“Hold that thought.”

Moments after she had simultaneously introduced herself and used her power to ensure that her command for Joselyn to answer all of her questions was actually followed, Denuvus held a hand up to stop her from doing just that. A small smile played at the pretty, yet unassuming-looking woman’s face. “You seem a bit surprised, Mrs. Chambers. Was it something I said? Oh, and while we’re on the subject of things I’ve said, you should stand there without making any move to alert anyone, attack me, or do anything else beyond breathe and talk to me until I say otherwise. And you can scratch your nose or any other itch you have. I’m not a monster.”

Joselyn, staring at her for a moment, managed to breathe out. “You look different than I imagined, ‘Denuvus’. Unless you shapeshifted yourself to look like… this.” She did her best to keep her words calm, while her mind raced. Even for someone who had seen a lot in her life, finding out that this woman, who had appeared to be an innocent victim of one of Ammon’s temper tantrums, was actually the mysterious, whispered-about puppet-master whose potent ability was the basis on which Joselyn’s own son’s powers were based was… a lot.

“Yes and no,” came the clearly amused reply. “Yes, I’m using a power to change what I look like. I do that a lot, though I happen to be partial to this one. She’s… no one important, just a woman I saw once. But her face has stuck with me for some reason.” Denuvus mused on that for a moment before continuing with a shake of her head. “And no, I’m not really a man. Though people believing that is very useful for me. Oh, and ahh, my name is Denuvus, never tell anyone anything you find out about me, anything I tell you about my plans, goals, or even what I like to have for dinner. I’m a fish person, for the record. Deep fried catfish and hushpuppies, that’s basically my kryptonite.”

The time that Denuvus had taken to say all that had given Joselyn a chance to regroup a bit. “Are you here to kill Fossor?” she asked carefully, unsure how she would be forced to react if the answer was yes. She was sworn, magically, to protect him from direct and legitimate threats. On the other hand, Denuvus had used her power to make her stand still. Which would win out in a direct competition? She genuinely wasn’t sure.

“Kill him?” Denuvus echoed. “Eventually, I’m sure. But for now, what I need when it comes to that man is information. I’ve tried to extract it from him before but, well, our conversations never go very well. Even when he doesn’t know it’s me he’s talking to.”

She smiled a bit, clearly remembering a particularly amusing moment before shaking that off as she leaned back on her heels to look at Joselyn. “Anyway, getting information out of him, especially what I need, it’s a bit like getting blood from a stone. Although, I have actually done that, and it involves a lot more cayenne pepper than you’d think. But this man? I can’t get what I need out of him. Or I couldn’t, until you and your son came along. People close to him.”

Eyes flashing a bit with anger, Joselyn snapped, “I’m not close to him. And neither is Ammon. We’re both tools to him. If you think you can threaten either of us and make him do anything…”

“Physically close,” the other woman amended with a vague wave. “You spend a lot of time with him, and if he enjoys anything, it’s the sound of his own voice. We do have that in common, at least. I need you to tell me everything you know about him.”

Joselyn just stared at her for a moment before speaking. “I’ve heard plenty about you, from a lot of people. A lot of it contradicts itself, and I’m pretty sure there’s as much bullshit as truth in it. And I sure as hell don’t know about you being a woman. If you even truly are, you could be lying about that. You could be lying about anything. But what all of those things agree with is that you are dangerous. You kill anyone who gets in your way, without batting an eye. You kill people just because they might be able to expose something about you. He’s a monster, but so are you.”

If she was offended, Denuvus didn’t show it at all. “And you have just… no experience in being close to monsters, right? Joselyn, I’m not here as a threat to you. In fact, I may eventually end up getting you out of here. Who knows? It would be nice to stick something to him that hard. He would be so pissed off…”

She shrugged, adding, “Besides, we shouldn’t fight. After all, we’re kind of co-mommies. My blood was used to make your son what he is. Which, given the whole Heretic thing, practically makes him my family. I mean, if they have a take your son to work day, we might have to thumb wrestle over who gets him. Although, isn’t it pretty wrong that he’d be both safer and less fucked up mentally if he came with me?”

She chuckled softly before letting out a breath. “So, let’s get down to business. Like I said, you’re going to tell me everything you know about Fossor and Ammon. Let’s start with the kid. I just have one very important question. When you were pregnant, did Fossor ever take you away from Earth?”

Joselyn clearly hadn’t been expecting any kind of questions like that, blinking in confusion. “Take me away from Earth? I mean, yes, we went to a few places. Why?”

Ignoring the question, the other woman asked, “Did he take you to his world?”

Slowly, Joselyn nodded. “We spent a little time there. He said something about it being important for the baby to have a connection to his father’s world. He said it was a tradition, but I’m pretty sure it was about magic.”

