Did he imagine that she popped that door open every time things got a little hairy? Only Kolya going down in a heap had brought that on. “I don’t like you that much,” Sorcha screamed in return.
At her back, she could feel Merrick doing something; she could See him doing it. Their shared Sight was unraveling the pattern. He was going deep into it, trying to understand the impossible.
With a grunt, Sorcha took a step back. “It’s too much. Yevah is about to pop wide-open. How do you feel about drowning on dry land?”
He pressed his lips right next to her ear to be heard above the howling mass of dark water. “We have to get back into the circle.”
That was against everything in the rule books: never step into any sort of summoning circle. Such circles were the base of the geist’s power in this realm, and it was actually possible to be drawn into the Otherside from within one.
Sorcha dared a glimpse at Merrick. His face was calm, but his eyes glittered with an intensity shared by fanatics and the faithful. Breathing in over her drawn teeth, she made her decision. Years of training provided her only option: always trust your Sensitive.
Together they stepped backward over the dead and into the ring that had been constructed with such macabre care. They were now in the summoning circle. Yevah had shrunk so much under the assault that Sorcha and Merrick were now breathing against its fiery surface. But, looking up with her partner’s vision, she saw something so incredible that their immediate danger paled into insignificance.
They were inside the geist. Craning her neck up, with their shared Sight she could See the pattern of the unliving whirling and spinning around her. It was like being inside a patterned tornado. Teisyat wouldn’t help them now; the Otherside would have swallowed them along with the geist.
Sweat was pouring down her back, and her shoulders ached with the effort of keeping her Gauntlets up. “Please tell me that you have a damned plan!”
Nearly there, nearly there. Kebenar will show us. The Sensitive rune bloomed from Merrick to her, and Sorcha could finally see clearly. The pattern flickered around them from red and swirling to white, suddenly revealing itself. It was a braid, as simple as a child’s braid. The pattern around them was a combination of three of the most common geist forms: dukh, rei and spokelse. They were the three most innocuous varieties, but it appeared that once they were combined, that was no longer the case.
It was certainly nice to know what she was facing, yet Sorcha was now far beyond any of her training. A geist made out of the essence of three others—such a creation should be impossible. Yet, the last few days had been full of impossible things. It appeared that all bets were off and the rule books might as well be thrown away.
Pyet. The Bond was too strong. She could now hear Merrick echoing in the back of her head. The whole world had gone crazy.
“Explain yourself,” she hissed, falling to one knee as the shield buckled. They surely had only a few moments before it collapsed entirely. Merrick put his back to hers, giving her the physical strength to keep her Gauntlets up a little longer.
Keep Yevah, open Pyet. Not so much words leaked across, but understanding. Two runes at the same time? It was a good thing that Merrick hadn’t been stuck with an Active fresh out of the Abbey.
“Stay behind me—but not too far.” Sorcha clenched her right hand shut, dismissing Yevah. The shield, now held only by the left-hand rune, swayed sickly, sucking down even closer to the Deacons. They were forced to huddle together like two lost children or be exposed to the raw, roaring center of the geist. Sorcha, despite this difficult situation, appreciated that Merrick held the Sight steady and pointed upward, managing to ignore the wobbling shield and concentrate on the patterned geist.
She sought out Pyet. Doing so was like having one fish on a line, and using another hand to balance a rod for another. Her training had covered this tricky ability and she had done it before, but only under controlled circumstances. Had Deacons become so complacent, the thought flashed across her mind, in the way idle thoughts do in moments of stress, as to never expect to need more than one rune at a time?
Her fingers tingled within the Gauntlet, stretching out, while she gritted her teeth. Sweat now slid off her forehead. Finally, Pyet activated, snapping white-hot onto her palm. It was a lesser rune, but still enough to bring down something like a spokelse. These bouncing orbs of light that led people to their deaths had not been seen anywhere near Vermillion for more than a year. Now one was part of this monstrosity.
Her left hand was outstretched, still holding Yevah. Her right contained the undeployed Pyet. She needed a target before this deck of cards collapsed completely. Her muscles ached and her back was howling in protest as she braced herself against her Gauntlets.
Show me. Her shared Sight snapped into focus on one strand of the braid, separating it from the whirling chaos of the others. Sorcha dropped Yevah; no rune power could be transmitted through a shield. The geist was all around them and now they could both feel the raw power of the unliving. It scorched the skin and tore at their hair. Unlike normal mortals, Deacons could stand that power, but not for long.
Sorcha and her partner clung onto each other, holding tightly so as not to be swept away. With Merrick’s Sight, she aimed Pyet through narrowed eyes, directly at the rei strand of the geist.
Gleaming fire spun around her Gauntlet and smashed into the unliving creature crushing down on them. The world became a chaos of white fire and dark water, snarling together as if a tornado were tumbling around them. Sorcha’s ears and eyes felt like they might explode. She doggedly held on to her young partner as the fierce geist battered them about.
Merrick slipped and fell, but she never let go, shielding his body with her own. She was not about to lose another Sensitive to a contrary geist. Her lungs seemed on the verge of collapse, her eyes burning in her head, and then . . . and then . . . the storm passed, leaving them gasping in the aftermath. Pyet still twinkled on her hands, ready for more action as she pulled herself upright. Merrick was lying there, panting and staring up at her. Certainly for a first real-life battle experience, this one would be hard to beat.
Sorcha found she was smiling. She wiped her forehead, one Gauntlet already inactive. She glanced at the left one, still burning with white fire. With a slight smile she pulled out a cigar from her pocket and lazily raised it to her mouth. Merrick gaped as she used the treasured talisman, still burning with the fires of the rune, to calmly light it. She grinned at him while he continued to stare speechlessly, the smoke curling past her eyes, and took pleasure in his horror. With a mocking smile and a measured shake of her hand, she extinguished the flames. “Ah, white fire.” She motioned with her head to the lit cigar. “Preserves the flavor.”
On any normal day, the smoke would have calmed her nerves. After all, that was why she enjoyed cigars: guaranteed bliss for an hour, when all that mattered was the smoke and time to do nothing. This had turned out to be anything but another normal day.
As Merrick was still in shock, she turned to one side and began to examine what was left of the summoning circle. She took a good puff and surveyed the damage. It wasn’t pretty. What little remained of the circle of bodies was charred almost beyond recognition. Burying them wouldn’t take long at all.
At her back she could hear Merrick getting to his feet. Worryingly, even without turning, she could tell he was exhilarated more than terrified. The Bond was never meant to be like this, and certainly not this quickly. Only hours old, and all the rules were quite undone. Still, there was no point talking about it.
“Someone went to a great deal of trouble to create that geist.” She traced the outline of the pattern still faintly visible on the ground. “Someone who knows a lot about the unliving.”