A Matter of Forever (Fate #4) Read online

  I slip on the wet tile as I shift Iolani behind me. This isn’t Enlilkian. This is one of his ... children, maybe? I’ve already taken plenty of those out. Whoever this is, it could be, no pun intended, child’s play in comparison to their father. I just need to get a little closer.

  I drop a cage right over my father’s body.

  The Elder in my father curls his fingers around the bars, amusement flickering across a face I’m not used to seeing amusement on.

  I close in on the cage, ready to will his ass straight to oblivion, when he adds, “Relax, little Creator. I’m not here to hurt you. Far from it, actually.”

  Yeah, right.

  But then I get a good look at my father’s body. Compared to the ones I saw a month back, it’s in remarkable condition. The skin is slightly puffy and grayish, but other than that, it doesn’t show the decay like the others’.

  Imaginary fists strike me in the stomach.

  “Text Jonah,” I whisper to Iolani.

  The thing in my father sniffs the air. “Outside of your nausea right now,” eyes drift across my body, “and a series of oddly patterned bruising along your arms, you are the picture of wholesome health.”

  “He’s coming.” I’ve never heard Iolani so unnerved before.

  “My job will be all that much easier,” the Elder continues.

  I’m wary, hanging just out of its reach. “What job?”

  “I’m a ... what do you call us now? A Shaman, I believe. But what I truly am is Bios.” He grins, running his knuckles across my father’s bare chin. “Father was a little concerned he might have overreacted during your last meet and greet.” It shakes me to my core to see my father’s eyes roll. “Can’t permanently damage the womb of our new race, after all.”

  “What?”

  He ignores my outburst, simply scrutinizing me instead.

  Iolani throws a flip flop at the cage, drawing his attention toward her. “How did you find this place?”

  The thing called Bios leans forward, sniffing the air once more like a dog would. “How interesting. Magma and obsidian. Sulfur. Tell me, daughter of Vaesta, does your interior flame match that of your powers?”

  “I am not daughter of whoever this Vaesta is,” Iolani snaps.

  “Of course you are. Her essence wraps around you. My sister ...” My father’s eyes glaze over, like he’s in the midst of a pleasant reminiscence. “So fiery, that one.” He pushes off the bars and retreats to the middle of the cage. “But enough petty talk. We’ll have time enough later for that. For now, I am tasked with a message.”

  This is all too surreal. It’s talking to us like we’re friends or something. Where are the insults? The threats?

  “I’m sure you have your ways of stopping me,” Bios says, unbothered by my mounting anger and confusion. “Please know that if that is your wish, I won’t put up much of a fight. I’m your gift, after all. Just because the peon who once wore this skin is gone doesn’t mean this body isn’t yours to keep.”

  This Elder, possessing my father’s dead body, is a gift?

  Jonah comes skidding into the room, followed by Kellan. I can hear Zthane and Karl’s voices down the hallway.

  “What the fuck?” Kellan whispers.

  Bios is on the ground within a split second, writhing in pain thanks to Jonah.

  “Obliterate it, Chloe.” His voice is cold and even. “Now.”

  “Not yet,” Bios hisses as he curls my father’s body into a ball. “Not ... until ... you hear ... what I have ... to say.”

  Why am I hesitating? I lurch a stop forward, but the look coming from my father’s eyes stops me cold in my tracks again.

  “Gods almighty,” Zthane says, from behind Jonah. “Is that Noel Lilywhite?”

  I haven’t cried for my father’s death yet. All the tears are still in a tight ball fighting their way up my throat.

  “Jonah, take her out of here,” Kellan snaps. “I will keep it controlled until we figure out what to do with it.”

  “She’s going to obliterate it,” Jonah says flatly, twisting his hand until Bios’ cries leave my ears ringing.

  I lurch forward a step, but ...

  My father is on the ground, crying. And I’m taken right back to the moment I watched the first Creator suck all of his life right out of him. My feet grow roots that dig into the tiled floor below me.

  After a long moment, though, the wailing stops. My fiancé turns to his brother and says, “You better be right about this.”

