Shattered Pentacle

Lyra had a day to prepare for the meeting with the Kindred.

Normally her first source of information about such a dangerous meeting was Akiko, the mage who could answer any question about magic. She wasn’t always right—or Capper didn’t think so—but even when she didn’t know, she was always honest.

Reagan wasn’t around either, though Lyra wandered out into the barn more than once to look for her. She even asked the horses for help, but they hadn’t seen her. Whatever preparations she had to make, Reagan wasn’t making them at the Sanctum.

There was a library, though. Lyra dug through it for a few hours, searching for any references to the other dangers of their world. Thanks to her last few months with the Free Council, Lyra was pretty good at digging up information she needed from old books.

Akiko’s personal library was out and open for all to read, if she was brave enough to do her studying under the watchful eye of Akiko’s familiar.

Spike mostly kept to his dog-bed, only ever looking up to remind her to re-shelve things correctly.

That didn’t mean her study was completely normal. Capper wouldn’t go anywhere near the library, even on the days when he had decided to follow her around. Some truths about dogs and cats went deeper than magic.

What Lyra learned was not terribly useful, unfortunately. Akiko’s books on the subject mentioned the Kindred only in passing while in reference to other subjects. It almost seemed like the mages didn’t really care about the undead, or else weren’t very afraid of anything they did.

Lyra didn’t need the ancient truths of the Awakened to tell her vampires were parasites, drank the blood of humans and animals, and couldn’t go out during the day. Telling her they had “various strange powers” did little but waste space on the page.

So, she did the same thing she always did when she didn’t know what else to try; she went to Capper.

The old cat had no specific hiding place, but that was fine. Somehow, her familiar always knew when she needed him.

She found the cat lingering near an old barn on Reagan’s property, one the elements had claimed a long time ago. The old tin roof had long since caved in, and the walls were blackened wood covered with a light curtain of green plants. Wildflowers grew between the rotten floorboards, and many little things skittered and crept out of her way as she walked.

Except for the one she was looking for, of course. Capper reclined on a large rock, one with an unbroken path to the sun high overhead. He barely cracked open one eye as she approached, stretching in exaggerated disinterest.

“Two legs, I see.”

“Bonnie’s mad enough without me doing that,” she said, stalking over to his seat. Lyra wasn’t a cat, not really. But part of her did see that rock differently now. There was so much room, and it would be so warm from sitting out in the sun like that...

“I’m trying to prepare. Didn’t you say a mage was only as good as their plans?”

He turned up his spotted feline nose, then tucked his head in against his chest, wordless.

“I’m going to meet the vampires tonight. One of your enemies says these ones are safe to talk to. That’s the only evidence we have.”

Capper opened one eye, gazing lazily in her direction. “You want to know how to fight the undead? Most of your spells would not be effective. They are not spirits, nor are they alive.”

“Fight...” She looked away. “I want to fight them. But that won’t get us into the ruins. Why would old mages use blood to lock the door, anyway?”

Capper stood, stretching. “There’s more than one type of blood. There are others—but your prisoner did not tell you. Nor did I—for I knew the original method would be unacceptable to you. Unless, of course, you believe one of your friends would offer their lives as a blood offering. I didn’t think it would be worth discussing.”

Lyra sighed, settling down amid the wildflowers and the weeds. No, that suggestion wouldn’t be worth talking about. If anything, she was grateful he hadn’t mentioned it—she could only imagine how furious Bonnie would be.

“So, what do I do? I’m walking into them tonight. Same people who...” She reached up to her throat, two fingers against the skin there. After years in Ventus’s service, she’d developed scars where he always bit her, permanent marks of her position. Nothing Bonnie did could ever get them to heal.

Except now, she couldn’t find them.

Capper nudged up against her knee, lifting his tail high behind him as he did so. “There were no Kindred in the days of the first city. No true tomes from that age will give you any help. Those that claim to contain spells that fight against the Kindred are forgeries all, slipped covertly into our libraries by spies and traitors of the Camarilla.”

She clenched one hand into a fist, while the other moved gently along his back. “So, what you’re saying is—there’s no spells we can use. I should talk to Bonnie about anti-vampire weapons. Maybe she’s got one of those bleeders lying around.”

Capper laughed. The sound might not be exactly the same, but she felt the meanin. He thought the prospect was hilarious. “I didn’t say you were helpless. Look up, apprentice.”

She did. Through the broken rafters, past strands of swaying green, where warm sunlight streamed down around her. She inhaled, felt the touch of a thousand lives in every molecule of air.

“The undead have minds, but that discipline is troublesome for the... Thyrsus path. The Oracle’s towers subject you to these restrictions, the price of supernal sympathy. Flame and light scour them, but we have not studied this practice as yet.”

“So, I’m helpless,” Lyra whispered. Her words came slow and comfortable. How could she not be, surrounded by such verdant life? This was why she remained friends with the court of Spring even when debts were settled, and accounts were weighed in balance. In at least this one respect, they saw the world the same.

“NO!” His words boomed through the building, so loud they shook the bricks and sent little birds scattering from around him. That feline mouth couldn’t speak English, yet it spoke Atlantean with greater fluency than Lyra used her own native tongue.

