Ruled by Tainted Blood Page 26

  I turned on the television.

  I abhorred the mindless teat used to pacify the gormless masses. Unfortunately, without Anima’s control center, the local news had to serve my intelligence gathering needs. The new headquarters needed a control center but I was loathe to simply relocate the automata. Caelum’s mucking about had altered the artificial intelligence so that it no longer knew its place.

  I should rebuild the oracle we used before. At least then there wouldn’t be any confusion—or any reason for that ignorant fledgling bitch to correct me.

  My grip on the crystal tumbler tightened until brandy coated shards dug into my hands.

  Obviously, some problem afflicted our newest generation of phoenixes. Pollutants and toxins damaging Creation may have also damaged the development of young phoenixes. Such at least provided a rational excuse for Aquaylae, Caelum and the ignorant boob serving as Atlanta’s Praefectus.

  Vilicangelus and I will sort this out once he has a spare moment. Once we’ve replaced the dead weight and proved this Shield the most superior in Creation, he can see me elevated as a worthier successor.

  With the power of faerie magic and the gifts of a Divine One, I’d reform the whole region until the other Praefectures adopted my training methods.

  One task at a time.

  A check out the window showed us moving too slowly. “We’re in a hurry, goblin. Drive faster.”

  “I’m doing the best I can, Master, but DragonCon—”

  “Be silent and drive!”

  For a moment, I toyed with replacing the goblin with the enforcer, but the bulk of the former corpse would’ve made any attempt to operate the vehicle difficult.

  I turned my attention to the news reporter staring blankly into the camera oblivious to an off-camera woman repeating his name. My disgust rose until I reached for the device’s power button. A finger’s breadth from replacing wafer gibberish with classical opera, the picture changed to a studio anchor. It took only a few words for me to realize the off-camera voice belonged to the attractive Moor.

  “Georgia film industry officials have confirmed that what was reported as some kind of supernatural event was in fact film work for a new fantasy movie.”

  She droned on and on about safety signs and security lapses, accidents and lawsuits. Her comeliness couldn’t overcome the selfish entitlement—a recent wafer epidemic—escaping her lips.

  Despite my disgust, the explanation fed to the media bore all of the hallmarks of a well-conceived story. The fiction offered a sufficiently plausible scenario to ensure the secrecy of Faery despite all of the witnesses involved.

  That idiot Summus must’ve lied about Vilicangelus’s condition. Didn’t want Vili learning of his shortcomings. This whole generation is as bad as Aquaylae.

  The limo slowed, crawling forward through crowds and cars in fits and starts. The third stop exhausted my patience. I had to reclaim the Unseelie Champion sword without further delay.

  “Stop. I will get out here.”

  “We’re in the middle of the street, Master.”

  “The other motorists will have to make way.”

  His worried expression belied his feelings, but the goblin nodded.

  The faerie creature was too stupid to understand the human world. Besides, my Mercedes waited in a parking structure only a short jaunt away. Once I’d reclaimed my possessions, dealt with Aquaylae and ensured the Sidhe trounced, I’d drive myself back.

  A car tried to hit me the moment I stepped out.

  Only my supernatural reflexes let me slip the sedan’s hammer blow. The mortal leapt out of the still running car a moment later, not contrite, not apologetic, but indignant. “Stupid bitch! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  My mission to retrieve the sword imprisoning Mare was far too important to delay with injury or another death. Even so, the urge to teach the naïve a lesson about proper respect, especially of a lady, tempted me to tarry.

  I placed a hand on the car’s hood and will death into the machine. The act didn’t manipulate life energy as Ignis might will control over flame through pyrokinesis. What I did was the opposite of manipulating life, and I have no idea how my power should be able to slay a machine.

  The engine let out a groan of metal. Smoke poured from the hood only moments before fire licked out of the seams.

  The driver’s eyes widened. “What did you do? I’ll sue you f—”

  A troll-kin enforcer seized his arm. The driver jerked free and dove for the safety of his vehicle. The door locks clicked shut.

