“Of all the places in the world, I can’t believe they went to Canada.” As she spoke, Miranda (there was only one of her right now) faced the window of the conference room back in the hotel. The others had caught up in a van and gave us a ride back here as we explained what our captive had said. Now we were sitting back here talking some more while the casino owners did their thing to try to get more information out of him. I really didn’t envy that guy. But I also didn’t pity him that much, especially with the whole princess and now other children being missing thing. Not to mention Senny and Shiori’s mother. It had been all we could do to stop Asenath from ripping the guy apart to find out if any answers were written on his lungs or kidneys.
We, those of us in the conference room at the moment, consisted of Miranda, Shiori, Asenath, Bobbi, Tabbris, December, and me. The others were apparently on their way with Haiden, having gone through some kind of ordeal of their own that I hadn’t caught the details of.
Standing up from the chair where I had been resting for a minute, I demanded, ”Okay, seriously. What the hell is the thing with Canada? Everyone keeps hinting about it and talking around it. I know there’s some guy that calls himself a king or something up there and people are afraid to piss him off. What’s the deal? Who is he? Why is he so strong? What is everyone so afraid of when it comes to him?”
December quickly piped up with, “Sometimesbeingafraid… isasmartthing… likebeingafraidofjumping…. intoalivevolcano. That’sprettysmart… andyou’dprobablygetfurther… bypunchingthelava… thanyou’dgetby… tryingtotelltheCanadaking… todosomethinghedoesn’t… wanttodo.”
Asenath spoke up. “Not all of us are afraid. Most of us just have a healthy respect for him, and for Canada in general. It’s mostly Crossroads and Eden’s Garden Heretics that have the problem. And Seosten, apparently. He generally doesn’t like you people very much, mostly because they kept trying to find new ways to invade his territory. Canada is right there, after all. They were trying to expand that way, and didn’t exactly take no for an answer. At least until he killed off a couple Committee members.”
My eyes widened, but before I could say anything to that, Shiori beat me to the punch. “Whoa, whoa, wait, wait! Now you’re saying that he’s actually killed Committee members? Like, multiple ones in a single fight?”
Miranda put in, “And at least one Victor, from what I heard. Yeah, they have to go through all these special treaties and things to visit that place, and people who come from there have a whole list of rules they have to follow about going back-and-forth. He’s pretty particular.”
Shaking my head, I glanced toward Tabbris briefly before asking, “But how is he so strong? Who is he? What is he? The answer to that keeps getting pushed off, but I’d say it’s pretty damn relevant right now. Is he working with these kidnappers? Do we need to worry about facing off with somebody that could beat multiple Committee members at once? Because that’s just not going to happen. I know we’ve pulled off some pretty impossible things, but… no. Just.. no. So what the hell is he?”
“It’s better if we talk with everyone at once,” Asenath informed me. “Columbus and the twins are going to want to know about him too. And I have no idea how much Jason knows. Haiden might be able to explain some too.”
There was a knock at the door then before anyone could say anything. But just as I started to think the other group was already here, Eldridge stepped in. “Okay, so that guy’s not saying anything else. They’re using truth spells and other things, but nothing is coming out. He’s got some kind of protection. Until it wears off, there’s not much else we can get from him. And trust me, they were thorough. And it turns out doing our best to keep a couple of those Siekun guys who jumped in to fight for him alive was a waste of time. They had some kind of suicide spell so they couldn’t be taken prisoner.”
He glanced toward Miranda and me then while adding, “Also, for the record, what you two pulled back there on the street was one of the most fucking amazing and crazy things I’ve ever seen in my very long life. I think part of me is supposed to tell you that it wasn’t really in keeping with the whole be subtle thing we were talking about, but fuck it. Plus, you did it for a good reason. And you even caught the guy, so two thumbs up. Just don’t be surprised if Bystanders start talking about people filming some crazy action movie here.”
Bobbi’s head nodded up and down quickly. “Yeah, when you guys jumped off the roof, I thought you were insane. Actually, you probably are a little insane.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “A lot of that was crazy. But we couldn’t let him get away.” Actually, it only really hit me afterward just how insane all that stuff had been. In the heat of the moment, I hadn’t really had time to think about it. I just did it. Now? Now I felt weak in the knees just picturing half that stuff.
“Definitely crazy,” Eldridge replied, “but you got the job done better than we could have expected. Unfortunately…”
“Canada,” Asenath finished for him. “What kind of relationship does Vegas have with the King?”
