BOOK 2 - Viktoria Ch. 09 (Final)

"This is weird," Ember's voice echoed in the stairway as Viktoria climbed to Selene's tower room. "It's like being in three places at once, and two of them are the same."

Viktoria tapped on the open door frame as she entered the room.

"Hello, Viktoria." Selene greeted her. "Join us. Ember, bring her into your Draga space, so I can bring her into mine."

Ember whirled around and grinned. "Someone wants to have a word with you." She held out a hand from her place on Musette's bed.

Viktoria crossed the room and took her hand. "With me? Who?" She gasped, then grinned as she saw a new place. "Your kitchen is your Draga space? Interesting, darling, but not what I imagined for you at all, if you bring your scowly, growly here." Remembering the tone of voice Stryx used when he called Ember his Draga, she wrinkled her nose. "And if you bring him here, I don't think I can ever eat in this room again."

Selene laughed as Ember flushed. "Viktoria! This isn't where I go with him. It's where I find her."

Viktoria's reality blurred as Ember's kitchen elongated and weakened, the walls, ceiling, and floor stretching so thin they became invisible, and Selene's tower room superimposed itself over the space. Fighting off a little motion sickness she sat down on the sofa next to Ember, closing her eyes. "Give a girl a little warning, please. That was worse than Mother throwing us through her portals when she rescues us."

Arms crashed around her neck, and a musical laugh filled her ears. "Musette?" She opened her eyes. Musette was wrapped around her like a boa constrictor even as she saw Musette's sleeping form tucked into a bed across the room. Herself and Ember sat on the bed next to her and together with Selene on the sofa in front of a roaring fire. "This is going to take some getting used to." Viktoria stood to hug Musette, then tugged her to sit with them. "I'm so glad to see you. I wish I could do more to help."

"You got me away from those spiders." She shuddered. "Thank you for finding the mage that hurt me. Idris went to get him and threw him in the dungeon. Now he's helping the witches who were in the cells to get home. Is Jael okay? You're a strygoi now, so he must be, right?"

"He will be." Viktoria heaved a sigh. " Everything is still jumbled up in his mind. Part of him is happy, but I can feel his confusion. I'm not sure he even knows I'm strygoi, or if he remembers bonding us."

"He'll know you've bonded. His heart will be beating, and he'll feel what you do unless you close him out." Selene placed a warm hand on Viktoria's shoulder. "Tell us what happened. Idris didn't have very many details."

"Mother showed up, I didn't have a lot of time to get into things then. I gave Tom, a guy who worked for Asim, some Beer of Oblivion and let him think he kidnapped us. He took us to a creepy basement under an apartment building and brought some men into our cell. They found my flask and thought it would be a party. They drank way more Beer of Oblivion than was good for them, and forgot they existed. The spiders that looked like tattoos came off their backs."

Musette shuddered. "I remember those men. They held me down while the man with white eyes forced me to drink the stuff that poisoned my magic. I didn't even know I had magic and now it's poison!"

Ember put her arms around her twin. "We'll find a way to fix you, I promise."

"My mother and my grandmother are experimenting with the venom from the spiders that were affected by the Beer of Oblivion. It might take some time, but I'm sure they can figure something out. When the spiders were freed, they were blank and imprinted on me, Dream, and Memory. They led us to Asim where we found Jael. He'd been bitten so many times. And his swords... they were gone. Melted, I think."

Selene put a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. "The medallions?"

"Safe." Viktoria removed them from her pocket and held them up. "I found them on the floor in front of the fireplace. I tried to tell him I have them, but he doesn't want to talk about his swords."

Selene's steady gaze met hers. "Do you know why?"

Viktoria nodded. "The medallions hold his daughter's magic. She would have been a strygoi. How could she have strygoi magic if she didn't have a vampire? She was so young when she died."

"Becoming fully strygoi is two parts. Meeting someone already strygoi, and bonding with a vampire capable of love. If you never meet a strygoi, you are Draga only. Strygoi magic used to run in families, passed down from mother to child, and strygoi were more plentiful before the massacre. It wouldn't have been so odd for Jael's daughter to have met a strygoi and partially become strygoi herself."

"Wait a second." Ember held up a hand. "I didn't meet you until after I summoned Stryx to my Draga space. How could I do that if I didn't have any magic?"