  I eyed the flames flickering in and out of the engine compartment, raising a brow.

  I needn’t have given any thought to the man’s lack of sense. My enforcer ripped the door from its frame. When the driver scrambled first to the passenger side and then to the back, more enforcers removed the doors.

  “Teach him proper respect.”

  I hurried away, rushing despite the unseemliness of it. Grunts and pained profanities faded into the distance.

  I considered the days discoveries on the run.

  All phoenixes had limited control of their essence element. As life phoenix, I was the single most vital of all. It was my purview to grant the energy of life. It’d never occurred to me that control meant removal as well as granting.

  It is fitting though. Who else should shoulder the responsibility accompanying the ability to draw life from those unworthy?

  Pedestrians thickened to crowds. I fought my way along increasingly packed sidewalks. After a prolonged struggle, a repeat of earlier obstructions embrittling my temper. I reached a corner housing the Marriott Marquis. Across the street, the dumbstruck news anchor I’d seen on the television stared unmoving at his cameraman.

  My old friend epitomizes everything I shall be as a Divine One.

  Someone thrusted a sign into my face. “This is your fault, jezebel! You and the rest of these sinners brought the devil into our midst.”

  I took in the man in an eye blink. Catholic priest’s collar, bullhorn and a sign staff adorned with fire and brimstone declarations.

  “Whores, homosexuals and Satanists brought this evil. You’ll burn for it! God will smite you for your hedonistic lifestyles.”

  I cocked an eye brow. “You are mistaken, sir. The Creator loves all his creations, even when they err. That’s why he sent a second host to protect you from hell and your foolish desires.”

  The preacher shoved his face into mine, spitting his vitriol. “My God is a wrathful God. He will punish you!”

  My temper couldn’t have ignited faster if I’d been a Pyri. The heinous wafer accosting me might have thought his sermonizing in service of my Creator, but his hateful speech did more damage than good as it incensed me.

  I am a Shield of the Undying Light. It is not my place to judge.

  “My good man, if you will refer to the Bible in—”

  “Be silent, harlot! I will not listen to Satan’s temptress pervert scripture with a forked tongue!”

  “I haven’t time for your willful ignorance.” Essence leapt out of my fingers in writhing tentacles. “Ask the Author yourself.”

  For a moment, the touch of life essence enervated the preacher. New bluster rushed to his lips. I withdrew my gift, ripping out his life energy along with my own.

  I left the corpse lay where it fell and pushed through the mesmerized crowd toward the hotel entrance. The scene beyond the glass doors stopped me short.

  An army of pixies and fairies cleared away detritus as dwarves—not putti—rebuilt the scene. Half-ogres muscled people and objects around while elves touched wafers with magic and whispered new memories.

  Why are faeries cleaning up the scene?

  I snatched passing fairy out of the air by one wing. “Why are you cleaning up?”

  “Screw off, bird. I don’t answer to you.”

  “Who do you answer to?” I demanded.

  The fairy snorted, soiling my robes with snot-laden fairy dust. “We serve the Lady, fool, an
d if you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go before—”

  I pulped the creature and drew in its essence. A surge of magic accompanied the sweet addition to my strength.

  Vilicangelus isn’t here, all of this is Faery’s work. To what end?

  I grabbed a grendling, putting power behind the harsh whisper escaping my lips. “Tell me where my swords are!”

  “T-the o-only swords t-they f-found were Champion blades,” the moldy faerie stammered. “The knights claimed them.”

  Dolumii and Gherrian are here? Together? Working with Wyldfae?

  An all-encompassing need demanded I slay the grendling too. He was too big to completely consume as was, and his body might draw attention.

  I needed Dolumii’s sword.

  I needed to free Mare.

  Challenging the Unseelie Knight while I was so vastly outnumbered doomed me to failure—new powers or not. Further reconnoitering of the hotel risked a like altercation. Both might undo the Sidhe’s confusing but thorough coverup.

