Blood from my blood.
Stewed together, brewed in one,
Given to the earth
As our Son.
Time flows like a river and history repeats.
As shall the end shall become the beginning. Bring the circle to its completion. Bring the start to the end and the end to the start. Tie all binds into one and seal all doors with but one key remaining.
Close the world. Open the next.
xxxx
The words were making less sense now.
Things were growing more and more unraveled in the text. Even the script seemed to be falling away to nothingness, growing more and more scrawled and illegible with each line. Karasuma had to strain to even make out the words, let alone make any sense of what exactly had been written. In her delicate, light, airy letters, Miho had begun to make notations along the side of the pages, hoping to understand.
But, in the end, she knew the truth.
Up until that last day, Kathain had been falling apart inside. Yes, the precognitive had given up a good front, but the diary showed that the young one had been slowly burning away the last of her sanity.
It had happened to Miho once.
"Are you okay?" Doujima broke her thought before the memories could even resurface.
"Hmm.."
There was no answer to that, not really. Not with the things Karasuma already knew from the journal. The book spoke of the end of days, the end of everything, even of nothingness itself. What exactly could come after the end of both existence and void, Karasuma could not quite fathom.
The blonde went on. "We'll be landing in Atlanta shortly."
But Miho wasn't sure what to do from there on.
xxxx
"Should we say a prayer?"
Sakaki asked the words to no one as they watched Brett, Amon, and Kristo stalk up the driveway to the cars from the windows downstairs in the house. The still moist Nycole shrugged, her eyes locked upon the men's backs as they moved ever away from them, ever closer to their end.
"I don't know," the empathic whispered.
Haruto looked down. "Do you think they'll be coming back?"
"I know they will," Nycole replied almost instantly.
The former hunter gave a shake of his head. "I meant with the King or whoever it is they're going to go get."
Strong hands clamped down on both Nycole's and Sakaki's shoulders from behind; Marcus peered between them and through the windows, a perfectly delighted and satisfied looked plastered across his face. "They had better."
Nycole swatted off his hand and stormed off.
Marcus gave Sakaki a stern look. "They better."
xxxx
In old days, cemeteries were not meant to be places of mourning. No, in fact, the original record player was invented so that people could record their voices for their loved ones. The families of the deceased would be able to cart phonographs with them into cemeteries to go and picnic, all the while accompanied, in a manner of speaking and hearing, with their lost relatives and friends. The famous RCA dog from "His Master's Voice," ads was originally envisioned beside the casket of his departed master.
And yet, very few can find such joy in a cemetery. To so many, they are nothing more than places to grieve, to mourn, and to cry.
However, now, that place of death had become a sanctuary.
"How fitting," Robin Sena mused. "In an all too morbid way."
The little white markers around them seemed so pure, so bright under the line of the moon. There were hundreds upon thousands of them, stretching for as fall as they eye could see. Little ornamented them. Here and there were miniature American flags, fluttering in the mild breeze, snapping occasionally when the winds changed direction even subtly. Arlington National Cemetery. Even more fitting that Leanna should have deposited them there, of all places. A cemetery for fallen warriors and soldiers.
She turned to Leanna, to the warrior assassin, as the young woman worked at stripping off her shirt. How Leanna had managed to get them there, the teenage Craft User could only imagine. Yet Robin could not argue with the fact they were there. In fact, Robin couldn't complain at all since anywhere was better than in that damned Greyhound bus station, hunted by Sierra and the Other Thirteen. Her heart lifted at the thoughts of being safe from them, if only for a moment.
Yet, the sight of that alternate Kristo, if only in memory, caused Robin to shudder inwardly and outwardly. Robin drew in a breath, to say something to Leanna, to ask this woman before her about the shadow walker, about the Other Thirteen and their chances for survival, but the other spoke first.
"Do not fear them," Leanna murmured.
Robin raised an eyebrow. "How did you?"
"I may not be the woman you think I am, but I can still see the course and slow of time about me." The shirt fell to the ground, revealing, much to the younger girl's delight that the wounds were not so deep and that Leanna still bore a skin-tight, black, sleeveless body suit to wear about town. "I know your questions before they are uttered."
The keeper of the Arcanum nodded. "You are more powerful now than you were as Kathain."
Leanna prodded at a deep cut on her shoulder, not bothered by the action that should have caused her excruciating pain and immense torture, digging out the battered shard of a feather. "I am unencumbered by emotions. My mind is clear and focused. It allows the visions to come far more easily, while emotional interaction affects me not."
