Lyman, of course, kept the same friendly smile stuck on his face that he’d had the entire time. His eyes, hidden behind a glare on his glasses, could have been closed for all that his facial features reflected the scene in front of him.
Griffin stationed himself in front of the rebel knot, while Luke wandered over to peer into the empty crypt.
“The real Anna Gibson’s bones would have been cleared out years ago, when the humans made this into a park. But they had long been replaced, anyway. That said, we only kept the relics here a short while,” he said in his flat Alfar voice. “Whoever opened this tomb was disappointed.”
“Then you knew of this hiding spot?” Blondie said, her voice sharp.
“Of course,” said Luke, calmly. “Your librarian did a good job fighting her commands, but we had no trouble seeing through her ruse. Over the past few hundred years, she has written over twenty full-length treatises on Anna Gibson. She never understood why, and we wiped her memory after each. But it kept her busy.”
Anyan put a restraining hand on Blondie’s shoulder, just in time. Blondie looked like she had a hankering for Alfar-kebabs, and I’d felt her powers rise along with her anger as Luke casually discussed their manipulation of the woman she’d obviously cared for very deeply.
Griffin, however, was not so reasonable.
With an audible boom, the Alfar second’s power mushroomed around him. Magical reflexes quick as a cat, Blondie’s power met his, halfway. Anyan retreated to me, and we built our shields tightly around ourselves. I saw Gog and Magog do the same, protecting Hiral within their barrier.
What was going on between Griffin and Blondie was less of a duel, and more of a game of chicken, or tug of war. They weren’t fighting with each other, just exerting a steady magical pressure, trying to get the other’s shields to buckle.
I don’t think, until that time, I’d ever felt the extent of Blondie’s magic. She’d done lots of cool things I couldn’t do, and I’d felt her power often. But she’d never really had to extend herself. In fact, the times I’d really seen her fight, like she had against Phaedra in the caves leading up to the creature’s lair, I’d later learned she’d been pulling her punches. She couldn’t destroy Phaedra because I had to face Jarl’s evil little crony myself, in a showdown for the labrys.
This time, however, Blondie pulled nothing. Her power was staggering, and I enjoyed watching Griffin’s eyes widen as he realized he was completely outmatched. Also realizing Griffin’s plight, Luke’s slow Alfar reactions finally kicked in, and the leader lent his power to his minion.
Blondie remained unfazed, simply pouring on more mojo until the rest of us had to physically move away, taking our shields with us, or be crushed.
I watched, alarmed, as one of the crypts standing between Blondie and the Alfar crumbled, and then a second. There was no doubt Blondie was going to win this little showdown, but I worried the only real loser would be this otherwise lovely little park that we’d already damaged.
Finally, after an excruciating wait, Griffin raised a palm to yield. A second later, Luke did the same. Original and Alfars all cut off their magic, and the rest of us had to amp up our shields not to stumble forward, sucked into the void left by all that power disappearing.
Blondie, Luke, and Griffin all stared at each other, until some unconscious signal let the rest of us know the pissing contest was over.
“So what did you do with the remains of the White?” Anyan asked, bringing the rest of us back to the business at hand.
“They are hidden,” Luke said. “And hidden well.” He took a pristine white handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe off his hands, even though he hadn’t actually touched anything. Then he held it aloft till one of his flunkies retrieved it and gave him another, fresh one.
Huh, an OCD Alfar, I thought. Somehow, that combination didn’t surprise me.
“There is no such thing as a good hiding place,” Anyan said, his voice eminently reasonable. “You know that. Already the Red has been awakened.”
“So we heard,” Griffin said, his own voice venomous. “Our forces have been busy wiping memories of dragons from the minds of the good people of Brighton and Hove.”
“Then you know the truth,” I said, tired of playing these Alfar games. Nothing ever happened when they were around—that was their real magic. They ground life down to its nubs, so nothing could ever happen. “You know that Morrigan is already the Red, and she plans to awaken the White. She’s already got her vessel picked out and everything. We have to stop her, and no amount of hiding the White’s remains will work. Not when the White wants to be found.”
