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“What enemy comes tonight?” shouted Stefan.
“Hunters. Many,” shouted Ciris back.
He unsheathed the sword, and Lasha pulled his dagger.
Through the door came a hooded figure in a long, black robe, then another and another until a dozen encircled the ring of Christmas tree ornaments.
One of the cloaked figures stepped forward and drew back its hood, revealing a striking woman with sharp, platinum hair. The vague image of her face was a memory from the SUV ride to the JTS airport.
“I am Sister Jillian of the Den. My clan is the Black Wolf. We have protected the Veil for two millennia.”
Another figure lowered its hood. Jane knew this man, knew him well. Tall and broad with dark, brooding eyes. She wracked her memory until her mind settled on one name.
John Taylor stepped forward without acknowledging Jane and looked down at the little girl on the bed. “This is the girl who will save my daughter?” he said to Sister Jillian.
“There are no promises, Hammer, except for one.” She approached Ciris but stayed just beyond the reach of the flickering trees. “Where is Nhat? Where is that fucking orb thief? I want what is mine.”
“He is far beyond the Veil, dancing on the shores of Chaos. Seek him there yourself, bitch!” spat Ciris, letting out a spine-chilling growl.
Three of the hooded figures threw off their cloaks, revealing bi-form bodies covered in black fur, their hands ending in claws, hackles raised, fangs dripping with frothy foam.
“Call off your dogs. Your queen is in our hands!” shouted Stefan. “Keep your side of the deal, or she dies.”
He brandished his sword, and Jane was unsure if he would strike her down.
“The deal was that Nhat would be here with the stolen stone,” said Sister Jillian.
“And you would come alone,” countered Ciris. “The coin of deceit has two faces.”
“It doesn’t matter,” spoke another of the hooded figures, coming forward with a heavy limp. It brushed aside the growling beasts and stepped over the trees into the circle, drawing back its hood to reveal the face of an old woman with a head of silver-white hair that changed with the color of the Christmas lights. A strand of it was dyed blue, another crimson, and a large braid with feathers woven in fell across her shoulder.
“We are all pieces of the game,” she said. “The question is, who’s the fucking game master?”
She looked down at the child. “How long has she been dreaming?” she asked Lasha.
“T— two moons,” the boy stammered, terror palpable in his voice.
The old woman nodded. She acknowledged John Taylor and Sister Jillian. “I am White Owl of the Maji. I speak for those you persecute. Here, within this shopping mall, on a bed framed from a branch of the ethereal Ghost Tree that grows beyond the Veil.”
She walked around the canopy, inspecting its intricate detail, then turned to Lasha. “It’s really something, ain’t it?”
“Y-yes, m’lady.”
“M’lady? Hah! I like that better than ‘stinky witch.’”
The boy’s eyes grew large.
She cackled. “Don’t worry, kid. I’m harder on myself than my protégés will ever be. We witches have ears that float in the air, don’t y’know?” She stroked his golden hair with a crippled hand, brushing it behind a delicate ear.
Lasha looked into her eyes and smiled as if nothing else in the world mattered.
The old woman pulled away, her gaze returning to the little girl asleep on the bed.
“What do you suppose she’s dreaming about?”
Her question went unanswered.
She turned to Jane. “You make a fine queen.”
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“I’m not a queen,” she replied. “I’m…” She wanted to explain a complicated political process that involved concepts such as justice, truth, power, and the will of the many over the desire of the few, but the words would not come in the strange tongue she now spoke. “…president,” she said, though it rang empty and emotionless.
“The difference being sacrifice,” said White Owl. “It doesn’t matter. We are here for the ritual in the end.”
“Bring the one who is lost upon the badlands,” she said to Taylor. “Your daughter.”
Taylor turned sharply, his cape whipping around him. “Bring Amy,” he ordered.
One of the hooded figures left the lobby, went into the shantytown, and returned a moment later bearing an emaciated child. He handed her to Taylor.
Ever so delicately, the large man bent his head and kissed her cheek.
Jane gasped at the sight of the little girl. She was nothing more than skin and bones.
White Owl pulled a folded piece of paper from her sleeve and handed it to Lasha.
The boy opened it, inspected it, and then looked up to White Owl without a word.
“Read it. You are a Tongues of Fire, after all.”
“Sorry, m’lady, I… I can’t understand it.”
“Fuck!” cursed the old woman. “Like I didn’t have enough to do. Now I have to be a schoolmarm too. Lick it, damnit!”
With an uncertain look, Lasha brought the parchment to his face, sniffed, then snaked out a pink tongue and ran the tip of it across the words. He held the paper back, staring at it, then gently folded it and handed it back to White Owl.