“Not as bad as the one that Boschers have with him,” he pointed out mildly. “It has its ups and downs, I guess. But that’s not the point. The point is that the King does not allow armed and violent incursion into his territory, which is what our people are going to want to do to get those kids back. And your mother,” he added with a glance toward Asenath and Shiori. “Between the ones who are gonna want to go charging in and the ones who will just completely write them off and try to find a way to arrange the entire new political situation in their favor with the princess gone, this whole thing just got even more complicated. Think of it like Britain nowadays sending an armed special forces team into Delaware. Yeah, they’re all on pretty good terms overall, but that shit just wouldn’t fly.”
“So we need to talk to the King himself,” I pointed out. “Explain what we’re doing, why we’re there, that kind of thing. We can’t just let them take those kids and Jiao. We still don’t even know why they went through all that to grab them. Why grab the witnesses later instead of picking everyone up right then? Did they realize that the kids saw something they shouldn’t have and they just didn’t know it? And why take Jiao at all? I don’t get it. But that’s the point, we need to find out. Which means we need to go to Canada. And from what you guys are saying, first we need to talk to this terrifying King guy and get permission to be there.”
“We need more than that,” Asenath announced reluctantly. I could tell how badly she wanted to go running off to find her mother. To say nothing of the fact that we were supposed to get information about where her father was out of all this. Still, she shook her head. “Canada’s a really big place. There’s no way the King is going to let us go traipsing around his entire country without something more to go on. We need a name or something.”
“Well,” Tristan’s voice spoke up as he and the others filed in through the door behind Eldridge, “how about if we give you three names?” Despite his light words, the boy looked like he’d been through the wringer. Bruises were slowly fading on his face, leading me to wonder just how bad they’d looked a few minutes earlier. His clothes were caked in mud and other things, and he had one whole side of his shirt that was ripped away.
Seeing Columbus come through the door equally covered with mud and blood all over his face, his clothes ripped and torn and Amethyst hanging over his shoulder with what seemed like an exhausted expression on her small metal face, Shiori bolted up right and went that way. “What happened?!”
“I’m okay,” Columbus insisted. “Mostly thanks to Twister showing up at the right moment.”
In response to that, a small brown mouse that had apparently been perched just behind Amethyst hopped down, transforming into the girl in question. “Hey,” she airily announced, “couldn’t let that guy finish carving up your pretty face, could I? He had it coming.”
“What guy?” Shiori demanded, her eyes snapping back and forth between the Pooka girl and her own brother. “There was a bad guy?”
“Several.” Haiden was the one who said that, as he came through the door with his daughter. “We ran into a bit of trouble. Some enterprising and morally dubious soul left a couple teleporters in the Akharu casino that let in a few loyalist Heretics.”
“What?!” I blurted, my eyes widening. “How did that happen? What the hell?“
“It wasn’t a full invasion.” Those words came from April. The red-haired Seosten girl was right behind Haiden. “It was simply a small group of Eden’s Garden Heretics who were told that they could attack the main vampire den inside Vegas by taking the portals that were provided. They didn’t know who provided the portals, only that they’d gotten that kind of information from them before and it paid off. Their benefactor always used a go-between.”
“It was a distraction,” Vanessa murmured. “And an assassination mission. Whoever sent those guys gave them a list of key people to kill to do the most damage possible. They had pictures and information about where they’d probably be, everything.”
Hearing all of that, Eldridge had gone even more pale. “Who… how many…”
“A few,” Haiden quietly admitted, his expression serious. “I’m sorry, it was a coordinated attack and we couldn’t save everyone. But… but most of the Heretics died. A couple escaped through new means. Not the same way they came in. That was closed off almost immediately. Your people believe it was intentional, that… that whoever left the teleportation spells to bring them in meant for them to be trapped there so they’d do as much damage as possible before being killed.”
“And wouldn’t be able to tell the Vegas people anything about who put them up to it,” I muttered.
Jason, who had been standing back in the doorway, rubbed the side of his head where a heavy bruise had formed. “Yeah, and let me tell you, they did not expect to find us there. I mean, Mr. Moon mostly. He really kicked their faces in.”
“So they all died or escaped before you could get anything out of them about–” I started before catching myself. “Wait, no. How would you know for sure they were Eden’s Garden Heretics, or that they were working with someone else, unless you got something out of them. Plus, Tristan said something about three names. Did they–April?”
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The Seosten’s head tilted as she looked back to me before giving a single nod. Her voice was simple. “We were told to help. I helped.”
“She possessed one of them and got as much information as she could,” Haiden translated.
“And they weren’t working for your boss?” Miranda asked, watching April’s reaction about as closely as I was.
“No,” the red-haired girl replied coolly. “Cahethal has no knowledge of this invasion attempt.” Pausing briefly, she amended, “At least, that is what she said when I asked. And I believe if she did, the attack would have been far more surgical in nature.”
“Surgical, cuz she’s a scientist,” Shiori muttered, “I get it.” Despite her love of wordplay, she obviously didn’t look happy. Being worried about her mother was clearly hitting her hard.
