The Saint of Liars, page 37
“I obeyed my Queen,” he said from his position crouched on the ground, looking more like a wild, noble knight kneeling before her. The furious storm above them calmed to a distant rumble. Daring to peek, St. Benedict saw her calming with it. He dared more by rising to his feet. Her face said it all, fear mingled with self-disgust. She was ashamed and concerned by what he thought of her now. Slowly, he reached out to her to take her hand, but before he could touch her, she flinched back.
“I do not care for this face anymore,” she said flippantly. “You were thinking of someone… someone just now.” She focused on him again and the strange feeling, like fingers running through his hair, rolled over his head. “What do you think of this view?”
Before him, where the Queen had been, stood an exact likeness of St. Rachel. Her blonde hair waved around her face, covering one eye in a perfect replica of her in her most sexy noir look. Her lips were blood red, and she wore a close-hugging, short black dress with heels to match her lips.
He couldn’t help it, he took a step back in alarm. She pouted her lips at him, delighted by his reaction.
“Hmm, this does please you, at least on a physical level,” she said, then one of her eyebrows quirked, exactly like St. Rachel’s did. “But … no, you don’t desire this form.” She misted herself again.
“Please, wait…” he said but again the feeling of fingers pulled through his scalp.
“How about this one? What are your feelings for the little, nosy mageling?” Before him stood the shorter form of Rune as he last saw her, down to her braided hair and knee-high boots. She looked up at him eagerly, expectantly, before souring into disgust. “Oh. No. No, all … complicated feelings. Oh my, I don’t like that at all. No, no thank you to that mess. No.” She misted again.
This time when she reformed another woman, or girl really, stood there. She was a couple of inches shorter than Rune, staring wide-eyed, like she hadn’t left childhood too long ago. Her hair was long, her figure the skinniness of a teen with the promise of blooming into hourglass womanhood. A cruel thought flitted through St. Benedict’s mind, something he would have said a lifetime ago, That one would go to fat one day. The wide-eyed kid waited, only the smug smile marring the picture of the barely legal centerfold image. But he didn’t really react. He didn’t really get it. Why was she presenting him with this image?
“You… you don’t know me, do you?” the girl asked, truly surprised.
“I…” St. Benedict started, but he didn’t know what to say. Her shock at his lack of reaction made him very uncomfortable.
“There’s nothing,” she said softly. “No reaction whatsoever. It’s like…” Then understanding washed over her face, followed by pity. “You don’t remember her, do you?”
A sick feeling slipped into St. Benedict’s stomach as logic, not true memory, told him who he was looking at. “Who is she?” he asked, deadly soft.
“Your wife,” she answered him with even more pity. “You don’t remember what she looks like. It’s not like you’ve forgotten. You can’t remember. Not a whiff of involuntary recognition, even when you’re looking right at her.”
The pain in his chest was so tight he grabbed at it. “Stop it.”
She pursed her lips together, then acquiesced, shimmering back into the image of a new Faerie Queen. This one had skin as pale as the moon and hair as black as the night’s sky with dark eyes shaped like almonds. Now it was his turn to shift away, to try to hide his pain. He felt the fingers roll through his hair again, this time gentle and slow. He batted them away, even though it did no good since they physically didn’t exist.
“Stop it. Please.”
“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” the Faerie Queen said. “It’s not your fault. I can feel it. Here. The damage.”
The sob choked out of him before he realized it was going to happen. “Don’t do this. I can’t…” It was hard, like vomit. He had to swallow it back, bite it down. He had to.
“Let it go. Let me see,” her voice asked, truly asked. He tried to look up at a light, but in the perpetual night of the strange digital world, there was no light to save him as his own grief forced its way out.
“I betrayed her,” he said, his voice wavering. “I tried to save her.” A hand drifted up to his head, to the place where the injury had once been. “They hit me … too hard … too many times. My brain swelled and I couldn’t remember. That was the least I could do, right? I could remember her. After everything!” He swiped the black talons still covering his hands against the nearest digital tree. Light flashed and crackled from the assault and it felt good to destroy it. He even screamed as he did it again and again, collapsing it into a pile of digital cubes. “I can remember how to program. How to reformat. How to tie my damn shoes, my first prom, my first kiss. Why can’t I remember her!?!?” He collapsed to the ground, or did the ground come to meet him? All was quiet and calm. Was he alone? Was the Faerie Queen still there?
He turned.
She was, but instead of staring at him and his tantrum, she had sat herself on the edge of the drop off, her back to him. She was eloquently beautiful with her legs curled beside herself, her impossibly long skirt spread out around her like a bird’s wing.
He pushed himself up onto his knees. Who was he fighting? It wasn’t her, not really. He needed to focus; he needed to escape. Losing his shit here wasn’t going to do it. Yet, coming to his feet was hard, like his body was weighed down with rocks. Even harder was crossing the distance to her, with her profile highlighted by the ethereal light.
“Did stripping out my shame help you feel better?” he asked.
“Yes, it did.”
He huffed a chuckle. “You’re a very honest woman.”
“No, I have need for lies in this place, and yet no patience for them either.”
