Always the Vampire

Triton arrived at Cosmil’s place on our heels, and low and behold, Pandora sat at the base of the porch steps in her panther form. I’d missed the mysterious feline so much, I had the wild impulse to throw my arms around her neck.

Do not embrace me. And do not enter the cabin.

I stopped in my tracks, causing Saber and Triton to stumble into my back. Great. Days, maybe even hours away from fighting the Void, and we were doing the Stooges.

“Any special reason,” I said to Pandora, “we’re supposed to stay outside?”

Old wizard and the woman are spell casting. She lowered her head to the grass, and nosed first one object then another toward me.

The amulets.

“What’s Pandora doing with the amulets?”

“She’s playing bocce ball, Triton,” I snarked. “Give her a chance to tell me what’s up.”

“Testy.”

“Do you two ever not snip at each other?” Saber casually asked as he picked up the disks.

He curled his fingers around them for a moment then switched the medallions from one hand to the other before holding them out for Triton and me to take.

Most astute, Saber.

“Thanks, Pandora.”

I gaped at him. “You heard her?”

Saber grinned. Pandora chuffed.

Come. You must practice healing.

The panther prowled off to the ceremonial area of the circle.

“What’d she say?” Triton asked impatiently.

“That there’s magick afoot inside and we’re off to practice healing. You didn’t hear her, but Saber did? What’s up with that?”

“Sue me, I’m preoccupied.”

We followed Pandora to the far side of the circle where she stopped and raised a paw over a brown rabbit laying on its side.

“Oh, poor thing,” I said, leaning over the animal. “What happened?”

The rabbit was poisoned. Heal it. I must move away to lessen its fear.

“Wait. Does this work like it did on the trees?”

Draw on all your powers. With that bit of nonexplanation, she loped back to the shanty.

“Okay, gentlemen, in case you missed that, Pandora says the rabbit has been poisoned, and we’re to use all our powers to heal it. Ready?”

We knelt around the animal that was no bigger than Snowball, Triton on my right, Saber across from us. The spring of cool energy at the base of my spine that had been dormant now stirred like a slow whirlpool, then bubbled through me in rhythm with the warm pulse from the amulet in my left hand. I caught the rabbit’s gaze and sent calming thoughts as Triton and I moved in unison to lightly touch the poor panting body. Saber let his hands hover over ours, and I mentally heard our healing intent blend into a soft song.

This time when the rays beamed from the medallions, the light shone as a golden candle glow rather than a white laser. The rabbit laid still under our ministrations, and its breathing eased. Then it extended its limbs in a waking-from-a-nap stretch, and the halo of light from the amulets snapped off. The rabbit got to its paws and scampered into the brush.

“Well done,” Cosmil said from behind me.

I startled, lost my balance, landed on my butt.

“You two and Pandora need to wear bells,” I complained as I looked to see his lips quirking.

Behind Cosmil, Lia laughed, and I caught a strong undercurrent of cautious elation.

“Bells would have distracted you from your task,” Cosmil said. “Come now. No time to sit down on the job. We have much to do and more to plan.”

“Tell me those smelly liquor bottles helped you and Lia find Starrack’s hideout,” I said as Saber extended a hand to help me up.

“Alas, no. Starrack seems to have erased himself and the Void from the ethers, perhaps because you came too close to catching them. But we have learned something helpful through another avenue of investigation.”

“Come on, Cos, out with it.”

“As you say, Triton.” Cosmil inclined his head toward Lia. “It is your discovery. You do the honors.”

I took a psychic peek at Lia’s thoughts, but they were locked tight. I had the strong premonition that this would be a classic good news, bad news, worse news situation.

“We believe,” she said slowly enough to draw out the suspense, “that we’ve found the spell Starrack used to make the Void.”





TWENTY-ONE




“Hold it,” I said, hand up in the classic stop signal. “I thought the Void was a thought form.”

“It is,” Lia said, “but because Starrack was never terribly patient, we’re fairly certain he relied on a manifestation spell to speed up the process of creating the Void.”

Saber stepped forward. “If a spell made the Void, does that mean you can unmake it with another spell?”

“Unlikely,” she answered. “This particular spell calls for the use of blood, Starrack’s and perhaps someone else’s. There is no way to undo the spell without using the same bloodline.”

“However,” Cosmil chimed in, “in the course of our research, we spoke with a faerie in the Council records department who put us in touch with an investigator. That led us back to Lia’s contact in the nymph community.”

I barely kept from gnashing my teeth. “Cosmil, with all due respect, would you spit it out before I get a raging headache?”