On the first day of the rest of his life, John could not get out of bed.
It wasn't forbidden—not exactly. He just couldn't make his legs work. After Cassie, Rian, and the acolytes had left, Caleb had lifted him into a sitting position and he leaned heavily against the headboard, cushioned by a profusion of unfamiliar pillows.
"Let's see," Caleb grunted, digging through a shopping bag. "Looks like we got chicken noodle and... beef stew." He plunked two cans of soup down on the nightstand. "Got to start with a light diet. Doctor's orders."
John raised his eyebrows and Caleb shrugged.
"Dr. Succubus's orders."
"Beef," he croaked. Caleb went to fuss with the microwave on the other side of the room.
"It's good to have you back, John," he said with his back turned. His voice was heavy. Pritkin raised his eyebrows wryly as Caleb turned back around, face solemn.
"Don't flatter me," he enunciated slowly. Then he started coughing, and the other war mage was at his side again, shoving a glass of water in his face. When the coughing fit had passed and John sat back against the pillows again, Caleb cracked a smile at him.
"I know some Corps men who would pay good money to see you laid up like a mere mortal. How many decades, and never a sick day?"
John just rolled his eyes. Caleb snorted.
"Cassie really has been rubbing off on you."
The microwave dinged and Caleb bustled around the room. He presented John with a mug of soup, which looked tiny in his giant hands. John managed to grab it on the second try. Caleb pulled up a chair and sat down with a long sigh, rubbing the back of his bald head.
"Talk," Pritkin rasped.
"Eat your soup."
He took a sip. A passive-aggressive sip. Caleb stared him down until half the mug was gone, and then he nodded approvingly.
The other mage began telling John about the plot against the Pythian Court. The explosion that destroyed the house and everything in it. The girls who had barely escaped.
The attack on the Senate that left Cassie's bodyguards comatose.
The battle on the main drag of Dante's that nearly left them all dead.
The black mages at the Circle headquarters, everything burning.
When he finished, John's pale skin was ashen.
"Jesus wept," he breathed. The other man laughed mirthlessly.
"Two weeks. Two fucking weeks. I'm at the end of my tether. I don't know how Cassie is still upright. She'd pop in, save the day, then pop back out to Merlin-knows-where, looking for your ass."
Caleb paused and grimaced fiercely when he realized what he'd said.
"Damn it, John. Jonas has been asking where the hell you've been. We've been harried enough that he hasn't done more than ask, but he's going to come looking for you sooner or later. We need to pick a story and keep it straight. This has just been one non-stop clusterfuck since the dragon's blood incident."
"Jonas can bloody well fuck off," he replied. His voice was still gravelly, but stronger. "If he comes 'round, I'll have my own questions ready. For example, why he thinks he can use the Pythia's personal safety as leverage for a bloody power struggle while we're at war."
"That'll go over well."
"Not sure I care."
They were silent then, while John finished his meal. Caleb kept his gaze firmly fixed on the other mage, who kept glaring back at him periodically.
"Mother hen doesn't suit you," he croaked.
"And if you choke on a piece of celery, I have to deal with the insanity upstairs by myself."
John remembered his own brief experiences of the Pythian court. Tiny, big-eyed girls in white standing in neat rows. Then he pictured Cassie in her usual state of casual dishevelment. And her vampire posse's frat house mentality. He winced.
"What's the personnel situation here?" John finally asked, setting the mug down on the nightstand.
"The vamps are still the chief security detail. Giant motherfucker in charge, then that mousy guy and the tattooed one. A handful of others following orders. Then we have some new additions."
"Oh?"
"You'll love this. After the battle down on the main drag, the covens sent three witches to join the team. And Jonas sent in three war mages to keep things even."
He blinked, surprise spreading quickly across his face. "I'm sure that was well-received. But why would the covens get involved at this point? So far, they've been happy to treat this war as a Circle problem."
"The publicity." Caleb turned and looked around the room. His eyes alighted on a disheveled newspaper on the floor next to the nightstand. He grabbed the front page and smoothed it out before handing it to John.
The enormous letters of the headline said it all: Does the Pythia stand alone?
John slowly read the rest of the article. When he finished, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
"It's progress," he said wearily. Caleb nodded.
