” Without question, Sil’s going to be pissed when she snaps to herself, but the flask isn’t going
to help with that, so I decline and head across the hall to her and Vets room.

I open the door and Sil is still in her little wing-egg.  Vets is nowhere to be seen. “Sil
,” I call out “I need your attention please.”  The wings separate and fold to her back. She looks up slowly with vacant green alligator eyes and an expressionless face. She says nothing.

I reach to my will and choose my words carefully. “Silithes, I spoke in anger and did not mean to cause you harm. You are not worthless.  I was wrong.  I was angry.  I am sorry.  You are of value to all of us.”

Her eyes blink a bit and the expressionism of her face seems to return.  Then as quick as hiccup she shoots me a look that literally has me take a step back – it was pure hate, rage and homicidal fury.   Then just as quickly she turns her head to look away from me and takes a deep breath. “Thank you for releasing me from that Arthur,” she says in a cool neutral tone and begins to stand.

Her eyes return to me
. “Don’t ever do that again,” she says seriously.  She looks away again.

And I know what’s coming
next: the “now to make it up to me…” It’ll be a kiss, a touch, or asking for the full deal. I brace myself and think of replies.

“I apologize Arthur
,” she says instead, looking back to me.  “I should have pushed him away. I could have. It’s just nice to be… worshipped.”

You could knock me over with a
breath.

“Won’t happen again
,” she continues. “I didn’t mean to sully your word, I know how much it means to you.”

“Good
,” I say, because I’m without words otherwise.  I bring her up to speed with events and pose the question if she noticed anything from her time with Znuul.

She tells me “no.”

I ask her to think back all the same. She tells me all she remembers of his thoughts were “Oh yea!” and the feeling of him asserting dominance over her.

I ask her if she’s sure and she tells me that she was rather “Ooo baby Ooo” herself and
wasn’t really focused on gathering intel at the time.  That and she reminded me powerful beings such as Znuul are also well known to compartmentalize their thoughts to shield them.

I direct her to look at the footage and let us know anything that jumps out
at her.  We leave the room, her going to look at the video and me to return to my room.

I need to call family and ask them to hold off on attending church until things get under control.