Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Reon leaned over the table and tapped one finger against its surface. ”He is losing confidence.”

”Mundy is the best we have,” Noctis replied. ”At least the best we can get without tipping off the KRB and the Council.”

Oden lifted the bent cup and threw it across the room.

It struck the wall and split at the rim. Dark liquid ran down the stone in a slow line.

Everyone looked at him.

Oden rose from the chair. ”He wastes bodies and asks for more time.”

Reon tilted his head. He was used to Oden’s antics, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t tiresome. ”Would you prefer to conduct the work yourself?”

”I would prefer results.”

”So would everyone here.”

Oden’s eyes sharpened behind the heat still clinging to them. ”Stop speaking to me like I’m one of your technicians.”

Reon smiled without warmth. ”Then stop throwing cups like one of the test subjects.”

The poison around Oden’s bandaged shoulder thickened.

Espel shifted her foot.

Oden could fight if he wanted, she didn’t care. But if he did decide to hit Reon, she only needed enough room to keep her shoes out of the blood.

Noctis looked between them.

”Oden.”

The poison stopped spreading.

Oden held Reon’s gaze for another moment, then sat down again. The chair creaked under him.

Espel watched him reach for the bowl of medicine and pull it closer.

He was still angry about the match.

The loss was not the reason. Oden did not treat defeat as an event that ended when the referee spoke. He carried it inside him and fed it until it became something useful or poisonous.

With him, it was often both.

Espel returned her attention to the blank screen.

Humans who could control Gloom.

The words stayed with her.

She remembered Deathrock.

Spectra had been on the ground when Espel reached her, her body damaged from forcing too much dark power through a form that had not been built to hold it.

When Espel had healed her with Bloomwings, she had seen them.

Gloom channels.

Actual Gloom channels. A second system running alongside the first.

Espel had never seen anything like it.

She had repaired the damage without asking questions. Spectra had been alive, Lancet had needed her healed, and that had been enough at the time.

Now Dr. Mundy’s failure gave the memory a different shape. They didn’t know it but what they were trying to create already existed.

Spectra Hexerra had achieved it.

Espel uncrossed one leg and crossed the other.

She could tell them.

Noctis would listen. Reon would understand the value immediately. They would demand access to Spectra, study her channels and use whatever they found to correct the experiments.

Spectra was a perfect test subject.

Espel looked toward Oden.

He had lowered his head, one hand resting over the bandage while the dark medicine pulled the remaining heat from him. The only reason she was in these rooms was because of him.

He had trusted her enough not to ask why she stayed quiet through every meeting.

To be honest, Espel did not care whether telling them was right.

Right and wrong were words other people used when they wanted their feelings to sound like rules.

Espel understood useful and useless.

What is wanted and what isn’t.

Specifically, she knew Lancet would not want this. And that mattered quite a lot to her that she couldn’t really explain.

She remembered the way he had looked back in Deathrock. He was so driven and commandeering. She remembered his body, his mouth and the fact that she wanted to have sex with him again.

Telling Noctis about Spectra could make that difficult.

Lancet became protective where his Heroines were concerned. If the Serpent Society tried to cut Spectra open, restrain her or drag her into one of Mundy’s glass tubes, he would not treat Espel’s involvement as a small disagreement.

He might never touch her again.

Espel rested one hand on her knee and watched the dark crystal reflect her face.

That would be irritating.

Besides, she cared little for Viper and Cobra. Once she and Lancet dealt with them, Oden would be free. She only hoped her constantly furious brother would understand.

The lounge door suddenly flew open. Kestrel turned and saw Clevus stumble through it.

His eyes were swollen. His uniform hung crooked across one shoulder, and he held one arm against his chest as though it might fall away if he loosened his grip. Sweat covered his face despite the cool air in the room.

Every other head turned.

Clevus kicked the door shut behind him and nearly tripped over his own feet.

”Lord Cobra.”

Noctis stared blankly at him. ”What happened?”

Clevus hurried forward.

”I got him,” he said. ”I finally got him. I touched Lancet. I held his hand and activated it exactly like you told me.”

Reon straightened away from the table. Kestrel’s eyes widened a bit.

Noctis’s eyes sharpened. ”You copied his Class?”

Clevus’s face crumpled. ”No.”