It was hitting Asenath hard too, despite her being better at hiding it. She’d just lost a guy who was like a brother to her a few months ago, and now on the cusp of getting information about her father’s whereabouts after literally centuries, her mother went missing. Yeah, I didn’t blame either of them for being worried.
“Besides,” April was adding, “the King doesn’t like the Seosten either. Worse than Heretics, actually. Cahethal would not be doing anything in his territory.”
Haiden continued. “I think April’s right, this doesn’t seem like a Seosten thing. Anyway, before killing the guy, she got as much as he knew out of him. Which wasn’t much. But he did apparently overhear one side of a conversation that their go-between had over the phone with their benefactor. The only thing that stood out was something about taking the kids to see one person in particular. Someone named Azlee Ren Kotter.”
“A name. You got the name of someone they were taking the children to see,” Asenath breathed.
“And you’ve got the country,” Tristan pointed out while leaning against the nearby wall. “That Canadian King guy might not like it if we just say we want to traipse willy nilly everywhere across his territory on the off chance we stumble across the people we’re looking for, but that name might help. Maybe he even knows this… Azlee.”
“Which brings us back around to visiting Canada and talking to this King,” I pointed out. “Which means we need to know what we’re dealing with.”
Eldridge spoke up. “I… need to go and check on my people. Bol and the others here will provide anything you need. Good luck, and I hope we see each other again before you leave. If not, come back and visit. I–” It looked like he felt torn between his worry for the other Akharu and vampires, and his duty here. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do. You have my number.”
“Go, Eldridge,” Haiden urged. “See to your family and friends. We’ll handle this.”
We watched the guy step out, and I saw a couple Vestil out there having an intense conversation with the Oni woman, Luiena. Whatever they were all saying (it was clear that they were using some kind of privacy spell), I was pretty sure none of them were very happy. Though I wasn’t sure if they weren’t happy with each other, or just the situation. Either way, things were probably getting pretty bad.
Vanessa clearly agreed, because she turned back away from the doorway as it closed behind Eldridge and announced, “We have to go find Rowan, Jiao, and the other kids before everyone here goes to war with each other. They were talking when we were coming over here and there’s a lot of Akharu and Vestil blaming the Oni, some of the Oni think the Vestil are framing them, some Vestil think the Akharu are trying to keep the hybrid princess to themselves, and vice versa.”
“So we have to find her, and the others, and prove it was an outsider,” I muttered, folding my arms with a glance toward where Tabbris and December were deep in quiet, yet rapid, conversation with each other. “Or Vegas is gonna get a lot less friendly for everyone. And a war in Vegas would end up with a lot of Bystander casualties, since they have no way to defend themselves.”
“Yeah…” With a long sigh, Haiden looked toward Twister. The two seemed to have some brief, silent conversation mostly consisting of facial expressions before he turned back to the rest of us. “Have a seat. We’ll talk about Canada before seeing about… about securing passage there.”
So, we sat down, and Haiden started with, “The story of the King of Canada… or rather, the source of his strength, doesn’t start in Canada. It starts in ancient India.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Tristan stared at his father. “What does India have to do with Canada?”
“Wel, technically a lot of things given world history,” Haiden pointed out. “But in this particular case, nothing directly. The place we know as Canada simply happens to be the burial place for the Astra.”
I started to ask what that meant, but Vanessa was already speaking up. “Supernatural weapons in Indian mythology. They were all connected to various deities and had incredible power.”
“I’m sorry, deities?” I cut in.
“Our best guess is unbelievably powerful Alters in ancient times,” she replied. “They made these Astra as the ultimate expression of their power. Like the Agneyastra, a weapon capable of summoning fire that could burn anything and was almost impossible to put out by any normal means until it destroyed the target it was meant for. Or the Varunapasha, a rope fashioned into a noose that nothing, not even these ‘gods’, could escape. Or the Bhargavastra, a bow that fired thousands or even millions of arrows in a single shot. One pull of the bow string could rain death on an entire battlefield. Or Maheshwarastra, which could shoot a beam of heat capable of turning even deities into ash. There’s more, but you get the point.”
“Okay, one, those all sound fucking awesome, and I want one,” Tristan announced. “And they’re buried in Canada?”
“They were buried in Canada,” Haiden corrected. “Not all of them, but enough. A lot. And with the Astra was buried the body of the Indian hero Karna, alongside the armor and earrings he had worn from birth that made him invincible until he removed them. The body of Karna, his armor and earrings, and the Astra were all buried as far from India as possible, apparently to keep them from being misused. Honestly, like Vanessa said, no one really knows what these ancient ‘deities’ really were. No one knows where the Astra or Karna’s armor and earrings truly originated from. They’re probably a mix of incredibly powerful technology and equally strong magic. Magic stronger than almost any that’s ever been seen on this planet. They were hidden away to stop anyone from getting that kind of power. Then he found them. Or was guided to them, it’s not clear.”