  My next choices required wisdom and for that I needed to gather intelligence. I set the grendling down and gently dusted off his shoulders. “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”

  The grendling’s stare lingered on my retreating back as I retreated toward my Mercedes. I’d observe from the old sanctum, formulate a plan, and take back my swords.

  And I can retrieve more of my books.

  Quayla

  I trudged across one of the sky bridges exiting the Atlanta Marriot Marquis lost in my own little world. Mortals crowded around me, celebrating beloved books and movies, comics and anime dressed in a thousand lovingly crafted cosplays. Laughter, excited chatter and shoulder-to-shoulder bodies pressed around me in a fetid, white noise cloud.

  Awash in a sea of mortal adulation, I drifted like a bodiless specter. My soul hurt more than the lingering pain from my escape. I’d lost everything and everyone I loved in a single day.

  Dunham Heffernan, CEO of Circlestone and Caelum’s one-time boss had laid a trap. He’d captured Ignis, Caelum, and Terrance—the other phoenixes that made up Atlanta’s Shield.

  Well, the phoenixes that hadn’t tried to kill me.

  Right before I’d been suckered in by a wounded mortal in Dunham’s employ, our Shieldheart, our Vitae attacked me, forcing me to kill him. I’d escaped Dunham’s prison through excruciating means none of the others—except perhaps Vitae—could replicate. Forced to flee rather than risk getting caught once more, I raced to the Marriott Marquis. If I could reclaim enough magical essence from another shield’s corpse, they could be reborn into freedom.

  The Marriott had been spotless. None of the carnage or destruction from fighting a hundred-foot kudzu elemental remained. How the property had been restored nagged from a corner of my distracted thoughts. Our boss, a divine phoenix renamed Summuseraphi was out of commission as was his superior Vilicangelus.

  Yet, the Marriott looks fine. How is that even possible?

  Dunham hadn’t returned from the Marriott by time I escaped, so I had no idea if he’d monologue his master plan to the others. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with the powerful man, but he’d never smelled of Sidhe taint like most of the Fae Kissed.

  Even Caelum, our air phoenix and possessor of the best nose among us, had worked alongside Dunham without ever noticing the odor of faerie taint. Dunham could’ve been born with the druidic powers used to create the monster, but such things were rare and such people weren’t the powerhouses Dunham had proven himself. Offspring of Fae Kissed occasionally inherited power without the cost, but I knew first hand Caelum’s old boss was in cahoots with a powerful faerie.

  One of the Dark Trinity.

  I couldn’t believe I’d been singled out by one of the most powerful entities in Creation. The Lady had told me Dunham—though I hadn’t known who the Lady meant at that time—had been a seventh son of a seventh son. Mortals bred pretty well, but such children were rare—extremely rare as economic realities made such large families too expensive to maintain.

  Talk about catnip for faeries.

  Folklore attributed any number of special powers—good and bad—to seventh sons of seventh sons. With just under two centuries worth of life, I’d met two—a young boy who lived in my first shield’s territory and Dunham. I’d never witnessed any kind of magic from the boy, making it hard to judge their power.

  The Lady and Dunham had made some sort of bargain. Sought for their potential, most seventh sons became Fae Kissed, bringing almost unilateral destruction for the Shields. Without a taint, there was no proof the deal had been a trade for Sidhe power, but they’d been working together cheek and jowl to capture my Shield.

  If the Lady’s warning meant Dunham, he wants me dead.

  Fae Kissed were dangerous—even the corrupted like Emma who’d only bargained out of grief for the return of her deceased tabby. Knowledge of Faery was too dangerous even for so benign a wafer. If a Fae Kissed refused to surrender their boon and repent, we had no choice but to kill them before they could instruct other mortals how to get their desires granted.

  The smell of a cookie store stroked my troubled soul with chocolate chip caresses. I didn’t have any money. Even if I had my old ID, I couldn’t have gotten anything out of my bank. My newest body was male, a difference not easily overlooked by even the most clueless teller.

  If only I hadn’t asked Dylan’s memory be erased.