He sat beside her. It seemed like the thing to do.
“It’s not what you think. I didn’t do it to hurt you,” she admitted.
“Misery loves company.”
“It’s harder when one believes they are truly alone.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. They sat quietly as the music of the data world rose up again. It was peaceful.
“Oh, Oberon,” she said, soft as a secret regret, “how I have missed you.”
He laid a finger across her chin, turning her tear-filled eyes to meet his own, now glowing blue, pushing back the darkness so she could see him as a man.
“Show it to me again. Show me your true face.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “Why?”
He turned his whole body to her, vulnerable and open. “Let me see,” he said gently and caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Let me see the truth … my Queen.”
A single tear streaked down her face. She pressed his hand against her, closing her eyes a moment. Finally, she nodded.
The space around them shifted, warping away. White, cold walls thumped in place around them, with splashes of white track lighting along the ceiling, making it seem dim and lit at the same time. A single tube, the size of a coffin, sat squarely in the middle of the room. It was banked at an angle, and beneath the glass, St. Benedict saw a single figure inside. He checked the room and saw that the Faerie Queen was gone. Or rather there was only one present.
Turning back to the tube, she stared at him from within, her eyes wide and full of shame. His heart ached for her. Back were her stick thin limbs and the thin cotton gown laying over her front. Her hair looked even more brittle against the pillow, the black having bleached away to pieces of grayish white. She was very clearly dying.
He laid his hand against the glass. She hesitated only a moment and laid her own in the opposing side, more tears rolling down her gaunt face.
“If I open this and take you out, you’ll die, won’t you?” he asked gently.
She nodded, and he echoed it before shifting to examine the rest of the tube.
“I have something like this back at my place,” he said, keeping his voice casual as best he could. “Yours is more sophisticated.” He pushed a few buttons on the display panel, quickly reading the information there, which were her life stats. “So, you’re jacking into…” He paused considering. “Is this place real? Did you bring me to where you actually are?”
“Of course,” her voice echoed as it was transmitted from inside the tube.
“But how?”
Chapter 20
“I think she’s linked into a computer, like when the Saints jump their minds into the hologram thingy. Only she’s making her holograms into reality.” Stunned silence followed Rune’s pronouncement.
Rune’s plan to get to Maxamillion inside of his own building had been thwarted before she could even finish forming it. First off, not having come through the front door had tripped some sort of alarm system and security of every sort came piling in just as Rune was picking up her second cookie. Thankfully, her shield crystal actually stopped them from tackling her and dragging her away. They chose to disregard the fact that she had clearance to be there on her OmniSin, so it took Maxamillion coming down himself to resolve the standoff.
Now, Rune sat with him, St. Rachel, and Malachi in Maxamillion’s well-appointed office. They were staring at her. Her own retainer and the two Fae under Corinthe’s protection sat on dragged-in chairs that had been circled up in front of Maxamillion’s desk. The CEO himself perched on the front edge of said desk, dressed in a sand-colored suit and making it look good as he leaned, his arms crossed as he listened to Rune’s story up to this point. St. Rachel stood to his right behind the desk, leaning cross-armed against the wall, still haughtily beautiful as ever. Rune was starting to recognize her positioning as a product of a Saint’s training. Malachi had one of the dragged-in chairs to Maxamillion’s left. He was the only one looking unsettled, leaning his elbows on his knees, staring as he listened.
“I know she’s doing it with magic, through a computer.”
“Holy crap!” Malachi abruptly said, jumping up to his feet with a sense of eureka about him. “That’s how they’re doing it.”
Rune and Elias exchanged looks. “Doing what?”
Maxamillion pushed off the edge of his desk. “Earlier today, Kodiak announced to the world that they had succeeded in replicating Masterson’s work.” He went over to a touch screen mounted in the wall, brushing his hand across its surface to wake it up. Already loaded on the screen was the image of a news report bannered with words like “Stunning Breakthrough” and “Revolutionary.” A woman’s face, presumably the news reporter, was paused in an unflattering pose.
“We’re too late,” Elias said softly. Rune took a couple steps forward, staring at the screen. Her husband’s name was caught midway through the scroll.
“And they’re using the Titania to do it?” she asked the screen.
“It’s the end of all magic…” For the first time in her life, Elias sounded so resigned and defeated. Instead of that crushing her, it gave her a sense of calm. They had already failed, so now what?
“You were never going to be able to stop Masterson’s breakthrough,” Maxamillion cut in. “The question is now what do we do about it.”
“I mean, it’s over, isn’t it?” Malachi offered.
“No, not at all.” St. Rachel straightened, looking every inch a warrior goddess. “Okay, they’ve cracked the Files. And they have the Faerie Queen. We’ve got the Faerie King,” St. Rachel looked pointedly at Calvin. Everyone else followed suit.
“This isn’t chess…. Rune said, shifting uncomfortably on her feet as Calvin’s face went pale.
“Of course it is. And our enemy has a pretty powerful piece. But so do we.” She crossed her arms as if that was the end of the argument.
It probably was because Maxamillion was nodding. “What are you proposing?”