"You met Mjesec, and she gave you a burst of magic, did she not? We don't know anything about her history. She could have been strygoi from before the massacre and captured later. Maybe I wasn't the only one to escape. And strygoi magic has adapted. Now it seems to be combining with those of you who have some connection to strong magic and creating a sort of hybrid, rather than a pure strygoi witch. It's why you have a sword and wings in your strygoi form. Viktoria, are you pure silver when you change form?"

Viktoria shook her head and stood, flashing to her strygoi self. Shadows swarmed across her silver aura. "My mother is Louhi, goddess of death and witchcraft in Pohjola. She named me Shadow because I've always been able to shape them."

Musette poked at one flowing over Viktoria's arm, and it wrapped around her finger. "That is so cool! I wonder what my strygoi form will be."

"I bet you have ice cream cones floating all over you." Ember guessed.

Musette stuck her tongue out. "Well, if ice cream is my super power, I won't share it with you, Gingerbread head!"

"Ha!" Ember scoffed. "Like you ever shared your ice cream with me in the first place, Goldilocks."

Selene held out a hand to Viktoria. "May I?"

The medallions warmed as Viktoria handed them to Selene, and a cloud in Selene's eyes disappeared as she felt them. "The magic is still here. No mage is going to get the best of you, are they?" The medallions pulsed with a silver glow.

She handed the medallions back to Viktoria. "When Jael is ready, he can have new swords made. The magic isn't ready to leave him. Tell us what happened with Jael after he was bitten."

"Well, that's when Mother showed up. She let me take Lurky to Pohjola, and she and Memory fixed him. It was hard, but they could do it because he didn't have any magic to poison, just his mind. He woke up and needed to feed. He bonded with me, I thought he knew what he was doing, but he doesn't seem to remember it, and he doesn't act like we're bonded now." Viktoria closed her fists around the medallions. "Anyway, he was still in so much pain I took him to see my aunt, she has some rocks that can absorb pain and bury it. When he woke up there, all I felt from him was disgust and hatred, so I brought him back here. Maybe being home will help his mind settle."

"And you? What do you want to do?"

Viktoria chuckled. "Well, I was going to talk to you and go home, but your haunted house told me to come play."

Play!

"Can the rest of you hear that?"

Selene smiled and nodded. "That's strygoi magic. It's been trapped in here with me for so long it's excited about new strygoi, doing new things, and being able to see new places. It will take over the whole compound soon."

"You've been here a thousand years, haven't you?" Ember asked. "Why is it only taking over the compound now?"

"We're halfway around the world and an ocean away from Dacia here, and bringing so many of us all at once to a place I'd never been before took almost all my power. I was drained, and in a condition much like Musette is now when we arrived. The magic stayed here to keep me alive, because I was the first, and we thought, the last strygoi. Neither the magic nor I wanted to die. The magic had to recover, much like I did, and Musette will."

"Are you still recovering? Is that why you never leave this room?" Ember asked. "You told me when I met you that you are a prisoner here of your own design."

"That is true." Selene offered a small smile. "When Riordan fell during the massacre a thousand years ago, he didn't die to buy us time. He was taken, trapped underground in a fight against the first mage. This place," she waved an arm around her room, "is the farthest I can go and maintain my link to him. Riordan lives, and he fights. I won't abandon him."

Ember shot to her feet and flashed silver, sword in hand, black wings snapping out from her back. "We'll go get him. Where is he? Can you track him like Stryx can track me?"

"No. I can feel him, but it doesn't give me a direction. Tazraus and Resquiescere, his brother and sister, could track him. They went to look for him and never returned. He doesn't want to risk anyone else."

"I am War!" Ember shouted.

"You've been strygoi for a week!" Selene snapped. "Even as War you are no match for mages who have been using their magic for thousands of years. No one wants Riordan back more than me, and when the time is right, I will find him." She softened her voice. "Look what strygoi magic has done in a week. I am not the only one anymore. And the more of us who can share magic, the stronger the magic will become. There are four of us—"

"Five." Musette held up her hand like she was in class. "When Myth gets here we'll be five."

"How do you know?" Ember whirled on her sister. "You shouldn't be using your magic!"

"I didn't do it on purpose! I think I followed your magic to find her."

"Who is Myth?" Viktoria asked.

"A witch we met at the auction we went to in Ashana," Ember replied. "Norrix's Draga, and the newest strygoi, apparently. He followed her to Aztlan when Stryx and I came back here."

