He might not have his Sensitivity, but any citizen of the Empire knew the signs of a geist appearance. All the Deacons, including Sorcha, automatically drew together in a circle. Raed spun around, his eyes wide like a feral animal. His connection with the Rossin had to mean he felt the Otherside in a far more visceral way than any of them. Merrick was almost jealous of that.
“Something is coming,” he growled, as his eyes darted around the stairwell.
“The Rossin!” the young Deacon hissed, suddenly aware that they could be swallowed by the Beast that lived inside Raed if a geist made a sudden appearance.
“Don’t worry” was the only thing the Young Pretender had time to say, before the geist made its presence felt in a more powerful way.
Vermillion was bound to have many memories and echoes of people who had lived in it for nearly a thousand years, and every Deacon was taught how dangerous such old places could be. That was why the palace had been the first building that the Deacons had cleared out when Kaleva arrived to take up his mantle of Emperor. Now it seemed that work had been quickly undone.
While the group looked upward in increasing horror, lights filled the dim stairwell. Groups of gleaming rei orbs spun on each other and floated down the staircase toward them. The smell of old roses clogged Merrick’s nose with an almost funerary scent.
The crew shrank back, but the Deacons, acting on training rather than good sense, did not. In fact, Merrick felt Sorcha step forward. She was too used to taking the lead in these matters—even when she was no more powerful than the sailors.
They were so fixated on the oncoming undead attack that no one—not even Merrick—noticed Raed shrug off his clothes behind them. The only thing that made them turn was the chorus of indrawn breaths from the crew members, and then the massive feline bulk of the Rossin was shoving them out of the way.
Merrick stumbled back feeling the heat of the great cat and its thick fur brush against him. He should have been killed instantly by the Beast—probably before he even realized it—and yet he remained breathing. The truth was immediately apparent that something had changed with the Rossin. The geistlord was in control of himself and in control of his hunger for blood. What exactly that could mean he could hardly identify right in this moment.
The geistlord filled the corridor, blocking out the lantern light and somehow smothering that from the rei. The group of Deacons and crew held their breath. As if sensing this, the Beast turned and looked back at them in contempt, his golden-flecked eyes flicking over them. Aachon was the only one capable of movement. He bent and picked up his Prince’s clothes, folded them precisely and draped them over one arm. The other humans stood fixed to the floor as if nailed there. It was as good a response as any; Merrick knew that the pistols and swords they carried would be no use against the Rossin.
After a long moment, the Beast let out an exhalation of air, as if disappointed with the whole situation before him.
The rei spun around on themselves faster and faster, then fled in the face of the threat like a cloud of insects that could fly through the walls. It was the only thing to do; consumption was an inevitability when confronted with a lord of the unliving.
The Rossin padded up the stairs and then paused. The Beast turned his head and regarded them. It took a moment for them to understand he was waiting for them.
Merrick swallowed hard. “We should all be dead.” His whisper stated the obvious, but he felt it needed to be pointed out. They were all moving into uncharted territory.
“I, for one, will take what mercies we can get and sort out the mystery later,” Sorcha said, leading the way up the stairs. The others followed quietly in her wake. Merrick took his place next to his partner, while Aachon acted as guard at the rear.
Following the geistlord so close that he could hear the constant low rumble in the Beast’s chest, Merrick nonetheless had the urge to grab hold of the lashing tail. He thought of his father’s favorite saying: “When you have a tiger by the tail, it is best just to hold on.” This was certainly a situation that more closely matched that than anything he’d ever thought to find. Though the Rossin was far worse than any tiger could possibly be.
The upstairs rooms and corridors were as deserted as the downstairs ones. Twice, Merrick caught the glimmer of the pale shape of a shade out of the corner of his eye, but they blew away quickly, as frightened of the geistlord as the rei.
“The residents are surely hiding,” Sorcha said under her breath to Merrick. “Everyone remembers what it was like before our Order came. They must be terrified of what is going to happen.”
“A perfectly justifiable concern,” Merrick replied. “But hiding is not going to save them from geists.”
Those who could must have fled to their own city houses, or perhaps to their outlying country estates. Behind these doors would be servants, the foolish, the brave or those who had no other choice. His concerns for them were great—these were, after all, the people who he’d been sworn to protect.
It was not just the Order that was falling apart—it was the mechanism of the Empire itself. Only it, and the Deacons, kept the population safe. Del Rue’s plans were ripening faster on the vine than even he could have expected, and Merrick could only hope that would mean the conspirator would make mistakes.
Clinging to such hopes was all the young Deacon had at this moment. He glanced up and realized the Rossin had come to a stop, like a very fierce bloodhound. He now stood, glaring at the humans, silent.
“What now?” Natylda asked her partner Murn, in an aside. It was certain she was feeling the same disconnect Merrick and Sorcha were. Asking something of one’s Sensitive in this kind of situation was very strange.
Merrick shook his head in sympathy, but replied for Murn. “We have to go in…but carefully.”
The group looked around, but Raed and his skills were no longer available. Finally, Aleck of the Dominion bravely dared to creep up next to the geistlord, withdrew his own picklocks and began working on the door. He couldn’t help looking up occasionally though, as if to reassure himself that he wasn’t about to have his head bitten off.
“Everyone has always assumed the Rossin is just a Beast,” Naleni, the youngest of their crew members, said, her eyes gleaming with interest. “Perhaps there is something more to him than—”
Sorcha, having had enough of this banter, pushed her way past the petrified and befuddled, and opened the door with the far simpler method of kicking it hard. Vermillion’s palace doors were not made for security, and the wood around the lock shattered after two blows. Reaching in, she slid back the lock and flicked the door open. She smiled at Aleck, who was staring at her with some concern.
Merrick couldn’t help it—he let out a little laugh. In all this madness some things remained constant; his partner’s temper was one of them.
“Sorcha!” Aachon snapped. “By the Blood, could you be more—”
“What?” she retorted. “This del Rue is going to know we’ve been here anyway, and the longer we stand in the corridor the worse it is.” Then spinning on her heel she entered the room.
Aachon shared a look with Merrick. “Deacons are supposed to have more control,” he muttered, before slipping in after the Active Deacon. The Rossin waited by the door, his golden eyes tracking each human that went past him, like a wolf might count sheep.
If there were any traps, magical or mechanical, in the room, Sorcha apparently was going to trip them all just from sheer rage. Her recent trials had not changed her that much, and her partner was very glad of it.