"You are…" Robin breathed.
But Leanna finished. "Touching God?"
The girl bit her lip. "Yes."
The once friend nodded slowly. "Your friend would have said that."
"He did say it," Robin pointed out, suddenly feeling defiant.
"He will say it again, to me."
Robin furrowed her eyebrows as Leanna stretched her muscles. The precognitive had been battered and beaten. Bruises marred her body, leaving dark brands here and there where the Other Thirteen's magic had dared to touch her. However, Leanna didn't seem to notice. That was where the Thirteen had failed so many times before. Robin understood now. Leanna. Her lack of emotions made her do what needed to be done, made her accomplish what was necessary. Not what she WANTED, but what was NEEDED.
"Do you have any spare change?" Robin asked softly.
Leanna glanced over her shoulder. "Thinking about making a call?"
"Not thinking about. Going to." The words were practically snarls.
"That's good," the oracle purred the words.
Robin froze, her blood running cold within her veins, sending a spike of icy frost down her spine and through each and every muscle in her body. "What…" Her nerves stood on end when Leanna didn't acknowledge her trembling question. "What's going to happen?"
"Three of your friends are about to make a terrible mistake."
xxxx
The miles slipped past silently, effortlessly. Each passing tree, each white line in the road bore another way marker as per how far they had driven away from the house, away from what had become their temporary sanctuary. The city had long since fallen away from them; the twinkling lights that hailed Atlanta in the dark sank beneath the horizon what seemed like ages ago. Even the terrain changed. What once had been nice, gently rolling hills became mountains and swamps about them.
Yet the highway and the silence remained the only constants.
Each mile marker that clicked away seemed to be an endlessly tolling death knoll for whatever lay ahead. Each line seemed an impure soul that had to be taken out of their way. Each shadowed tree became a haunting spirit, begging them to turn around.
"What exactly are we going to be getting?" Amon asked of Brett.
The fire elemental kept his stony gaze on the road. "The King."
"Then, who are we getting?" the former hunter tried again, stressing the words in a low, almost threateningly annoyed tone.
Kristo shook his head. "Just wait." He turned to Amon. "Just sit and wait."
xxxx
The phone rang.
Nycole jumped out of her skin, leaping out of her chair and turning stone still. The phone never rang at that house. No one of any importance knew the number. No one would dare call that house. No one HAD called that house in several years. At least, no one except for bill collectors. Everyone else of any importance knew better than to use the house phone, unless it was an utter emergency.
A cold chill ran up her spine.
Or was that still the dampness from being held under a shower to sober up? Nycole couldn't tell anymore. However, even Marcus, the stolid, manipulating, calculating Marcus, looked genuinely surprised and even taken aback by the ring.
Maybe it was nothing. Nycole thought, hoping beyond hope.
But the phone rang again.
Marcus reached over and picked it up, almost hesitant for once. "Hello?" There was a pause. "Why…. Yes…. Yes she is." His wide eyes glanced up to Nycole, to the empath frozen in place before him. "It's for you."
Nycole swallowed hard for a moment, trying to calm her rattled nerves. "This is me, that is you."
"NYCOLE!"
She almost fell over. "ROBIN!" Joy filled her heart to know the young Craft user was alive, yet alone in enough of one piece to be calling her. "Where are you?" Then, it hit her, the cold realization that the teenage girl had never been given that phone number. "Who are you with?"
"There's no time! Whatever you're planning it needs to be stopped!" Robin barked across the phone.
Nycole had to grab the phone with her other hand to keep from dropping it. "I can't…. they've already left."
Robin swore.
Nycole had never heard Robin swear before. In fact, the very thought of a profanity coming from those innocent lips seemed utterly alien and strange. It seemed…. Un-Robin-esque. At any other time, Nycole would have found her freshly born adjective hilarious, but, now, she just felt shock and horror. Her blood stopped, as thought quick-cement had been pumped into her heart. For Robin to allow such a word to spill forth….
"What's going on?" Nycole whispered fearfully.
"They're making a terrible mistake. They're going to give her everything she wants! They're going to destroy us all!" Robin was shouting frantically on the other end of the line, through the crackled static.
Nycole shook her head, tossling her loose, wet red locks. "Who?"
'The Queen."
Now, the empath's jaw dropped nearly right out of her head, yet a cool sense of responsible set in over Nycole like she had never felt before. "Tell me what we need to do, Robin."
"Get the Thirteen and get out of there!"
xxxx
Happy Yule.