Lowering his voice for resonance, he said loudly, “A queen shall lay her on the bed.”
The children all looked at Jane.
Lasha repeated, this time the words screamed in her ears, “A queen shall lay her on the bed.”
John Taylor stepped over the Christmas trees and approached Jane, holding his daughter out in his strong arms.
Amy was as light as a feather. She could feel her bones through her nightgown, and a fever radiating from her wasted body. The cold breeze came again, and she knew, somehow for certain, that it was the breath of death lingering just beyond the perimeter of the trees.
“Lasha, pull out that blanket,” White Owl said to the boy. “Behold, the Veil is descending! Put her on the bed next to the Dreamer. It is now or never! She waits in the nightmare land among the glimmer of lost dreams, dreams of hope and of despair.”
Lasha lifted the sheet, and Jane laid Amy down, covering her and brushing a stray lock of hair away from her face. She felt a heartbeat. Was it the child’s or her own? She felt the drug of sleep, the pull of the pillow, the allure of the sheets. She could smell the forest and hear the baying of the hounds on the hunt, and high in the star-dappled heavens, the flight of storks dispersed a mist of painless slumber. She wanted nothing more than to crawl in next to the child and drift away.
White Owl’s strong hand pulled her back.
“No, dear, it’s not your time,” whispered the old witch. She turned to Taylor and Sister Jillian. “You should be ashamed. I allow this only in a moment of desperation.” She then nodded to Lasha.
“Let the Hammer rest,” called the boy.
John Taylor lifted the sheet, crawled into the bed on the other side of the Dreamer, and was asleep before his head rested on the pillow.
Sister Jillian laughed out loud. “What a tidy little chant you’ve conjured up, crone. All it needs is the blood of a true virgin to be like you ripped it from the storybooks.” She turned to Ciris. “Will that be your blood, little sister?”
“The promise,” said Ciris, her voice firm.
“Keep the queen alive. I need her country. Have at it!” Sister Jillian spat toward White Owl, her saliva speckling her black robe. “Chaos bringer, may you once in your decrepit life cast your enchantments with impunity. You’ll not die by my hunters tonight. Consider it a ceasefire until I get my queen back. This little haven stinks of Maji. And traitors!” She turned and left the light circle, her retinue on her heels down the dais steps, out into the deserted shantytown.
One hunter remained. A boy near the age of Ciris or Stefan. His dark skin was marred by a scar running across his mouth like a centipede. “Ciris, you can still redeem yourself. The Sisters are forgiving.” There was a plea in his voice.
Ciris gazed beyond him, a defeated sorrow in her eyes. “Ryzen,” she whispered, “I remember a boy who defied them. They sewed his mouth shut.”
The boy lifted his chin proudly. “In the words of our clan, kill the Maji, stop the Chaos.”
A rumbling growl came from deep within Ciris.
The youth put back his hood and followed his companions.
White Owl stood tall. She raised her crippled hand, and it changed into the sharp talons of a raptor. “The Maji are rising. Like a distant constellation, those faint stars will grow fiery bright. Now, brace yourselves. Lasha, stand back.”
“I’m going with them!” squeaked the boy.
“No,” said the old woman.
“Yes,” said the boy, lifting his head.
White Owl looked him over from head to toe. Shook her head with fatality and gave a solemn nod. “Ahh, my little devil. You are brave. Take care of him, Ciris.”
She crossed her talons as if touching an invisible dome above the sleepers, the two little girls, and the hulking man.
Jane felt the floor shaking, her balance uncertain. A thin fissure of light twirled in the air just before the drifting chiffon.
White Owl grabbed it like she was catching a fish. “Hell yeah, I still got it! Help me, children!”
They jumped to her side, each one taking hold of the seam and pulling, ripping, making it grow larger.
“Help us, Queen!” Shouted Lasha.
A white flame fired out of the tear, licking their clothes and turning them to fine ash that was blown from their bodies, leaving them bare. The old woman’s flabby arms and sagging breasts strained with her exertion.
Jane reached into the tear, grabbing hold of a substance she did not understand. The forgetting swept over her, wiping away her purpose until only the struggle remained. Her fingers burned and froze at once. She pulled with all her might and all her will until she was in unison with them, a great pulling force. The tear grew wider and wider, and there was a sound of thunderous rending, and then a white undulation that quickly turned to a dark rainbow, which itself turned to the deepest jade.
“Go! Go! Go! The enchantment cannot bear too much more! Go!” Screamed the old woman from far, far away, for she had become a bird, a great white owl soaring into the field of green.
Then the children jumped, their naked bodies swallowed up.
Acting only on instinct, Jane leapt, and all she knew was that she was coming apart at the seams.