  I wrapped arms around myself and trudged through the thronging masses out for a quick bite between panels. I’d requested a rewrite for Dylan, Mrs. Cox and Detective Foxner to protect them from the increasingly treacherous faeries around Atlanta. I hadn’t wanted to lose them, but the death of Judith cemented the reasons to wipe away any ties to my friends and beloved Dylan. Judith died because she’d gone to my apartments. She’d been used as bait for yet another trap then slain to make the Lady’s point.

  If working in my flower shop was enough to put Judith on the Faery hit list, Dylan—the love of my very long life—had been in extreme peril.

  The shop has a good supply of cash, but I’ll have to break in.

  I had cash stashed at my old apartment, but it was rent money and my personal dwelling was just as likely to be under surveillance as Caelum’s. Once I’d been allowed off house arrest, I’d set up small caches throughout Atlanta—mostly clothes and maybe a few dollars. After meeting Dylan, having a helpmate made the caches less vital and I’d left them untended since.

  No way to be sure if they’re even there. I have to make a decision, to act. The longer I wait, the more places Dunham will stake out in hope of recapturing me.

  Blood Phoenix Chronicles

  Explore more of the Blood Phoenix Chronicles:

  BPC: Ashes of Raging Water (Book 1)

  BPC: Ruled by Tainted Blood (Book 2)

  BPC: Vengeful are the Drowned (Book 3)

  BPC: Rise of the Exiled Lady (Book 4)

  BPC: Razing the Last Bastion (Book 5)

  Books by Michael J. Allen

  - Urban Fantasy –

  Dumpstermancer 1: Discarded

  Dumpstermancer 2: Duplicity

  - Modern High Fantasy –

  Bittergate Chronicles 1: Murder in Wizard’s Wood

  Bittergate Chronicles 1: The Wizard’s Bane

  - Western Fantasy –

  Guns of Underhill 1: Fey West

  - Science Fiction -

  Scion 1: Scion of Conquered Earth

  Scion 2: Stolen Lives

  Scion 3: Hijacked

  Scion 4: Unchained

  You can also find miscellaneous short fiction on my website.

  Dedication

  For Scott, a steadfast friend and source of both encouragement and good ideas.

  For B, B & E, J, S & J, and L.

  Acknowledgments:

  The second Blood Phoenix novels is in the can. I hope you’ve enjoyed the story so far. It’s notable that Ruled by Tainted Blood is the first novel I’ve ever published as a USA Tod
ay bestselling author. Countless people supported us by buying Cursed Lands, and I can’t thank any of you enough. Add to that my thanks to my collaborative authors for all the countless hours and dollars everyone put in to earn our rank on the list.

  I’d like to thank you for joining yet another journey through my imagination. It’s so wonderful having other people along to give my imaginary friends more people to entertain. Sure, there were some surprising moments—though maybe not as shocking as those to come. I also want to thank those of you that encouraged me. Through reviews, social media comments and emails, you’ve expressed you love – and sometimes hate – of what I’m doing. Thanks for keeping me motivated and pointing me down the paths you most want me to explore.

  As I said in Ashes, Andrea Fodor put up with my nitpicking and perfectionism to create our covers, bringing life to Atlanta’s Shield in both human and phoenix shape.

  This rapid release schedule has put a lot of pressure on the people I trust to help develop the best books possible. Author T. Allen Diaz supplied more of his firefighting expertise. Trint provided information about a certain strip club, and Mike introduced me to DragonCon, fostering my love of the convention all these years. so many years ago. Billy and Scott, Rebecca and Sarah all contributed to the various stages of reading and editing, and Tina, poor Tina, stepped up to take a hand in all of the editing phases when other members of my team had to bow out.

  As usual, my final thanks go to the characters that trusted me with their story. Vitae especially opened up his heart—and a few throats—to bring the history of Atlanta’s Shield into focus. You’ve got a hard road ahead, guys. Keep the faith...and you, please keep reading.

  Thank you for being part of my journey.

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people—living, dead or in between, businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.