They were sitting around the fireplace in the Broken Shield, like in the old times, when they were protecting Mr George from The Priest. No, not like that, Jenna thought. Everything was different now: people were missing, there were no laughter or jokes. Those days felt like a nightmare when they happened, but after all that went down since then, Jenna started to think about them with nostalgia.
She sat next to Claire, far away from Robert. Since she woke up a few days ago, she had barely seen the man. Even when Robert did visit her, he was distant, cold and always left after a few minutes. Jenna didn't blame him, she knew that her injury was disgusting. She wasn't sure she could ever get used to the sight of it and she wasn't about to ask someone else to do, it just wouldn’t be fair. She just wished that Robert would have the balls to break up properly, instead of saying the changes don't bother him, just to act all cold and weird after. Of course she knew that Robert grieved and knew that he blamed himself for the deaths that obviously weren't his fault, that he felt like a failure. She knew how her man's mind worked. She wanted to help, but he didn't let her close, didn't let her be there for him.
That made Jenna angry, naturally. She noticed that almost everything made her angry these days; she assumed it was because of the constant pain she had to live with. Her right arm was weak, but it worked, although that came with the prize of suffering. Every little movement felt like someone filled her shoulder with glass shards.
Jenna wasn't alone with this problem. Nobody walked away from the party uninjured. Claire had a long claw mark on her face, starting on the temple and ending on her chin. It wasn't too bad and Teodore was confident that it would heal without a visible scar. Martin wasn't that lucky, he lost the little and the ring finger from his left hand; a ghoul simply just bit them off. Remy was in an even worse shape. After days of uncertainty, he got to keep his right leg, but he couldn't walk without the help of a crutch and it was highly possible that he won't be able to do that again ever.
Rose died. Her chatty, smiling presence was painfully missing from around the fireplace. Jenna didn't know how much she liked the girl up until now, when she realised they won't tease each other ever again. Sometimes she wanted advice about what to do with this new, strange Robert, just to realise Rose won't ever give that advice.
Even though she missed her badly, nobody suffered more than Benjamin. He didn't pick up drugs and alcohol again, like when he accidentally killed one of the Goddess' followers, but he barely spoke to anyone anymore and he spent most of his time on the streets, hunting down ghouls and other dark creatures. He seemed like he had completely given up on life, and just waited for an opponent that would finally be tough enough to end his misery. As far as Jenna could tell, there were only two people he ever listened to, Rose and Robert, and now one of them was dead, and the other separated himself from everyone, probably not even noticing that he wasn't the only one with problems. Jenna felt powerless, unable to help and it just made her even more angrier at herself and at Robert.
'So basically we can stay here and hope The Priest will get bored with his world-conquering plans, or we can try and stop him. There is no help coming, we are on our own.'
This was Marcus. He stood in front of the fireplace, the light coming from behind rendering him barely more than a silhouette. He wasn't as badly injured as some of the others, but he changed over the past few months. He was still the same old goofball sometimes, but his laughter became quieter, his constant smile faded away. New Year's Eve left new wrinkles in his face and white breadth in his dark hair.
Nobody answered. Nobody wanted to fight anymore but Robert and even he remained silent. Back in the day he would have given a speech, he would have told them that they have to help people, they have to do the right thing, but Jenna knew that he won't ask anyone to fight now. Not after they fought and people died.
'There might be a third option,' said Luther. As always, he stayed behind the bar, didn't join them. 'Some of you knows what is under this pub. I can open a door for you, you can leave the city in peace. It is not your duty to fight. You did enough.'
Robert shook his head and for a moment Jenna hated him for that. He sat in a big armchair across her, with his raven on his shoulder.
'I cannot talk for anyone else, but I'm staying. The police and the army have fallen, the ones are still alive fighting for survival, not for ending the siege. As Marcus said, there is no help coming, not MAGE, not NATO.'
'What is your plan, then?' asked Luther. 'I assume you have one, it would be so out of character for you to do the noble, but stupid thing without even thinking it through…'
Jenna scoffed. Robert looked at her and she shrugged. Luther was right, there were no two ways to it. Robert had an urge to help, to be a hero and that urge put him in danger over and over again, in his whole life.
'I don't have a plan just yet,' he said flatly.
'Shocking,' Munin pitched in. 'You might want to work on that before you ask your friends to die.'
'I'm not asking anyone to do anything,' objected Robert.
'You already did, young Montgomery,' Luther's voice was sad. 'These people are loyal to you. They will do what you do. They will follow you. Make sure you will lead them somewhere good.'
Robert didn't answer.
'If we want to stop The Priest…' said Martin after a minute of silence, as if Luther and Munin didn't say anything. 'We are going to need to find out what powers his magic, right?'
'Munin checked all the power plants in the city,' said Robert with a nod. 'As well as every place that sells thunder orbs or other extremely powerful talismans. No luck so far, there were no break-ins or bigger purchases in the past couple of years.'
'It's Kovach we are talking about,' pointed out Martin. 'He always had a buttload of magical whatnots. He must be using one of them, right?'
'To manage what he is doing, he needs something much bigger than those,' said Robert. 'Something unprecedented, something so powerful that it cannot be hidden away. There are very few artefacts existing that can provide this much energy, the MAGE would know if one of them was here in London all along.'