"Progress, but we're still dealing with tension between the factions. Cassie's done a decent job of putting everyone in their place upstairs, but we're going to have a problem with troops on the ground. Our war mages are disciplined in battle, but…"
"Not flexible," John finished. He opened his eyes and stared back at the other man. "Cassie is bringing faction leaders on board. But we need to meet with the commanders and strategize training and cooperation. The Black Circle put you on the defensive. We need to be nimble and organized."
"You know I agree." Caleb stood and used his height to loom over John. "But not today. You're under strict bed rest. I have to check in with our men upstairs and run some errands—so what else do you need before I go?"
Pritkin's expression would have withered another man, but his friend just grinned back at him.
"… order me a chicken curry," John said, finally. "And don't tell Cassie."
Caleb continued laughing even as he walked down the hallway and hit the elevator button.
….
Later, after the rejuvenating curry, John was left alone to evaluate his situation. He flipped back the bed covers and looked down at his body. Gray sweatpants. No socks. He wiggled his toes. Fine.
He tried lifting one leg into the air. He could raise it just fine, but it swayed back and forth precipitously. Not ideal. No doubt his muscles were wasted after a week or two of inactivity, but this lack of coordination was even worse. If he were attacked, there was no chance of physical defense or escape.
Next, he reached for his power. He activated his shields and they popped up immediately, pale blue and slowly undulating like rippling water. That, at least, was comforting. He let them dissipate and glanced around the room. On a desk near the window sat a dog-eared copy of Bleak House he had been reading in his scant spare time, weeks ago. Raising one shaky hand, he summoned the book to him and it flew through the air obediently. However, he failed to catch it, and it bounced off the headboard and tumbled on to the blankets beside him.
Not ideal, he thought again with a grimace. And he scooted down into a supine position, an appropriate pose for meditation, if not his preferred one. His breathing slowed as he tightened and relaxed each muscle in his body, one by one.
When John was a child, so long ago, the fey had taught him to examine and maintain his shields in a different way: holding a long, pure note that resonated deeply throughout his body and his aura. Taliesin had done something similar using a harp or flute. When John returned to earth after his sojourn in hell, he found that the mages of Britain used silent meditation—singing was left to the women of the covens, who still used elemental magic. He had adapted so he wouldn't stand out.
But that pure, sweet note still resonated inside of him whenever he visualized his power. The silent echoes reassured him that his aura was undamaged, free of tears or pockmarks that signaled ruptures or intrusions. Below the surface of his aura was the deep, rumbling ocean of his magic. In his meditative state, he could glide through the water like a selkie. At the bottom of the ocean, below the sand and the silt, was a dark, rocky passageway—and through that passageway was the enormous, hollow cavern of his incubus-self.
Too often, that void felt like a vacuum. He had buried it so deep on purpose, hoping that the sea of magic above would mask the hunger at his core.
But today, it felt… different.
Deep in his meditative state, he swam through the passageway and emerged into the cavern. Instead of the icy cold he expected, a warm breeze greeted him. Instead of darkness, there was light.
It felt like green, growing things and sunny meadows. More like Faerie than the dusty hell-plane that his father ruled. There was no hunger here—just peaceful satiety.
John thought back to his newly-recovered memories of the battle against Ares. Overall, they were muddled and disorienting, but one part was crystal clear: making love to Cassandra Palmer and sharing power until he felt like pure, scintillating energy instead of flesh and blood. He had never succeeded in such a thing before, but it came naturally to his incubus-self, just as the young Myrddin had instinctively understood human sexuality the first time a country girl had winked at him.
Cassie had directed the bulk of their magnified power towards the battle. But apparently, he had absorbed a great deal of it beforehand, enough to satisfy the aching hunger he had suffered for decades. And it had traveled forwards in time with his soul. Moreover, it was Pythian power, Apollo's power, pure sunlight. Combined with the water and air and earth of his own nature…
He felt like springtime.
This was very strange.
John floated out of the cavern, back into his ocean, and redirected a stream of his power into his physical body. He wasn't sure it would augment his muscle strength or coordination, but it was worth the try. Another day in bed and he would go mad.
Healing initiated, he drifted softly from his meditative trance into a deep sleep.