"Riordan has waited a thousand years, he's willing to wait a little longer. He doesn't want anyone to die for him." Selene turned to Viktoria. "So, what are we playing?"

Shadows! Play shadows! The haunted house demanded.

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Viktoria's eyes glowed silver as she held her hands out towards the fireplace and shadows leaned towards her. She wiggled her fingers in invitation and smaller shadows leapt to her, writhing around her hands. Larger shadows were slower to follow, but they too streamed to her as she coaxed them from around the fire.

She placed her hands against a blank wall and painted with her fingers. She urged the shadows to spread out and as they thinned they changed from a dark black to lighter shades of grey and white.

She created a beautiful landscape of the moon over a lake, erased it, and made another image of the moon over sand dunes in a desert. Erasing that she created Pohjola—a land of ice and snow far to the north.

"They're your walls, Selene, what would you like me to paint on them?"

"This may seem silly," Selene bit her lip, "but a long time ago I had a cat. She was gray with black socks. Do you think you could paint a cat for me? I know it's not a landscape, but she could keep me company here in my tower."

Viktoria smiled and turned back to the wall, summoning more shadows to her. Thinning and spreading them until she had the right shade of grey, she formed a cat shape on the wall, adding darker shadows to its legs as socks.

"You know," Ember mused, "I think if we add a little light..." She moved to stand next to Viktoria. Her fingertips glowed with soft light that she placed around the cat, adding depth to Viktoria's shadows.

Selene clapped. "She looks so real! I will enjoy seeing her on my wall."

"I could do this with shadows before. This is how a strygoi plays with shadows." She bent down and tapped the floor.

The cat turned and stepped off the wall. Her first steps were taken with innate feline grace as she placed one dainty front paw on the floor, followed a moment later by the other. She stretched her legs and curved her back in a languorous motion that started with the arch of her head, rolled like a gentle wave over her body, and ended with her tail straightening into a stiff line before it relaxed into the shape of a question mark.

Done with her stretch, the cat finished stepping off the wall onto the floor. She turned her head side to side, surveying her new domain. Her eyes were dark shadows that matched her black socks, and they fell on Viktoria, who pointed to Selene. Mincing across the room, the cat leapt up onto the sofa and curled into a ball on Selene's lap.

Selene laughed in delight as she stroked the cat. "I can feel her! She's perfect. Thank you."

Viktoria grinned. "She'll need a name."

"I shall call her Bastet."

Kitty! The haunted house laughed. More shadows!

"Yes." Musette clapped. "Make some more shadows."

Viktoria and Ember turned back to the wall. Viktoria shaped shadows, Ember gave them light, and all of them came to life, stepping off the wall. They created an enormous crow for Ember, a polar bear to remind Viktoria of Pohjola, and an owl to stand in for Mortimer Aloysius III for Musette, while she was trapped.

When the haunted house demanded more, they made a snake to see how long they could make a shadow animal, and without exchanging a word, only mischievous grins, set to work crafting the next Shadow animal to see how large they could make one.

Selene looked up and smiled. A tap on the door preceded its opening. Jael and Stryx entered the room, closing the door behind them.

"Are they always asleep when you come in here?" Jael asked. "I thought they were playing some form of sleep twister last time I came in here and saw them like this."

"Not all the time. It looks like Selene is teaching them to go other places."

Ember's gaze darted between Stryx and her twin.

"Go be with your boys." Musette yawned. "Dream connected my dreams with Idris', so we can be together that way until I wake up. And our haunted house says she'll show me what happens next, whatever that means."

"We'll visit you again soon." Ember hugged her twin. "I promise we'll find a way to wake you up so you can meet Idris for real."

Viktoria slid her arms around Musette's neck. "I wish I could have done more with the mage. I don't know enough about mage magic yet, but my Mother can figure it out. I'm sure of it."

"I know everyone is doing all they can." Musette smiled. "I'll make the best of it with my owl, my ice cream, and my hot vampire man."

Selene's Draga space condensed into Ember's kitchen, and Ember's kitchen faded away, leaving them in Selene's tower room.

"That is so weird," Ember murmured.

The shadow animals had come with them. The crow darted towards the vampires, the snake reared back in readiness to strike, and the polar bear stood on two legs, its mouth open in a silent roar. Somehow instead of reducing the threat, the soundlessness only increased the menace of the shadow animals.