“We have all the equipment they do. They’re probably jacking the Faerie Queen in. Let’s plug his ass in and see what happens.”
“Is that possible? Plug a magic being into the system?” Maxamillion asked as if she was posing a solution for saving some money on the water cooler.
“You can’t do that. He’s a person, not a thing for you to exploit!” Rune took a step forward as she spoke, putting herself symbolically between the Corinthe Corporation and the Oberon. Rune couldn’t help noting her life had become a series of stare-down contests, and this one with Maxamillion was no less hard. His handsome face was impossible to read until it burst to a smile.
“Exactly,” he pointed at her repeatedly as he chuckled more. “Take away anybody’s rights, you take away everybody’s rights.”
“Sir, this is a war we are fighting…” St. Rachel tried to say, but he cut her off.
“Which is why we must hold ourselves to the line. Because if we do not stand beside the truths we fight for, they die. Then was it worth the cost in the first place? It’s not a price I’m prepared to pay.”
He stared down St. Rachel, but she yielded almost right away. Rune pointedly ignored the glare the Saint shot at her. To Calvin’s credit, he didn’t fall to pieces but gritted his jaw, waiting with fierce eyes. She hoped this newfound grit would hold out.
“Would you want to jack in willingly?” Maxamillion asked.
“Well, now, hold on,” Malachi cut in. “What we don’t have are the specs on how to create a viable jack to make another Saint, never mind one adapted to the Magic cancellation phenomenon.”
“But Kodiak probably does now,” St. Rachel said.
“I’m not putting wires in my head,” Calvin added.
“And that settles that,” Maxamillion agreed, pointing at Calvin. “Not that I blame you. It isn’t something I would want done to me either.”
“What’s more important is getting our people back,” Rune redirected.
“Our people?” Maxamillion asked.
“The Titania and St. Benedict. This is the basis of your Alliance after all, isn’t it? You need the Faerie Court and the Magic Guild to build your consensus.”
“Yes, it is,” Maxamillion confirmed carefully. “But I don’t need St. Benedict…”
“You do if you want my help,” Rune countered.
“But what she is describing is a rescue. The Faerie Queen is working for them.” St. Rachel gestured at the Kodiak logo still frozen on the screen. “And St. Benedict is working for her.” The Saint couldn’t hide the bitterness in her tone.
“She has her agenda, but that doesn’t make her the enemy,” Rune tried to say in the Faerie Queen’s defense, but St. Rachel waved her down.
“It still doesn’t stop the real problem. They’ve cracked the Masterson Files. Even if we take away their magic source, they can and are probably planning to get anyone else with magic to replace her. Then we’re in the same situation.”
“How easy do you think working magic is?” Elias asked. He didn’t expect an answer.
“Actually, the fact is, we don’t know that,” Malachi said. “We don’t know what they, Kodiak, know. Getting the Titania or Faerie Queen or whatever would help us figure out what they know. We’ve been shooting in the dark. Maybe they can’t replicate what they’ve done to her yet.”
“So, it’s tactically advantageous to risk our resources and exposure to get more information,” Maxamillion said, his fingers steepled against his lips.
“Yeah, you know. In case you need a practical reason to do the right thing,” Malachi said. St. Rachel redirected her glare at Malachi, who silently dared her back. Rune didn’t want to imagine what he was daring her to do.
“And what you were saying earlier, Rune… If the Titania can already create a real physical place out of a Dreamscape, like the Faerie Court… she could do the same to a holographic world with Faerie magic?” Maxamillion asked.
Rune nodded.
“What you are describing is… it sounds like you’re saying she is a god?” Maxamillion shifted back in his seat, uncomfortably.
“Not at all,” Elias said easily. “It’s a power we all have if you think about it. Someone has an idea, a dream if you will. They tell other people about it, and they start dreaming the same dream. They start taking actions to make the dream a reality and then it becomes so. The Titania just does it all at once.”
“The Fae are a symbiotic people. They can unite together into a single dream without needing to be convinced, like you hominals, or any of the other races,” Lady Trella explained.
“Then why did you fall?” St. Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow over narrowed eyes.
“Our dream split in two between our Mother and our Father,” the Fae lady said very levelly. Unbidden, Calvin laid a hand on her shoulder, which she gripped gratefully.
“War only occurs when competing ideas both try to manifest at the same time,” Elias said sagely.
“Then why have two leaders if they could divide you like this?” St. Rachel asked.
Lady Trella shook her head at the Saint. “The fact that you can easily ask such a question means you would not understand the answer.”
“Because it’s lonely,” Calvin said instead. He was staring into nothing, a thoughtful weight on his shoulders. “That’s why they die together, isn’t it? It’s because the bond between them… to lose that…” He turned to Rune. “Her heart broke.”
“When a Fae is heartbroken, they die,” Lady Trella confirmed.
“That’s why she needs you to come for her, Calvin,” Rune added.
“What? What are you asking me to do? Make her fall in love with me again? Or for the first time.” He shook his head. “She’s been trying to kill me!”
“Because the Oberon did this to her and you are the Oberon.”
“But it wasn’t me who did this to her…” Calvin argued again, the same argument degrading every time he said it.