'Maybe they know,' said Jenna slowly. She felt excited suddenly, like in the old days when they were putting the pieces of the puzzle together. 'We all knew, we just didn't realise it.'
'What are you talking about?' frowned Remy.
'Shit, it all fits… Of course… It's not what he is using, it's who he is using! The fucker is a necromancer, right? What's the one thing we know about those? They can use the life of others, they can leech on them, taking away from someone and giving to someone else,' she looked at Robert in the eyes and saw that the man had already understood.
'You mean…'
'Yes! He's using Yolanda!'
'Hold on,' raised his arms Marcus. 'The statue is safe in an unknown location, guarded by MAGE. There is no way…'
'He was in an unknown location, guarded by MAGE,' cut in Jenna. 'Or so we thought. Just check it. Make a phone call or something. There is no other explanation, thunder orbs and talismans cannot be this strong.'
Marcus took out his phone and walked away from the fireplace to make the call.
'Can she?' asked Claire. 'I don't know much about the theory of magic, but it seems a little far-fetched that one person's magic can be this strong… Also, you said necros are using life, then you switched for magic, are those the same?'
Jenna looked at Robert.
'Professor?'
'Theoretically speaking, they aren't that different,' he spoke like a teacher now and Jenna couldn't help it, she smiled. 'At some point any type of energy becomes just that, energy. Regular sorcerers cannot extract energy from living things, not even the strongest ones, in fact, most of us can barely put a spell on them. That's why Teodore cannot heal someone by snapping his fingers, healers have to find a way around. But seems like that is something necromancers had figured out somehow, so yes, I'd say it's possible for Kovach to use the Goddess as an energy source.'
'Okay, but if he planned to use her for this, why did he let her out the first time?' asked Remy.
'Maybe he wasn't sure, he wanted to see if she really is that strong as the old stories told,' guessed Martin.
'That is as good of an explanation as any, for now,' nodded Robert. 'The real problem is, if he really is using her, we cannot just break the energy source. Yolanda cannot be killed,' Jenna saw that he opened and closed his burnt hand. It still wasn't perfectly healed. 'We'll have to find a way to separate them somehow. I imagine Kovach will have a word or two about that.'
'Or… Maybe we can skip this round, boss,' said Martin carefully. 'I mean, I wanna help people, you know, but this seems like a lot. We don't know where the guy is, he is like the strongest sorcerer there is, he knows magic we have very little idea about, he has an army and a super-talisman-thingy and we are all beaten up and tired. I love a story of a handful of heroes beating the big faceless army as much as the next guy, but I don't think we can pull this off now. Sorry, boss. What if we just let someone else deal with it? Just this once?'
'There is nobody else, Martin,' said Robert. 'You heard Marcus. Nobody's coming. We are all the city got.'
'Then maybe we should just pack it in for now, man,' shook his head Remy. 'Let's be honest, going after that Kovach sounds like suicide. Maybe if we had more manpower… Last time we beat him we had Ayana, Rose and Agent Blake and half of the MET with us, and turns out we didn't really beat him at all… We don't even have Teodore now, he is so busy he couldn't leave the hospital the whole week. Hurt to say, but I agree with Martin. I just don't see how we could win this one.'
'I understand your concerns,' said Robert slowly. 'I won't ask anyone to join me…'
'Nope,' cut in Jenna angrily. 'We are not playing this game. We're in this shit together, understood? I won't watch you die because you wanna play the hero. We, as a group, will decide what and how we will do and whoever got a different idea will have to deal with me first. That includes you, Robert. Is that clear?'
Silence fell on them. Robert and Jenna stared into each other's eyes for a while, then the man sighed and looked away.
'You know, that would have been much more badass and convincing if you could, you know, stand up without help, or something,' said Marcus., stepping back into the firelight. Jenna smiled at him nicely and showed him her middle finger. 'So, I've talked to my bosses. There is a statue in their basement, but as it turns out, it's fake. Kovach managed to sneak it out somehow.'
'Fuck,' said Jenna.
'Indeed,' nodded Marcus.
'Shouldn't that be, I don't know, impossible?' asked Martin. 'You hear the stories about how MAGE is cool and stuff, one would imagine they kinda know what they are doing.'
'It should have been, normally,' nodded Marcus. 'But since we believed we got The Priest locked up and powerless, nobody bothered to check the guards and agents, and some of them are vampires. Now all of them will have to go through a very serious check-up by mental magic, so we can see who helped Kovach, also, what else did he take. Poor bastards.'
Jenna never had to undergo a mental check, but she knew that not everyone walked away from it being the same. It was usually the very last resort law enforcement turned to.
'This whole thing just gets better and better,' murmured Remy. Claire poked him at the ribs with her elbow.
'I say let's take a break,' said Marcus. 'Let's sleep on it and we will talk tomorrow. Maybe we will know a little more by then.'
That was the first thing they all could agree on. The group split up: Remy, Claire and Martin stayed where they were, their heads put together, quietly talking. Benjamin, who sat through the whole meeting without a word, got up and left. Marcus started a conversation with Luther and Robert went upstairs, without even looking at Jenna. The girl got up and followed him. She had a couple of things to say.
Paypal