"What the fuck!" Stryx yelled, dropping into a defensive stance.

Jael reached for swords he no longer had. "I could feel you being very smug about something." He kept his eyes on the the predators as he edged around them.

A pang of grief and helplessness through their bond swamped Viktoria before Jael shoved those feelings down.

The haunted house laughed and the tower door slammed open. Stryx dodged aside as the shadow animals lunged for freedom.

"They're not going to eat anyone, are they?" Jael asked.

Ember and Viktoria turned to one another and grinned. Their silver eyes glowed brighter as they rose from Musette's bed and faced the wall, where the bulk of the shadow animal they'd been working on waited for its finishing touches.

"What's that one?" Stryx asked Selene.

"I don't know. I've not seen the full creation, only portions of it."

Viktoria and Ember stopping shaping the shadow and backed up, dragging Stryx and Jael with them.

"I do not have a good feeling about this," Stryx said.

Viktoria smirked. "Do you ever have a good feeling?"

"I—"

The shadow shifted over the wall until an enormous horned head was centered. Two gray eyes peered out, and a huge head on a long neck emerged, followed by a claw-tipped leg stepping out of the wall.

"Oh, fuck." Stryx muttered.

"I'm pretty sure the Old Man on the Mountain had a story about this, " Jael murmured. "I don't recall it ending well."

"Come on," Viktoria urged the creature, holding out her hands. "Don't be shy."

A second clawed leg stepped out, followed by a thick serpent like body, two more legs and a long tail.

The dragon hardly fit in the room, its shadow casting shadow over all of them. It eyed the open door and darted for it, disappearing down the stairs.

Viktoria and Ember whooped and went after it.

The door at the bottom of the staircase flew open on its own and the dragon flowed out with the other shadow animals, causing chaos as they stalked and pounced at vampires.

Zeke ducked a swipe from a polar bear paw. Xenos dodged a lunge from snake fangs. Alaric threw his arms over his head and yelled, "Not the face!" as the crow flapped over him. Karov threw himself into a flip to avoid the dragon's lashing tail.

Melchior stood tall amid the melee in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest. He glared at Viktoria and Ember. "Strygoi are all crazy."

The haunted house giggled in hysterics.

Viktoria flashed him an impish grin and a wink as she sprinted past the chaos and headed up to the main floor, the Shadow animals following.

The front door flung itself wide, and the shadows streamed into the moonlight, followed by Viktoria and Ember, and the vampires.

They stood in the yard as the dragon paced in circles. It looked up into the dark sky, sat back on its rear legs and snapped massive wings out from its sides.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Stryx muttered."Really?"

Viktoria exchanged high-fives with Ember as the dragon pushed off from the ground and launched itself into flight. It gained height and circled the house, climbing high and swooping low until it extended its two rear legs and plummeted towards the roof of the house.

Ciaran gazed up at the dragon. "I'm not sure dragons on the roof is covered by our homeowner's insurance."

"What?" Viktoria gasped in mock horror. "Maybe you should up your policy to cover 'acts by goddesses' darling."

"Eh," He shrugged. "These guys can afford to pay for damages."

Landing with no impact, the dragon folded its wings and settled in to roost on the roof.

The crow followed the dragon, and the polar bear and snake set to examining the area at ground level. The pond erupted as the ahuizotl burst from underwater and pounced at the shadow animals.

"I would have gotten you a cat if I'd known you wanted a pet." Stryx pulled Ember into his arms.

"Selene has the cat."

Stryx sighed. "Of course she does."

Jael took Viktoria's hand in his. "Will you come with me?"

Viktoria searched their bond, but Lurky was still keeping his feelings buried deep. There was a new sparkle to his eyes though. It gave her a little hope maybe things would work out for them. And if not, she could give him one more thing before she left.

She nodded and followed him into the house.

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Jael led the way to his room. "You need to wear clothes around the others." He growled. "You have an entire house full of them. I don't see what the problem is." He opened the door and hesitated, then tugged her into the room. For the first time it seemed like a warm space. A fire burned in the fireplace, and candles of all shapes and sizes were lit, creating shadows on every surface.

"You should be glad I'm not. If you rip them like you did in Pohjola, we're going to have a problem. And, I think you wear too many clothes." Viktoria smirked and slipped her hands under his shirt.