  Kellan simply stares at his brother, no doubt saying something in their minds.

  “Twenty-four hours. No more.” To me, Jonah says, “Let’s go, Chloe.”

  No. I need to obliterate it, I think. But I meet my father’s eyes, red and tired from pain, and something in me just crumples into bitter piles of remorse.

  I allow my fiancé to lead me out of the room.

  They’re keeping Bios in one of the locked rooms I never paid much attention to before, just off the conference room. Turns out, it’s a cell. Gray, concrete walls, a single metal bed with no mattress bolted to the floor, and a toilet. A one-way window, disguised as a wall in the cell, leads to the other locked room next door that resembles a panic room.

  Destroying this monster has been put on temporary hold. Apparently what Jonah and Kellan were arguing about the night before was whether or not it was possible to interrogate it. Kellan thought this a good idea; opportunities such as these are few and far between for us. Jonah wanted to me to destroy it, no questions asked. In the end, Zthane took Jonah aside and argued for nearly an hour about the validity of Kellan’s point, with Karl chiming in with his agreement.

  So far, it’s been fairly cooperative and has yet to attack anyone. I let it know I can take it out at any moment, though—one Elder in a Human body does not pose the same risk as an incorporeal one. Either Jonah or Kellan could easily subdue it for me.

  So here Jonah and I are, sitting inside the panic room, watching the first round of interrogations. Zthane is in the cell with Bios alongside Kellan and Sjharn. I’m not pleased at all that Kellan is in there, but I was overruled. An Emotional needed to be present, they all argued; Emotionals control Elders the best. And as Kellan wasn’t having any part of Jonah being in the room for this first meet and greet, he’s the one in there, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed while Zthane talks with the monster.

  “Isn’t this a droll party,” Bios is saying. He’s shackled to the wall by chains of my creation but acting as if it’s little to no inconvenience. He didn’t even fight with any of us when we told him he had no choice other than to be shackled. “Hello, child,” he says to Sjharn.

  The Guard’s Shaman says nothing in return.

  “No greeting for your father?” Amusement sparkles in my father’s rapidly darkening eyes. Then he shifts his attention to Kellan. “Here’s one of the abominable pets my father loathes. Hello pet,” he says to Kellan. “Aren’t you a tasty thing? Despite what Enlilkian says, I can see why she likes you so much.”

  Kellan’s expression does not change one iota.

  Zthane asks, “Your name is Bios?”

  The thing in my father shrugs. “I am Bios.”

  “Is there a distinction?”

  Irritation briefly flashes across its face. “You are too simple-minded to understand.”

  “Try me,” Zthane says.

  “No. Your sort bores me.”

  “My sort?”

  Bios sighs patiently, waving a hand towards Zthane. “My mother was always tedious. You reek of her.” He pauses, then leans a little closer. “I’ll share a secret with you. I did no mourning when the little Creator smote her. That bitch thought too highly of herself. Our children disgusted me. I smothered them when they failed to live up to their potential.”

  Zthane’s eyes widen. “You had children with your mother?”

  Ew. Just ... ew.

  Bios yawns. “I am sure you are not here to discuss my progeny.”

  “Why are
you here?”

  Bios narrows his eyes, silent for a long moment. And then, more amiably, “I was sent to ensure the little Creator is prime health. Enlilkian is tired of waiting around.”

  Jonah tenses next to me. I slide my fingers through his and squeeze gently.

  The Elder in my father glances toward the wall, like he can see me standing there. A small bow is attempted. “I am her gift, you see. My task is to ensure her continued health and safety so she will be primed for father’s plan.”

  What is he talking about? What plan?

  Zthane says, “To spy on her, you mean.”

  Bios considers this. “This, too. But put your mind at ease. I am unable to contact any of my kin through your multiple shields.”

  “You expect us to believe this?”

  “I do not lie,” Bios says coldly.

  Zthane’s eyes flicker toward Kellan, who merely nods.

  “Ah, what a nice pet.” Bios is clearly delighted. “My brother was so clever breeding your kind. I have rarely had an opportunity to study Empaths until now.”

