FIFTEEN
A Sacrifice to the Darkness
The Rossin was free. Almost. The fire-haired Deacon, the one that had bound him, followed in his wake. He could hear her behind him, running to catch up. As it should be. As it had once been—with humans serving the Rossin, as they did on the Otherside. He did not know her name yet, but once he did, there would be a different kind of tethering, for her pitiful Bond could surely not be enough to hold him. Let her think that her puny link to the foci spared her. For now she served her purpose.
Deep down, the Rossin could feel the struggles of the human foci. The ancient foe, the family that had stolen his name and power and tethered him, was now suffering. But the Rossin had more immediate concerns. He scented prey in the immediate area; hot and warm and full of blood. The great imperative drove him as always—to feed and grow strong. The great teeth bared in a snarl that was an almost-smile as he leapt clear of the destruction.
Once beyond the tumble of broken walls and clouds of dust, the Rossin’s exceptional senses made out the racing of human hearts and the coursing of human blood more fully. Deacons—but not the sort of Deacon that followed him. These stank of the Otherside and desperation. Centuries before, there had been many such kind; before the coming of the Order.
The humans came running out, slamming on their Gauntlets, preparing to meet any attack. They weren’t expecting a geistlord. The Rossin tore into them even as they threw their puny runes at him; mere shadows of the real power of the Otherside.
He gorged himself on more than their flesh; he chased them around the compound, relishing their terror. Their screams delighted him as he broke them so easily, sending their shades in shattered shards into the Otherside, the realm that he was denied. Their pain was delicious to him, but no recompense for what their kind had taken from him. The recollection made the Rossin howl again, rending and tearing every morsel of flesh he could reach. Weak humans did not deserve breath. He threw their pieces around the compound like scattered chaff.
The female Deacon was behind him, closer now, and he could feel the Bond. It was not as weak as he’d thought. It was as fragile as a spiderweb—gossamer thin, but strong as steel. The Rossin threw himself harder against it. By the deep shadows—it was tightening!
How dare this woman presume to put bonds on a geistlord? The image of the first Deacon, the one who had bound him to this fate, flashed in his ancient memory. The ignominy of that event still burned the Rossin. Now these people would pay. No punishment was enough. The great muscles in his body bunched and exploded as he turned toward her, fast as thought. She would learn the lesson he’d been unable to lay upon the first of the Deacons. Spinning around, the Beast was ready to rend, but something held him back.
There was one trait in the human world that the Rossin admired: beauty. It was not the kind of beauty of the flesh that tethered men—but the beauty of power. When he turned those blazing eyes on this female, he saw it, gleaming like a gem in a pit of darkness. Perhaps it was the faint influence of his foci—though the Beast would never admit to such a thing—that stopped him from pouncing. Instead he crouched inches from her face, breathing destruction and the smell of blood on her. He saw the Deacon flinch slightly, her blue eyes watering from the nearness of his power. She had dismissed him with her rune Gauntlets before, when he was weak from the transformation. Even if she managed to wedge open his jaws and do the same right now, there would be no repeat. The Rossin had feasted and grown strong. She knew it. He knew it.
Deacon and geistlord were eye to eye. She was frightened, but did not move. He was transfixed by the thing that only he could see. For now, he would let her live.
The stalemate was broken when three lay Brothers emerged from the stables and made a break for the gate. With a great shake of his dark mane, the Beast let out a snarl and whirled about to give chase. It was glorious to release himself upon them and he could not contain himself long enough to enjoy the chase this time. Blood, hot and sweet, flooded into his throat, momentarily sating the thirst that never seemed to end. Bones snapped in his mouth and he heard the wail of souls ripped free of their meaty cages. The fizzle of power and blood in the Rossin’s veins was heady bliss.
He roared again, full of power and delight, before looking around the courtyard. It was clear of anything living apart from the tethering Deacon. Her great power and beauty saved her for now, but would not restrain him forever. He would keep her for last. Once he had taken his fill of energy from the Priory’s humans, no pitiful Bond could possibly hold him. The Rossin looked forward to seeing those blue eyes widen in horror just before he fell on her. He wondered what her soul would taste like.
Now it was time to find more flesh. He sprang away, his hide the color of angry clouds rippling under the torchlight. Magnificent, he knew. Great paws with their retracted claws moved silently over the stones of the courtyard toward the keep. The doors smashed most satisfactorily as the Rossin landed against them, his great bulk ripping them free of their mounts and scattering their broken fragments on the scarred floor.
Within, the keep was lit with torches and the moonlit glow of cantrips. Seven large weirstones described a space encompassing the back and the center of the room. The Rossin’s ears lay flat against his neck and the white lengths of his fangs gleamed as he snarled in terrible rage.
The smell of the Otherside was overwhelming, bringing him to a stop for a moment as he inhaled the remembrance of home. His huge head swung about, emerald green eyes sweeping like searchlights, scouting out the next to die. To the side were the glowing forms of those who were performing the summoning. These whelps were delving deeply into the Otherside—looking for more than the garden-variety shade or spook.
Then his gaze fell on two forms toward the rear of the room. One female was supporting and clinging to a male strapped to a drainage slab. It was not an unfamiliar sight; human blood was a valuable commodity. Yet, it was not the blood that gave the Rossin pause on the very threshold of further feeding.
The geistlord, in his great feline form, growled low and slow. He recognized the bubbling energy in this room. One of his own kind was here, and one not chained to a form as the Rossin was. Hackles rose on his bunched dark shoulders and his tail began to lash.
The gray-haired human female snatched up the cup of the foci blood and spun around with it, splashing a wide scarlet arch around her to paint the floor in that ancient pattern. It wouldn’t have held him. He could still have ripped her apart, and yet, and yet . . .
It was looking at him. One of them at the end of the hall was more than it seemed. He knew its name; he knew where it came from and its nature: ancient enemy and utterly dangerous to geist and geistlord alike. So few of them now, and yet here was one staring at him with eyes full of power. The Rossin knew no fear on the Otherside, yet here he was corporeal, trapped by the Curse. No pitiful human could touch him, but he was still considerably weaker than he would have been in full unbound form. From the end of the hallway, the being smiled. They both knew which of them held the upper hand for now. The beast was filled with hatred, intense and bitter in the back of his mouth. He wanted to destroy, to rend, and yet could not cross that threshold.
Not you. Not yet, he thought in terrible rage.
Instead, the Rossin did what he had never before done in this realm. He fled.
Never work with children or animals. That was what the thespians said, and now Sorcha was beginning to understand what they meant. The Rossin might not be a true animal, but he proved just as unreliable. She had put her trust in a geistlord and now she was paying the consequences.