Luke and Griffin both looked at me, Griffin’s face revealing a hint of surprise as if he found it curious I could speak in whole sentences.
His words, when he addressed me, were delivered as one would speak to a mildly retarded child.
“We found you in the presence of known rebels, discussing the rebel’s desire to obtain the White’s remains for their own uses. Why on earth would we help you?”
I nearly screamed in irritation.
“We’re not on their side!” I shouted. “They ambushed us, just like you ambushed us. They kidnapped us, just like you kidnapped us. Basically, to us, you’re the same people. You’re all the people who are stopping us from doing our job, which is to save your island, and your ass, from the beings you were too incompetent to keep from being found!”
So maybe yelling at the Alfar Powers That Be wasn’t the best idea, but I wasn’t known for my tact. I was also very pissed off at that point, and so was the labrys. With my last words it lit up like a UFO, casting its light directly in the faces of Luke, Griffin, Jack, Lyman, and their assorted entourages.
All the various beings threw their arms over their eyes as I wrestled with the ax for control. Eventually it calmed down, and I dimmed it till it was more like a pulsing, handheld nightlight than a spotlight.
Everyone lowered their hands from their eyes, staring at me with a variety of different expressions. Lyman, of course, was still smiling as if nothing had happened. Luke kept up his facade of Alfar calm, although he was frowning slightly.
It was Griffin and Jack who stared at me like foxes who’d caught a rabbit and weren’t sure which delicious morsel to bite into first.
They see power, I realized. It’s not me. They just see the power of the champion.
I felt sick, watching those two and realizing the truth of what Anyan had said to me, just a few nights ago, about the different forces wanting to use what I held.
“Just a tourist?” Griffin said, his tone dry.
I gave him a cold look, and then asked the labrys to remove itself. It did so begrudgingly, as if it knew I was in trouble. Unfortunately, it wasn’t smart enough to realize that any trouble I was in, was because of it.
“This isn’t about us,” I said. “Well, it is about us, because we’ll probably be the first to die if Morrigan achieves her mission.”
Everyone cocked his or her head at me, and I realized I was, once again, taking the circuitous route.
“What I’m trying to say is that you all need to put your personal politics aside for this, and let us go. We need to stop Morrigan. Not because we believe in the rebels or we believe in the Alfar, but because she’s going to wipe out everything if she gets her way.”
“And you want nothing from your situation?” Jack asked, his politician’s smile really getting under my skin. “You only want to stop the Red and the White? You’re not enjoying any of your new found power?”
I looked at him like I would kill him, if I could.
“No,” I said, my voice brittle. “I’m not enjoying any of this.”
He didn’t look like he believed me. And neither did Griffin.
“We need to know where these pieces of the White ended up,” Anyan interrupted, indicating the empty crypt. “And we don’t have time for this squabbling. While we argue, Morrigan’s making headway.”
Griffin and Luke exchanged inscrutable looks, until Griffin nodded imperceptibly.
“You realize how much humans love old bones, yes?” asked Luke. We all looked at him, nonplussed.
“I believe they refer to them as ‘relics,’ ” clarified Griffin.
“The bones of purported saints, collected by the Church and venerated,” Anyan explained for everyone’s benefit. I gave him an odd look. “There’s a lot of beautiful Christian art,” the barghest said, answering my unspoken query of how the hell he knew anything about human saints.
“Well we decided that the best place to hide something was in plain sight,” Luke continued, as if none of us had ever spoken.
I sighed. “You really love that method, don’t you?” I asked, but was ignored.
“So we added the bones from this compromised crypt to the bones in a far more secure, well guarded, human establishment. The type of place that supernaturals would never look, and the type of place that has all sorts of bones to throw off any attempts to discover the White’s resting place.”