“Bright girl,” Denuvus agreed. “Let me guess, at some point, your memory has a big blank spot, where you have no idea what happened.”

For a few seconds, Joselyn just stared at her, thoughts whirling in her mind before she confirmed, “I remember him giving me a tour of the house he grew up in. He was looking at a picture. Then it’s blank. The next thing I remember, we were on our way back to Earth, and it was two days later. I have no idea what happened in that time, and quite frankly, I’ve been trying very hard not to think about it all this time.”

“I have some ideas,” Denuvus murmured. “But first, tell me what you know about Fossor as a boy. I want to know everything, even the smallest detail, about his life on that world. I want you to walk me through every little bit you know. Be completely honest.”

Sighing, Joselyn did just that. She told the woman about Fossor being a child gifted in his species’ rare gift to speak with the dead, and how his abusive father had reacted. She told her about the young Fossor trying to render his sister immortal and killing her.

“And then he went to prison,” Denuvus noted. “But not just any prison. He was sent to one of the single most secure prison facilities in the known universe, which just happened to be held on his own home planet. At least, at that time it was. He kills his sister, and ends up in a place that’s meant to hold the worst monsters who have ever existed? How exactly does that work? Did he ever tell you how he ended up there?”

“He was kind of vague on that,” Joselyn admitted. “I take it you know how he ended up there?”

“Yes,” Denuvus murmured, “it’s because he wanted him there. And even as their prisoner, he still had that kind of influence. Enough to get the young, untrained and incredibly powerful necromancer brought close to him.”

“Another prisoner?” Joselyn was frowning.

“Not just any prisoner,” Denuvus informed her. “The prisoner. The one the prison was built for. Literally, the one. You know the name Fossor is just Fah-Seur, thirty-four in their language? The thirty-fourth prisoner. The one we’re talking about now is their word for One. You know about Arthur? The King, not your father-in-law.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Joselyn nodded. “Of course, I— wait. You’re not…”

With a soft chuckle, Denuvus shook her head. “It’s not Arthur. This was long before his time. Several thousand years ago. It’s another natural Dragon-Heretic, one that’s… let’s say less Camelot and more Genghis Khan. The prison was originally built to contain him and his personal minions. That is its primary purpose. When our friend here escaped, they moved the prison. There were too many defenses for him to get all the way to One and the other important prisoners before the people in charge could get out with them, and now the prison is somewhere else. One is still safely locked away.”

Joselyn squinted that way. “And do you think you can control this guy? Is that why you’re so interested?”

Denuvus gave her a long look. “I am not suicidal. Nor am I quite that arrogant. No, I don’t believe I can control this man. He was a full fledged powerful Dragon Heretic who was dangerous enough to build the universe’s strongest prison for, over three thousand years ago. Now? Even locked up, who knows how strong he could be? No, controlling him is not my plan. But I do believe that he could be useful to my overall goal.”

“And what is that?” Joselyn probed. “Because as far as I knew, your only real goal was to be as comfortable as possible and live like a quiet emperor. Excuse me, empress. Sticking your neck out as far as looking for whoever this guy is seems like a really good way of getting your head chopped off, at the very least. So what makes it worth that risk?”

“Perhaps some day I will tell you more,” Denuvus allowed thoughtfully. “But at this exact moment, let’s just say there is a creature whom I very much wish dead. Everything I have become, everything I have… sacrificed… turning myself into what I am and amassing as much power as I have, even keeping so many secrets about myself, has been toward the goal of killing this creature. He believes himself to be a god, and he’s not far wrong. But, even gods can be killed, given the right power in the right circumstances.”

Joselyn’s head shook slowly. “You want this… whoever it is dead so much that you’ve become a monster yourself. How many people have you killed to get here? How many of the people who actually cared about you or could have if you let them have you thrown away? How many lives have you destroyed with this obsession? You mentioned sacrifice, and that meant something to you. What was it? Who? Who did you sacrifice for your power? Because you clearly love them, and their death isn’t something this other creature did. You did that. Whoever this person was that their death still affects you after all this time, that was you. For everything this enemy of yours has taken away from you, it seems to me that you’ve thrown away just as much in this mad rush for revenge.”

An invisible force suddenly gripped her, lifting the woman off the floor and squeezing tight enough that Joselyn let out a gasp of pain.

“I threw nothing away,” Denuvus announced in a low, dangerous tone. “She is still a part of me, as she always will be. Making a choice and standing by it doesn’t mean it will never hurt or that you will never regret it. But I would not change what I did. I accept the pain as part of the price for eventually killing the monster who took my—” She stopped, emotions warring on her face for a very brief moment before she contained them.