  “How did you get down here?” Zthane is asking.

  “This one,” Bios says, smoothing his hands down my father’s chest, “was a holder of knowledge, was he not? Some of his essence was left behind after Father ate him. It took me quite a while to sift through lingering memories, but I managed to come across this location.” He leans back against the wall, chains clanking noisily.

  My skin crawls at how easily it talks about my father’s death.

  “Do the others know where you are?”

  “No,” Bios admits. “I was to inform my kin the moment I had a visual on the little Creator, but ...” He smiles, amused. “Your shields here are quite excellent. There is no way for me to reveal what I know without going beyond them. But this should be of no concern. I can freely give you this pledge: as long as the little Creator is down here with me, she is under my protection. No harm will come to her. I will give what is left of my existence to ensure her safety.”

  This just gets weirder and weirder. Because, huh? First they want to kill me, now they want to protect me?

  “Like no harm came to her before?” Kellan snaps.

  “You and I know that plenty of harm befell the little Creator from my kin, but never by my hand.” He chuckles mirthlessly. “We cannot have a weak mother, after all.”

  I’m nauseated to my core. There’s that inference again, like I’m somehow going to ... I don’t know, be the mother of new Elders? Is that what they want me for? To have a demonic litter of Elder babies?

  Jonah wraps an arm around my shoulders and kisses me. He can’t hide his fury, though.

  “If I’m good enough,” Bios whispers gleefully, “our children will be better suited to rule than the other brats. I so look forward to getting to know my new mother.”

  Kellan makes a move then, but before fist meets face, both Zthane and Sjharn grab him. “I will kill you first,” he hisses, struggling against his friends. “You will never put your hands on her, do you hear me?”

  “Maybe not so much a pet, but a watchdog,” Bios leers. “Does she pet you, pretty watchdog? Do you think she’d be jealous if I was to pet you, too?”

  To hear these things come from my father’s mouth is too much to bear. I leave the room before I blow up the entire bunker.

  To say Bios is a high maintenance prisoner is putting it mildly. He demands excellence, and when he doesn’t get it, fluctuates between terrifying anger and baffling petulance. And then there’s his macabre insistence that he sees me personally once a day so he can continue to ensure my personal health. Jonah refuses to let me into the room without him, so Bios is allowed five minutes of our time each evening before the lights in his cell wink out.

  I hate that I’m staring at my father’s face, that I’m reminded every single day of all the mistakes between us in excruciating detail during each visit. A week after he was captured, I ask “Did you really mean what you said? About being sent to protect me?”

  “Do not question my integrity.” The room goes frosty in his displeasure. “I have been ordered to ensure your safety and healthy. Have you not noticed how well I’ve been maintaining you?”

  Um ... I discreetly glance down at my body. It seems to be the same as always.

  “Yes, little Creator.” He’s exasperated. “I am constantly working on you. Have you really not noticed? Not a single headache? Not a single ounce gained? No backaches, no pimples, no cuts, no anything? You are the healthiest person in existence right now.”

  I look to Jonah in surprise. For his part, he merely maintains his calm façade. I know he won’t allow Bios to know if that anything he says bothers us.

  “What if I ordered you to stop?” I ask the first Shaman.

  “I am unable. Enlilkian has bade it so, and until he rescinds his decree, I must do it. And since I cannot communicate with him until we are above ground, I’m afraid you’re stuck being perfect.” He pauses. “May I point out how your womb is absolutely ripe for children right now?”

  Someone must have turned on the heat in the room, because I flush like there’s no tomorrow. “Don’t you get it? I am not the future mother of Elderdom or whatever you guys call it.”

  Bios sits up. “I was simply making a statement of fact, little Creator.”

  I’m totally flustered, though. “I will die before I ever allow something like that to happen.”

  “You still do not get it, do you? There is no way for you to die while I am here with you. I will not allow it.” He pauses. “Plus, one of the powers of Creation you appear to not have that Enlilkian still does is that of reanimation. If you were dying, I would be able to treat you. If you died, however, he would simply bring you back once I bring your body to him. You do not want this. Believe me, little Creator, if Enlilkian tasks you to do something, it is best to do it.”

