Born of Ashes

She glanced behind her intending to ask Santiago or Zach what was happening, but they were frozen as well, Santiago looking at his phone. Zach frowning at the stage.

She looked back at the stage. Casimir stood there alone, facing in her direction. He waved at her.

So he could move.

What on earth was going on?

She stretched her vision and saw his smile, the arrogant curve of his lips and set of his shoulders. He wore snug black leather pants, black boots with pointed toes, no shirt, just his long, thick hair loose about his shoulders, his muscular pecs on display.

“Come join me,” he called to her. There was no music because even the orchestra appeared stuck in mid-motion. “I have done this for you, Fiona. Now come to me.”

She shook her head. She didn’t know what to do.

But before she could gather her wits to even figure out what was happening, the two white-winged men flew from the cave and sped in her direction. She felt panicky, queasy. If she rose, they would grab her. But if she stayed put, they’d do the same and there seemed to be no time, just three seconds to make a decision.

Instinctively, she put a hand on Jean-Pierre’s arm and leaned back farther in her chair.

The men arrived. She shook her head and said, “No. Don’t do this.” But neither looked at her.

Instead they swooped down on Jean-Pierre, took him underneath his arms, and flew away with him.

She vaulted out of her seat reaching for him. If she had been able to mount her wings, she would have flown after them, but she couldn’t. All she could do was cry out another helpless, useless, “No!”

Casimir was suddenly next to her. She moved backward, bumping into her chair. She tried to move around the chair, but he simply caught her arm and held her fast.

“What are you doing? What have you done with Jean-Pierre?”

He smiled. “You weren’t supposed to be immune to my stasis skills.” He shrugged. “But I don’t think this is a bad thing. If anything, I expect to have a little more fun. And isn’t that what life is all about?”

Fiona felt the smooth glide, saw the darkness, and knew she was moving through nether-space.

When she arrived, with Casimir still holding her by the arm, she blinked at the familiar dark space, the stone walls, the smooth floor, the slab of dark granite upon which Jean-Pierre was stretched out, beautiful in his tux, but held in stasis.

She jerked away from Casimir.

“You should thank me. I’ve made him more comfortable. I stretched out his legs, his arms.”

She turned and faced the monster, the hedonist, the Fourth ascender. “Have you no conscience?”

He pursed his lips, shook his head, and shrugged. “Uh, that would be a no.” He chuckled.

“Then what do you want?”

“That is an excellent question and to tell you the truth I often have the worst time answering it. I can say this: I want to feel pleasure, a lot of pleasure, and as often as possible. Is that something you can offer me?” As he had the last time she was with him, he hooked his thumb in the waistband of his pants and tapped his zipper with long fingers.

She refused to look down. “No,” she replied.

“Pity.” He turned to the men, who had retracted their wings. They each were as tall as Jean-Pierre, but more muscled, like Warrior Luken. She would have been more frightened but their eyes were dull, enthralled.

“Your minions?” she asked.

“Of course. Are they not magnificent? Russian and as physically powerful as your WhatBee here.”

He moved toward the table in the direction of Jean-Pierre’s head. “Nice tux. I’ve seen this. I believe it is the latest Brioni. Yes, very nice. Your man is quite beautiful.” Casimir put his hand on Jean-Pierre’s shoulder and caressed him.

Fiona’s instincts flared. She didn’t want Casimir touching him, not like that, not like he wished to possess her man. She moved toward him.

Casimir glanced at her and laughed. “Jealous?” he asked.

“Take your hand off him. Now.” She had never heard so much force in her voice before.

“Oh, I think I’ve hit one of your buttons.” He looked back at Jean-Pierre, leaned down and kissed his forehead. At the same time, Jean-Pierre’s coat, bow tie, and shirt disappeared, leaving him bare-chested. Casimir moved in behind Jean-Pierre’s head, bent low, and slid his hands down Jean-Pierre’s chest.

Fiona wasn’t thinking when she leaped onto the table and threw herself on Jean-Pierre. She bared her fangs to Casimir.

What he saw seemed to startle him because he actually moved backward, his hands flying away from Jean-Pierre. He held them up in surrender. “Extraordinary,” he murmured. “But then given what you demonstrated earlier, I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re glowing again.”

She hardly cared. She only knew he was not to touch her man, her warrior, her vampire.

She remained in that position, protectively above Jean-Pierre.