“You are far from the only one who knows what it is like to have a child taken away from you. Some in a more permanent sense then others. Whatever it takes, whoever’s life is lost, I will see this creature bloodied, broken, and dead. And in the end, as he falls, he will know it was me. He will know that his death and every loss he has suffered has been my doing. Before he dies, the last words that leave his filthy mouth will be the names of my son and daughter that he took from me. Then he will die, and every atom of his flesh will be incinerated.”

Swallowing slightly at the end of that, Joselyn spoke carefully. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what that creature did to you, and what it made you become. But you never had to do all of this. You didn’t have to make this whole crusade yours and no one else’s. If he’s as much of a monster as you say, you could have gone to…”

Denuvus raised an eyebrow. “Gone to who? The Seosten-puppeted Heretics? One of these other groups who would not do what needs to be done to destroy him? People who would completely fail to understand the threat until it was too late? His tendrils are everywhere. He could control any of them. No, I will kill him myself, whatever the cost.”

She let Joselyn drop to the ground finally. “And thanks to our son, or at least his existence, I am several steps closer to that.” The woman offered a faint smile. “I suppose influencing Fossor with the idea of using my blood on an offspring of his own was worth the effort.”

Joselyn’s eyes widened slightly. “You… what? No, Fossor had to have your blood stolen, and then killed the intermediary.”

The other woman chuckled. “Well, of course. He’d hardly do what I wanted him to if I just handed the blood to him. It had to be his idea. Or, he had to believe it was. Planting those seeds took quite a while. But now they have paid off. He took you back to the world he came from. And if I’m right, he did exactly what I wanted him to.”

Smiling at the other woman’s expression, she waved a hand idly. “But, that is something that won’t come to fruition for sometime, as the lord of the house here furthers his plans. Which is just fine, as I am nothing if not patient. In any case, it will be fun to see him made useful to me again.”

“Again?” Joselyn carefully echoed.

Denuvus nodded. “Yes well, the ritual which granted me my Djinn required an unbelievably powerful spell be cast so that I could draw the excess into mine.”

“Powerful spe—” Joselyn’s eyes widened. “ The banishment curse. The one the old Heretics used to try to get rid of Fossor. You took energy from it. If you hadn’t done that—”

“The spell would have proceeded exactly as it did,” Denuvus interrupted. “I know it would have because they came to my sister and I to ask for help. They were looking for the aid of anyone capable of contributing to their spell. So they let us see it. I knew what would happen. The loophole was right there. But I didn’t say anything, because I needed them to cast it. I needed that energy. The energy from so many incredibly powerful people throwing their all into this spell was something I’d been waiting for.”

Shaking her head, Joselyn demanded, “How do you know that things would have gone the same if you hadn’t interfered?”

With a sigh, Denuvus answered. “Because my ritual did not take from their spell before it was cast, it used the cast-off energy afterward. Djinn are created in one of two ways, accidentally or purposefully. An accidental Djinn comes about when a world shaking spell is employed and the… let’s call it exhaust from that spell happens to miraculously find its way into a recently deceased body. Even then most of the time it will simply destroy the body. To form an accidental Djinn, the body must be far enough away that the energy has to strain a bit to reach it, thereby entering the body slowly enough that it doesn’t promptly explode. Yet if it’s too far away, the energy will drain away before enough pools to create the Djinn. It’s all very complicated, sort of like not only predicting where lightning will strike, but from how far away. And then, for good measure, do the same thing for every bolt in the entire storm.”

“Lightning rods,” Joselyn murmured.

The other woman smiled once more. “Yes, the ritual I used was like a very specific series of lightning rods. They pulled the energy in just the right way, at the exact speed to create my Djinn. Think of it as a complicated recipe, where food must be cooked at precisely the right temperature for precisely the right amount of time, or it’s all ruined.”

Joselyn swallowed. “You mentioned a sister. What happened to her?”

Denuvus was quiet for a moment before answering. “Creating a Djinn requires a sacrifice, a blood cost. You can’t just put it in any old body. It must be the body of one you truly love. I truly loved my sister. But it was the only way to put a stop to this monster.”

“Or you could have told the Heretics who came to see you for help with the spell about him,” Joselyn pointed out. “With enough help—”

“We tried,” Denuvus snapped. “Right after we escaped from our confinement, we tried to tell others about the threat. Some didn’t believe us at all. Others just believed we were grossly exaggerating the threat. And others… others were agents for him, willingly or otherwise. We were nearly enslaved once more because we went to others for help.”

She exhaled slowly. “No, I learned a long time ago that I can only depend on myself and my sister. Now only myself.”

Her hand waved that thought away, after a brief troubled frown that was also dismissed. “But let’s get back to it, shall we? There’s still a lot I need to know about Fossor and our little boy.

“So, I suppose it’s a good thing that we have all night to talk.”