“Still,” Amber continued. “If one of these baubles helps save Oxivius, that’s the goal, isn’t it?”
She tossed a silver ring to Xlina, which she caught with ease, rolling it in her hand and feeling the smoothness of the black onyx gemstone on the face. It would be considered a plain ring in any jewelers shop in Portland, but Xlina could feel the magic resonating within it. She slipped the ring on her middle finger and admired it.
“What’s it do?” Xlina asked, turning back to Penny.
“It was on the damned warlock,” Penny answered.
“At least his arm,” Burglecut chuckled, entering from the kitchen and clapping his hands to signal a job well done. “Oxivius will have a warm meal waiting for him.”
“That’s disgusting,” Xlina replied. Accepting Oxivius’ death eater heritage was much different than embracing it; her stomach still churned at the thought.
“Look at Burgle and hold your breath,” Penny smiled. Xlina shrugged and did as she was told, taking a deep breath while staring at Burglecut. She felt a sinking in her stomach, and her vision blurred until she was on the floor, looking up at Burglecut from behind.
“The shadow step,” Burglecut laughed. “No wonder that sneaky bastard snuck up on me. He was riding me shadow.”
Xlina exhaled, anxious for fresh air, and found herself standing in the burly chef’s shadow, looking at his back. She grinned as she considered the possibilities and looked up to her pair of hosts. She had found true and loyal friends. Amber had been right last night. She was not alone, and for the first time in her life, she doubted she ever would be again.
“Come on; stop your preening and let’s go kick some ass,” Amber interjected impatiently. “I have a cab waiting, and we are paying by the minute, Xlina.”
Xlina gave a quick hug to Penny and popped up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on Burglecut’s cheek before spinning to the door to the Heart’s Hearth and heading on her way. Burgle and Penny wished them luck before returning to paw at the pile of trinkets.
Amber’s hand slipped into Xlina’s. Once again, the Amber hybrid had crossed the room and moved beside her with scarcely a sound. She looked over, locking her eyes with Amber’s piercing green ones; the red stripe of hair blocked her left eye. Xlina could see Amber had something to say, but now wasn’t the time, so she turned forward and picked up her pace, leading Xlina from the Heart’s Hearth and into a yellow and green cab idling on the corner.
The driver was foreign, perhaps from somewhere in the Middle East. He looked up from a Red Sox ball cap, sporting a toothy grin and a thin black mustache. He nodded as they entered the cab with an excited and welcoming smile and asked for the destination with a heavy accent. Xlina took a deep breath and touched her choker, focusing on Valeria’s calls. With her other hand, she pointed, and Amber commanded the driver. It went on for nearly an hour as the cab crisscrossed the city, leaving the Old Port behind as the sun climbed the sky. It was nearly noon when Xlina beckoned for the cab to stop. With a quick and forceful lurch, the cab came to a stop.
“You are shitting me,” Amber hissed, and Xlina opened her eyes to see the familiar Pandora’s club before them.
“This can’t be right,” Xlina stammered. “What are the odds?”
The cab driver tapped on the glass separating them from the front and pointed to the meter. Amber produced a credit card, and the cabbie happily swiped his mobile phone and received payment. Magic may have been the science behind the world, but money still made the world turn. Xlina opened the door to the cab and emerged on the sidewalk, feeling guilty at her lack of ability to contribute anything meaningful financially. Amber slid out the other side, flashing a smile at the cabbie as he pulled away.
“What?” Amber said with a shrug, meeting Xlina’s gaze. “We haven’t been out in a century.”
“I think the stretch with your head out the window was a bit much,” Xlina said flatly.
“Oh, relax,” Amber replied, crossing the sidewalk and pulling on Pandora’s front door, finding it locked. “The cabbie probably thought we were just recovering from a wild night, especially now, dropping us off here at noon time.”
“The party never stops,” Xlina relented, looking at Pandora’s. “After all that, they were right here under our noses.”
“It’s all linked,” Amber affirmed with a nod. “The demon, the creature you killed that night in the alley, the pukwudgie... All of it has been linked this whole damn time.”
“It’s just a game to them, Amber,” Xlina warned. “You heard that warlock; this is just living chess pieces moving on a table, just a game being played between demons.”
“I played chess a few times,” Amber admitted, and Xlina eyed her suspiciously. “I developed an excellent strategy for winning.”
“What’s that,” Xlina asked curiously.
“When you lack the strategy to win,” Amber started, pulling on the door once more before placing her hand over the keyhole. “And your opponent has more pieces and stronger men, then there is only one option.”
Her hand glowed red, the inner fire spirit unleashing its magical flame on the deadbolt lock beyond anything Xlina though possible until the frame of the door itself folded in around the lock and it fell from the door with a clang. Amber pulled on the handle with her other hand and held the door open for Xlina with a wide, sweeping gesture.