“Your blood flows from that sacred stream, apprentice! You host no beast, you serve no spirit, and you swear to no contracts! Even in the darkness and fear of the Quintessence, they can be victorious! Why does the Kindred fear the sun?”

“Because they burn?”

“Burn!”

There was no cat, no ruined barn, no Lyra. Great towers rose around her, built from smooth white stone. Light shimmered and flickered in the air, motes spun with no fear of paradox. Lyra looked up at the face of her teacher, his long beard trailing almost to the floor. His cat eyes watched her with his usual impatience.

She hadn’t just answered a question wrong, her words betrayed, she had failed to learn some obvious lesson.

“Truth, Lyra! Sleepers are strangled to the Quintessence—that Beast murdered the supernal light inside them. Where the light of home shines, the ugly, broken thing cowering in their chest can flee no further. That is the weapon. Not a light, not a fire. The Obrimos may bring both. It is truth.”

She stumbled backward and flopped onto her butt in the underbrush. Somehow, the leaves and wildflowers had moved aside, opening a patch of ground before her.

Atlantean was written there, a complex weave of life in six interlocking loops. Six, not five.

The cat held up one paw, shaking little bits of old wood free of his claws. “You cannot fight them. But if they lift their weapons, wield this truth instead. This blade cuts deeper than faith or flame. Make the beast tremble.”

Lyra’s lips moved, whispering the words. Most were known to her, but a few. “The heart beats, the warmth of blood in cold flesh. Arise in the memory of dawn.”

She lowered her hand again, eyes wide. “Death magic? But this Atlantean...”

“A master of Death in an afternoon?” Capper laughed again, louder. “No. We don’t do zombies, Lyra. We don’t make revenants or steal souls away in jars.”

She ran her fingers along the symbols, memorizing the way he’d taught her. Atlantean was a simple language when you understood it. Just as an alphabet allowed new words to be said without knowing them, Atlantean conveyed meaning with the shape of its glyphs.

“This is a healing spell,” she said. “Like the one to regenerate limbs, except...”

She took her hand away again. “That’s not possible. You can’t bring back the dead.”

“I can’t?” He tilted his head to one side, stretching again. “I wasn’t aware.”

“No one can,” Lyra said, a little louder. “That magic is gone. And if we could cure vampires...”

He flicked her face with his long, fluffy tail. “I made no such promise. Now, study. When you are ready, remove the tool from your belt, and prepare. Find something small to store the spell on.”

She picked up a piece of something white from the dirty floor. “Bone?”

“No. Something alive—ask one of the trees for a branch. No, not yew. Oak.”

Lyra backed away from one tree, stopping before another. “You want me to cast something without telling me what it does?”

“It keeps you safe and doesn’t make the Camarilla want to hunt you down and murder you. Hopefully you don’t find out.”

Casting Capper’s strange spell took the better part of the day, and far more mana than any other spell she knew. Worst of all, she had only the cat’s word that her task was even complete. Thanks to a few secrets of Fate she’d picked up from the changelings, the spell wouldn’t need a target yet. She could hold it in a pocket like a loaded gun, ready to fire when conditions were right.

Only when true dark finally arrived did Reagan contact her, urging her to meet in the Hallow for a little teleport.

“You ready?” Reagan asked, as Lyra slipped inside. “Haven’t seen you in here today. Thought you might have more spells to prepare.”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She joined her near the center, waiting for her familiar to scamper along beside her. “I’ve got what I need.”

She looked back, attention fixed on Capper. “Why didn’t we come back?”

His words made no sound—deliberately so. Reagan wasn’t meant to overhear. “Because I shared ancient magic with my student, not her entire cabal. I almost doubted you had the competence to attempt the magic at all.”

Almost. But despite the subtle mockery, Lyra now held the unknowable spell.

“Shouldn’t come down to fighting anyway,” Reagan said, sounding completely unconvinced. “No one keeps promises better than parasites who need human blood to survive. They can... suck ours too, by the way. And they all want to, because it’s like a drug, and...”

Lyra stopped just beside her, adjusting the oversized hoodie over her shoulders. “You should probably stop talking about stuff like that. I’m already nervous enough. Pretty sure predators can smell fear.”

Reagan patted her shoulder once, and magic erupted around them.

Lyra’s vision briefly overwhelmed her, overflowing with the power of Reagan’s Space magic. She was everywhere, then nowhere, then... an abandoned shopping mall?

“You forgot my familiar!” she squealed, annoyed. “He’s still back at the—”

Reagan silenced her with a sudden, sharp jab to the chest, pressing one hand over her mouth. Lyra’s defensive spells would’ve stopped such a strike—but not from a friend.

Reagan said nothing, but her words echoed in Lyra’s head—a far clumsier version of what Capper could do with ease. “The Kindred already see humans as animals, Lyra. I’ve seen them kill familiars because they think it’s fun. Let’s keep him breathing, okay?”

And you didn’t tell me that?

But before she could form her objection, Lyra’s senses suddenly went fully alert. She turned sharply, clenching her fingers around the magical tool in her belt. She had no hope of reacting fast enough. Something came towards her like a bullet, forming into a human shape faster than even her spell allowed her to react.

Someone about her size, though far leaner, with a rainbow of multicolored hair and a 9mm in her left hand. “The magic show’s here,” she said. “Wondered how long it would take you. Like the mistress doesn’t have more important things to do.”