Imperial (Insight #8)(57)

“You have got to be freaking kidding me,” Mazing said as she stood from her crouched position.

“What am I missing here?” Rasp asked as he stared forward at a very beautiful, rather enormous manor.

“That house came through The Fall not too long ago.”

“A house?” Rasp said disbelievingly.

“Yep. Right through the damn thing at a warp speed, took off the top of a third of the forest on its way through,” I said with a sense of awe.

“A house? The other side threw a house at us?” Rasp said with the most awkward expression in existence on his face.

“I don’t know the details, but I saw it pass by.”

“And it wasn’t empty, apparently,” Mazing seethed. “They loaded that joker up with the rank smell of lilies, and it threw it back out. Escorts must have gotten past us. Smarts ones, those on the other side flung our trash right back at us.”

Wrath was strangling her words now. The only scent in the air the night that manor passed us by was ours. Actually, now that I think about it, it was nearly gleaming as bright as the sun. I remember smirking, thinking that the Calvary had arrived, that Xavier and Donalt better duck, along with any other king that was foolish enough to follow their quests.

“She’s under us,” Mazing said as she circled where she stood and stared at the ground that was white with snow.

“Lilies,” Rasp said to me.

Mazing was losing her mind right now because the Creator-forsaken petal that had taken her rush was feet from her. I should have held her back, I realized that...but I didn’t.

“So be it.”

Hearing my reply, Mazing vanished. She was underground now.

We followed.

We walked into a battle zone.

Cadence was there all right, and so was Fielder. They were head-to-head with a pretty little blonde and two good-looking boys. I breathed in. I could see fire in the boys with the girl and the power of a Phoenix all over the girl. They were either in transition or soon would be. No doubt, when these three completed their transition they would be lethal. Clearly, Fielder and Cadence were trying to prevent that from happening.

This was a toxic dance Fielder was engaged in. Phoenixes had common traits with Escorts, in a manner of speaking; eternal lives, and whatever emotion they grasped during their transformation was the one they shielded as a weapon. Call me crazy, but if they were head-to-head with Fielder, then the emotion they had was most definitely not sunshine and butterflies.

As soon as I laid my eyes on that blonde, something told me I knew her, at least her essence, but I couldn’t place it right now. This was not the time for any kind of meet and greet.

I didn’t understand this room, why Fielder had stored souls in the three grandfather clocks that were centering the walls, why I could smell the death of one of his petals in this room.

I didn’t have time to understand any of it. Everything happened too fast. Time was stopped for the soon-to-be Phoenixes as Mazing flung Cadence to the ground. Cadence’s image flashed, telling me that she was indeed a mirror. Cadence reached up to pull Mazing’s soul from her body, and my instinct took over. One thought from me not only diminished her image, but her soul, wherever it may be.

The surge of power I’d used made me dizzy for an instant, and I swayed but caught my balance.

This was not good. I kept trying to figure out why Fielder had not made a move toward me, then I realized that I must be cloaked by Rasp. He was boldly standing before him.

A sinful smile came across Fielder’s image. He glanced to his frozen-in-time prey, then to Rasp.

“An act of war,” Fielder mused to himself in pure bewilderment. He then gazed at Rasp as if he had lost his mind. “And if I wasn’t offended by that, I’m definitely not happy that you interrupted my little role play.”

As Rasp held his ground, I glanced around us, to the clocks that I knew had trapped souls within them. I could sense even more of them less than a mile away, all trapped, all tortured—all robbed from my dear friend the Reaper.

Though their numbers were great, I knew in my soul that this was not even a fraction of the souls that had been taken by Fielder.

It was my fault these souls had been noticed and stolen. This blonde and those with her had been charged with cleaning up my mess. I had to find a way to help them do that tonight so they could press forward and release the myriad souls that were surely imprisoned by Fielder.

I whispered sacred words that I’d heard the Reaper say before. I grew weaker, but one by one the trapped souls in this room began to vanish.

“Who is with you?” Fielder demanded, looking squarely at me, yet not seeing myself or Mazing, who was shivering with rage—or was that weakness? What was happening to us? Why now? Could we really be this weak? Taking out one lowlying, mirrored petal and freeing a few souls had wiped us out.

“Harboring death? Really?” Rasp said to him.

“I’m a king. You do not speak to me that way. Tell me now who is with you. You have no power to kill a mirror and release the dead while staring me in the eye.”

No answer came from Rasp; he was too focused on ensuring that we could not be seen. I could see his warrior body tremble ever so slightly. There was no reason for that because he had the strength not only to hide us, but also fight whilst doing so; something was wrong.

All at once, a roaring thunder shook the stone room we were in and Vade appeared before Rasp and stared murderously into Fielder.