Page 212 of Cherish

Halfway there, I see Mekhi, who is fighting back-to-back with the Shadow Queen. A group of hunters has them surrounded, and I start to help, but before I can do much more than kick the legs out from under one of them, a wild array of shadow creatures springs out of the earth and swarms the ground around them.

Rats, snakes, spiders—Mekhi waves a hand, and they cover the hunters, who start screaming at the tops of their lungs as they fall to the ground.

I shoot him a hell-yeah look, then continue toward Artelya just as the Crone and the Bloodletter go rolling across the sky above me. Both look a little worse for wear, but they’re going strong—kicks and punches and elbows and knees being thrown and absorbed by both of them.

Two gods in deadly but eternal combat, against a background of the cold Alaska stars.

And just like that, I decide enough is enough. I love humans, have spent nearly my entire life living with them and thinking myself one of them. But there is no way that my army, which has trained for a thousand years for just this eventuality, is going to fall to them. Not today. Not ever.

So as far as I’m concerned, it’s time to stop playing with them and put a stop to this once and for all.

I call Artelya and several of her colonels over to me. By the time they get here, Hudson has also made it—along with Mekhi and the Shadow Queen.

“The only reason they’re having any luck against us at all is because of those damn pouches,” I tell them. “But look at them—they tend to attack certain paranormals in groups.”

They turn around to check out what I’m talking about, and now that I’ve figured it out, it’s easy to see. The ones near the vampires are carrying a bunch of red pouches, while the ones going up against the gargoyles are all carrying the purple pouches, like the one that killed poor Rodrigo. We just need to divide and conquer.

“Hudson, you need to mobilize the Vampire Guard and go after that group over there,” I tell him, pointing to the huge contingent of hunters with purple pouches. “But stay away from the ones with the red bags.

“Artelya, you and the army take everyone else—just don’t tackle any of the hunters with purple pouches unless you have the element of surprise.”

By the time I’m done speaking, Hudson is already gone and Artelya is just about. As she disseminates my orders to her teams, I turn to Mekhi and the Shadow Queen.

“What can we do?” he asks.

But the Shadow Queen is already grinning. Because a giant wind has just whipped through the field, coalescing into what looks like a tornado. I know it has to be of supernatural origin—Alaska doesn’t get tornadoes. And it sure as hell doesn’t get them in the middle of a clear early-December evening.

Sure enough, the Bloodletter and the Crone come crashing back across the sky just as the wind whips into a frenzy. The Crone buries a fist in the Bloodletter’s face. Blood spurts from her nose and sprays all over the Crone, who howls in outrage.

And in that one moment of distraction, the Bloodletter shoves her sister away from her.

The Crone goes flying through the air, straight into the small twister that just spun out of nowhere. It catches her, whips her into its eye, and then keeps her there, imprisoned as she screams and screams.

121

It’s a Love/Fate

Relationship

Once the Crone is captured, my grandmother’s tornado deposits her inside a phalanx of gargoyles immune to her magic. My army simply gathers tighter around us, until they are just close enough for the tips of their wings to touch.

As they do, a powerful burst of energy rips through the air around us, creating a force field that imprisons us, imprisons her, within their circle. The remaining hunters—of which there are few—waste no time now abandoning the field. Artelya sends several members of the army after them to ensure that they don’t decide to double back, but then she and the rest of the army gather around the Bloodletter, the Crone, and me.

My mind is whirling with several ideas of what to do with the Crone—and I’d be lying if I said one of them didn’t involve repeatedly punching her in the face. Still, that’s not exactly the way I want to start my tenure on the Circle, especially not when I’ve spent a lot of time thinking recently about tolerance and forgiveness and the way I want to rule.

So instead of kicking the Crone’s ass—no matter how satisfying that may be—I turn to my grandmother instead. “She’s your sister,” I tell her. “What would you have me do with her?”

At first, the Bloodletter doesn’t answer. Instead, she just looks between me and the Crone for several seconds. But as her sister continues to howl, she sighs heavily and says, “You’re the gargoyle queen. Do with her what you will.”

Now that I’m over the need to draw blood, I think about using the Crown to drain her power so that she can never cause trouble like this again. I’m not sure it would be possible, but it’s worth a try. But even as I reach for her and the tornado falls away, I can’t help thinking that it’s a mistake.

Which makes no sense. Not when she has proven time and time again that she can’t be trusted with the power that she has. Not when she’s proven time and time again that her bitterness and hate will always win out over rationality and right.

And still, her strict adherence to order has a purpose. It’s always had a purpose—to balance out the chaos that is so much a part of the Bloodletter’s nature. The same chaos that is so much a part of my nature as well.

“The universe needs balance,” I finally say. “Chaos and order.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” My grandmother smiles. “Do you have something for me?”

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