“And this ‘he’ would be the King of Canada?” I asked, trying to think of what even a normal person armed with the kind of weapons Vanessa had described could do. And there were even more than the ones she listed?
“That’s him,” the man confirmed before continuing. “Though he wasn’t known as that at the time. Before finding the hidden burial chamber where they were kept, the King was… in some ways, a refugee, one fleeing from Crossroads Heretic oppression. He was–” The man stopped, looking over toward Twister, who was giving him literal sad bunny eyes, having transformed partly into a rabbit with her ears down.
“Oh, okay, tell them,” Haiden relented with a gesture. “I know you’ve been waiting to.”
“Yup, he’s a Fae!” Twister informed us with a grin.
“A… a Fae?” I asked, feeling a bit dazed. “What’s–what? Like a pixie or a fairy?”
Her head shook as she contorted her face back to the way it was supposed to look. “No, like a Fae. They’re not human, they’re not Heretics, they’re not Alters. They’re Fae. They’re humans or Alters who were either magically transformed to become something very different from humans, or the biological descendants of beings like that. People who were changed by some magical ritual, or by accident, or anything like that to become something very different from what they started as. Like dwarves. They’re Fae now, but they started out as humans thousands and thousands of years ago until this old sorcerer wanted to create beings who were good at mining for him, so he transformed a few to start. Then they bred.”
“So a Fae could start out as any race,” Miranda asked carefully, “and then something magical happens to change them to the point that they can actually pass on those traits to create what amounts to a whole new race?”
“Some can’t pass on their traits and are still accepted as Fae,” Asenath informed us. “But generally, yes. Fae are usually lumped in as Alters by Heretics, but they usually don’t appreciate that. It’s also not a thing limited to Earth, from what I’ve heard. Any race out there can have magical mutations that become Fae.”
Taking that in, I looked to Twister. “And this King of Canada is a Fae.”
She nodded. “That’s right, he’s a Fae. One who found the burial chamber of all those weapons. He took Karna’s armor and earrings, so he’s basically invulnerable to almost anything. Seriously, it’s basically impossible to kill him as long as he has the armor and earrings. That was Karna’s whole thing, he was supposedly born with the armor and earrings already attached to him and as long as he had them, he was basically immortal. Nothing could penetrate the armor.”
“Did they try throwing him into the sun?” Tristan asked. “That usually helps kill things.”
“In this case, it would be a bad idea,” his father informed him. “Karna’s armor and earrings supposedly came from a Sun Deity. Whatever the truth is, the more sunlight they’re exposed to, the stronger they make him.”
“He’s God damn Superman too?!” Tristan blurted. “He’s supercharged by solar energy?!”
“Well, you know,” Haiden drawled, “Joe Shuster was Canadian. But yes, the armor and earrings make him incredibly strong and fast as well.”
“So this King guy has access to all that, and all those weapons, those Astra,” I murmured, staring first at her, then at Haiden. “Which… what else could they do, Vanessa?”
She gave a helpless shrug. “Lots of other things. It depends on which ones he has. There was one that could dispel any magic at all, or one that could summon wind strong enough to lift an entire army. There’s dozens of them, some are a lot more vague about what they do than others, but as I said, they’re all supposed to be directly connected to a deity figure. There’s one that’s supposed to summon a mountain and drop it on your enemies.”
“A… a mountain,” I echoed dully, staring at her.
“Maybe it was actually a meteor or something and they just embellished,” she admitted with a shrug. “I don’t know. The point is, it summons a really big rock that falls down and destroys armies.”
While the rest of us were reacting to that, Haiden explained, “The Fae King basically used some kind of ritual magic to bind the weapons to himself, so he can summon them from wherever he is, or send himself to any of them. The only downside for him is that whatever force put those weapons in that chamber wants them to stay there. So the Astras lose their charge and return to the chamber after just a relatively short time of being used or if they’re taken too far away.”
“Let me guess, the borders of Canada are about as far as they can go,” I piped up.
He nodded. “Yup. So basically he’s a powerful Fae on his own, who now wears enchanted armor that makes him almost invincible, and is capable of summoning dozens of superweapon-level magical artifacts bonded directly to himself that give him Committee-level powers. And now, we’re going to go ask him very nicely if we can step onto his land.”
“Do we know his name or anything else that might help?” Tabbris quickly piped up, sounding equal parts fascinated and worried.
“Oh, we definitely know his name,” Asenath confirmed. “So do you, in fact. At least, if you ever read Shakespeare. His original name was Alberich, but he’s better known by the French equivalent.
“Oberon, the Faerie King.”