Oden looked up from the medicine.

Clevus reached the center of the room and dropped to his knees. ”Something happened. His power wouldn’t enter. It was too much or blocked or... I don’t know. My ability pulled anyway and then everything burned.”

He thrust his hand forward.

It trembled in the air. ”I can’t feel anything in it.”

Noctis looked at the hand.

”My channels are gone,” Clevus said. ”All the Classes I stole. Every one of them. I’ve tried to reach them and there’s nothing there.”

Reon walked closer and crouched in front of him. He took Clevus’s wrist without permission and pressed two fingers against the skin.

Clevus winced.

Reon closed his eyes for a moment, then released him. ”The channels are dead.”

Clevus stared at him. ”Dead?”

”Burned through.”

”No. Heal them.”

Reon stood.

Clevus grabbed him by the cost. ”You have artifacts. Seasnake is a Healer, she could heal me too.”

Espel was Seasnake but Clevus knew better than to speak to her directly. She would kill him and if she didn’t, Oden would.

Reon turned and gave him a glare.

Clevus immediately released him and turned to Noctis. ”Lord Cobra, please. That Mundy doctor guy has equipment. The lab can—”

”No.”

The word stopped him.

Noctis crossed the room. Clevus tried to rise, but one look from him kept the Summoner on his knees.

”I did what you asked,” Clevus said.

”You failed.”

”I touched him.”

”And you brought back nothing.”

”But... but... it wasn’t my fault.”

Noctis stopped in front of him. ”Then whose fault is it?”

Clevus looked up, crying openly now. ”He did something to me.”

”You’re weak. You allowed him to punish you for it.”

”No!” Clevus cried with wide eyes. ”I couldn’t know his Class would—”

”You were chosen because you claimed your power could take any Class.”

”It can.”

Noctis looked at the dead hand. ”Not anymore.”

Clevus’s breathing quickened. ”I can still help. I know things. I know routes and names. I’ve worked for the Society for years.”

”You were useful because of your power.”

Clevus stared at him.

Noctis spoke without anger. And that made it worse. ”You no longer have it.”

Clevus pushed himself upright. ”You can’t throw me away because of one mistake.”

”That mistake destroyed the only reason you were here, Clevus.”

Clevus looked desperate now, searching for anything to justify his position in the Society. ”I’m loyal.”

Noctis glared down at him, indifferent to his pleas. ”Loyalty without value is dependence.”

Clevus shook his head. ”Lord... Cobra.”

”Greensnake. You are no longer a member of the Serpent Society.”

The room held still.

Clevus looked toward Oden.

Oden didn’t even care about what was happening.

He turned to Reon.

Reon had already returned to the table and was adjusting his glasses.

Clevus looked at the others in the room, but no one moved. ”Please.”

Noctis stepped aside and pointed toward the door.

”Get... out.”

Clevus stood there for several seconds, his ruined hand pressed against his chest. Then his face changed.

The fear remained, but anger broke through it.”I did everything for you.”

Noctis did not answer.

”I stole for you. I followed people. I risked getting caught. I kept secrets.”

”You were compensated.”

”I was one of you.”

”You were useful,” Noctis snapped, creeping close to anger. ”Now you aren’t.”

Clevus’s lips parted.

Noctis looked at him as though the difference should have been obvious from the beginning.

Clevus backed away.

His heel struck the leg of a chair, and he stumbled into it before catching himself. No one reached for him.

He turned and walked to the door.

The first attempt to open it failed because his dead hand could not grip the handle. He made a broken sound, switched hands and pulled it open.

Clevus looked back once.

Noctis had already turned away.

The door shut behind him.

Espel watched it for a moment.

Then she looked around the lounge.

Oden sat beside her, still hurt and angry, but no one had asked whether he needed anything beyond the medicine already on the table. Reon had dismissed Clevus’s ruined channels as soon as he confirmed they could not be used. Noctis had removed him from the Society with the same calm he used to end a conversation with Dr. Mundy.

A teammate had lost the power that made him valuable.

So they had stopped calling him a teammate.

Espel thought of Lancet.

Something was starting to make sense. Was this an emotion she was forming... or was it understanding?

Whatever it was, the difference between Lancet’s team and the Serpent Society was becoming difficult not to notice.