Casimir shifted his gaze to his oversized minions, snapped his fingers, and said, “Secure the woman. Bind the man.”

Before she could plot a countermove, the two men moved with preternatural speed and she was dragged off the table and her arms pinned behind her back. The other worked a strange kind of white tape around Jean-Pierre’s throat and torso, lifting him up, raising his arms in a series of quick moves as though he flipped a rag doll.

She thought she saw the smallest flicker of Jean-Pierre’s eye in her direction.

She gave a little cry then sent, Jean-Pierre, can you hear me? Oh, God, please hear me. Hear me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have the power to battle these men.

I am here, he returned. But I cannot move.

He put you and the entire audience in stasis.

My breathing, what is happening?

She looked at his throat and chest and she saw the brilliance of the trap. The bindings are tightening with each breath you take.

Are you all right?

Yes. But for how long? I don’t know what to do.

What of your channeling power?

Yes. Of course. She moved her mind next to his and felt all the miraculous vibrations.

“Hold her tighter,” Casimir called out.

Fiona, your aura is glowing again.

Casimir said as much. Can you feel me next to you?

Yes.

I want to try a hand-blast.

Do it.

She could feel a faint vibration travel down his arm, very weak, nothing like before when they used the hand-blast together.

She opened her palm and let the sensation fly, but barely anything happened.

Casimir laughed. “I saw a little burst of gold from your hand. Surely you can do better than that.” He crossed his arms over his chest. He looked arrogant again, his lips almost a sneer.

Fiona knew she couldn’t channel Jean-Pierre, not in this situation, because of the stasis.

She reached out for the one woman who could help her: Endelle. She sent her telepathic thread flying in the direction of Phoenix Two, but before she’d gotten a few feet, she stumbled mentally, such a strange preternatural sensation that her head actually jerked forward.

“Not gonna happen, Fiona,” Casimir called out to her. “I’ve shielded the building. Nobody in. Nobody out. No preternatural phone calls.”

Oh, dear God.

Freedom has many faces.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 19

Fiona. Jean-Pierre’s voice was a mere whisper through her mind. I cannot breathe.

She looked down at Jean-Pierre. His face was red and the bands had again tightened around his throat.

She looked at Casimir. “You’re killing him.”

But he lifted up both hands and shook his head. “I’m not allowed to kill anyone on Second Earth or Mortal Earth. To do so would be a death warrant.”

“But you are the instrument of his death. How is that any different?”

Casimir shrugged. “It’s a loophole and it’s worked quite well for centuries.”

Fiona looked down at the man she loved. She felt her power pulsing around her and through her. She knew her aura glowed, that her preternatural channeling power was at full bore, but what good could it do her when she couldn’t channel anyone?

She felt completely helpless, even useless. She might as well be strapped down on Rith’s bloodletting table for all the power she could wield in this situation. She slid off the table and sank to her knees. She held Jean-Pierre’s limp hand in hers and brought his fingers to her lips.

She loved this man, this dying man. She loved him with all her heart, yet there was nothing she could do.

Tears fell, dampening his fingers as she rubbed them back and forth over her cheeks. I love you, she sent.

Je t’aime, returned faint, so very faint.

* * *

Jean-Pierre drew the smallest breath, but the band tightened even more. His mind skated about uneasily. He could not see a way out of this situation.

He knew only one thing: He would miss Fiona. He did not know what the afterlife would hold for him and perhaps this was his time, but already, even in this moment, he knew he would miss her, all the years he did not have with her, perhaps even the children they would not birth and raise together. Yes, he would miss it all.

He did not understand the power that the breh-hedden had wielded over his life since he first caught Fiona’s lovely patisserie scent. He had at times been a crazed man, a vampire searching to be satisfied with only what she had to give. Taking her blood had been one of the finest experiences of his life, giving power to his body, and to his spirit. That was the true mystery between them: that somehow she empowered him and forced him to think in larger terms.

Even his desire to see the Militia Warrior force improved had expanded during his pursuit of Fiona, by all their conversations together over the past five months. Oui, so many conversations about life and about the war, about what each of them could do, desired to do, to make a difference in their society.

To lose all that now seemed tragic.

And yet who was to blame? He had only himself, always holding back, always restraining himself because of things that had happened so long ago, things that had forged a wall of bitterness around his heart, things that had prevented him from really loving Fiona the way this woman deserved to be loved, with nothing held back, with his heart on fire in true passion, in true commitment, in true love.