  I chew on my lower lip as I consider this. Is he telling us what life is like for the Elders? “Have you ever been punished for failing to do what he wants?”

  Bios looks off to the side. “Of course.”

  “And Rudshivar?”

  He laughs very quietly. “That fool. Oh yes, little Creator. Rudshivar met his fair share of punishments over the years.” A hand rubs tiredly over his—my father’s—face. “Stupid bastard.”

  Jonah speaks for the first time in the week I’ve been visiting Bios. “You wish for death?”

  Bios’ eyes flicker towards him in surprise. Then they shutter in his languid, frivolous personality. “The pet speaks. I worried that your ... I don’t even know what to call it. The one like you?” When Jonah doesn’t respond, he continues, “Well, whatever it is ... I wondered if he was the one to get the power of speech. I am pleased to see you both are able to communicate.”

  This guy is such an asshole, it’s ridiculous.

  “Do you know that you’re in my father’s body?”

  Bios yawns. “As a matter of fact, I did not.”

  “Was this my gift all along? Your father decided to kill mine so you could possess the body and come watch over me?”

  Bio merely smiles sadly. “You would have liked my old visage. I was beautiful. My sisters all clamored to have my children.”

  I can’t stop the shudder that rolls through my body. So many, many ews.

  This entertains him, though. “How do you think our race came to be, little Creator? There were only so many of us to work with. Although, once Enlilkian created his underlings, we mated with them, too. Only those offsprings’ powers were pitiful; many had none at all.”

  The Métis. He’s talking about Métis, right?

  “What disappointments they were. Father despised them and their failures. It was his wish that as many die as possible so he could rebuild a better race. For us to reclaim what we foolishly gave.”

  Is this why they’ve been targeting the Métis? Because they hold no crafts? Could it really be such a simple yet horrible explanation?

  Jonah says, “I
f I’m not mistaken, our kind came from Rudshivar, not the rest of you.”

  The corner of one of my father’s lips curves upward. “Let me be the one to tell you that you are quite mistaken.”

  Good lords. Do we have any of this right so far?

  “Why don’t you explain it to us then?” Jonah asks coldly.

  I expect Bios to balk, but he tells us, “Rudshivar was such a lovely storyteller, you see. While he was able to create the different species there are today, he was not able to create Magicals. Those were created with his sisters and children. He secretly bred them like one would breed animals. He bred for looks and talent, to ensure he had the best army. For example, every Shaman you have is descended from me, including the green one here with us. I gifted Rudshivar one of my favorite children to use. A number of us did, before the uprising.”

  I feel like I need a notepad to keep track of all of this insanity.

  He glances at Jonah. “I suppose you’re wondering which sibling you’re from.”

  My fiancé says, “I couldn’t care less who I’m descended from.”

  Bios chuckles. “You are so like her, too.”

  “If you helped Rudshivar with the uprising, why are you still with Enlilkian? Why were you stripped of your existences and banished in a hole?” Jonah presses.

  “Because sometimes, what you want and what you get are two very different things,” the first Shaman says quietly. “And we’d all seen what he’d done to those of us who disobeyed. Only Rudshivar was able to get away, and only because he shared the powers of creation. The rest of us ...” Bios closes his eyes. “I’m tired, little Creator. And I’d prefer to not have to dwell on those who no longer exist.” He waves his hand dismissively.

  Just as Jonah shuts the door behind us, Bios whispers, “What a mess you’ve left me, Rudshivar.”

  “How are things going?” Will asks me one afternoon.

  I’ve broken down and told him and Cameron the truth. They’re both apprehensive, but I assured them I’m okay, as are the twins, and we hope to be home soon. Zthane wasn’t pleased with my choice, but I was no longer okay lying to them. I’ve spent too much time over the last few years either keeping things from those I love. So, despite what I’m going through, despite the risks, I just can’t do it anymore.