“You flip the fucking table over,” she finished, pointing to the interior. Xlina marveled at just how much Brick had amplified Amber. Prim and proper Barbie had been replaced with she-Rambo thanks to the fire spirit inhabiting her. Xlina just hoped it was enough as the pair entered the night club, ready to do mystical battle with the coven.
They were greeted immediately by a dozen men in black suits forming a semi-circle on the dance floor. They seemed mundane, just normal humans, likely bouncers for the club. Xlina wondered if the death squad had been the last of the coven’s offensive might, until they drew pistols from inside their jackets.
“Humans with guns,” Amber huffed, raising her hands in the air. “I did not see that coming.”
“Right?” Xlina replied, raising her hands as well. She could punch her way through magical monsters, but a nine-millimeter bullet was something else. Maybe in her full Baku form she could catch a single bullet with her nightmare energy, but that would be a feat in itself. Stopping a half dozen bullets—that would be a miracle.
“They are here,” one of the goons spoke into a radio.
“Bring them down,” a creepy voice hissed back over the radio.
“This way.” The goon motioned with his gun toward the back of the club. “Don’t try anything funny.”
“Great,” Amber sighed. “And I spent all that time thinking up witty comebacks.”
“Shut it,” the man in black barked, motioning again to the back of the club.
They walked to the back of the club in relative silence, with the lead goon at their side and the remaining five or six fanned out around them. Xlina’s mind raced with possible escape plans, but she saw no way of taking down enough of the goons without eating a bullet, and so she followed the goon’s commands all the way to the back of the club, through a black door, and down a double flight of creepy stairs until they emerged in a basement. They were deep below ground. The ceiling was twenty feet or more above their heads as they entered what could only be described as an occult throne room.
Xlina gasped as she saw Valeria, shackled in the corner. She had been stripped down to just her lingerie and hung limply from a set of manacles. An iron rod impaled her through the torso, piercing her stomach next to her bellybutton and slipping out her back just below her kidney. Black, sticky ichor seeped from the wound to fall into a brass bowl just below her dangling feet, intentionally placed to collect the demon’s blood. She looked sedated, and Xlina recognized the trance-like state that had made it possible for her to enter the Dream Realm.
At her side, a mere three or four yards away, Oxivius hung from a pair of manacles
of his own. His shirt and jacket had been torn away, leaving his skin exposed. A bright blue circle of gylphs and wards etched into the floor around him basked him in an eerie light. Amber let loose a whistle of awe as she joined Xlina in staring at Oxivius’ well-muscled torso. His skin was a tapestry of faces, images of his victims perhaps, they toiled and rolled across his skin like a sea of ink. There were hundreds of faces, all locked in continual agony, swirling around like a whirlpool of ink on his flesh. He looked up from his disheveled hair and grinned wickedly.
“At last,” the voice echoed from the ornate chair at the head of the room. Xlina looked up to see a gnarled and twisted humanoid wringing his gnarled hands anxiously.
“Puc,” Xlina stated, lowering her hands and looking at the goblin-like creature’s bulbous head. His nose was freakishly long, his wrinkled skin a dark olive hue, mottled with what looked to be the fae equivalent of liver spots. He smiled through jagged, fanged teeth and looked down from his throne. His arms were spindle like, deformed, and misshapen, and he had a bulbous body which sat nude on his throne. His legs were thin and covered in thick black hair, and they were topped with long scrawny feet. His toes and fingernails were a pale yellow; long and untamed, they grew in a curling manner.
“My reputation precedes me,” the fae cackled, eyeing Amber with a smile. “And you brought me a snack.”
Fae were notorious in myth and legend for consuming humans. From the tooth fairies, to will-o’-the-wisps, to woodland sprites. Mermaids, dryads, even nymphs all had versions of their stories in which they consumed flesh, usually particular organs, depending on the lore. Xlina had never encountered a pukwudgie before, but on seeing the misshapen goblin hybrid, she could understand why they were the laughingstock of the fae. Most fae were graced with uncanny, unnatural beauty to enchant their prey, but the goblinoid being in front of her had to rely on deception and trickery to survive.
“We’re here to pick up our demon and necromancer.” Xlina nodded to the pair of prisoners. “This doesn’t need to get ugly.”
“Too late,” Amber mumbled, and Xlina shot her a stern look.
“I’ve had a good thing going here,” Puc shot back. “Until you showed up and started killing my customers.”
“The cephalopod?” Xlina replied in confusion.
“Charlie,” Puc corrected. “He had a name.”
“He was hunting humans,” Xlina countered angrily. How was she the bad guy here?
“He had paid to do so,” Puc answered, slamming his fist down with authority. “Everyone was paid—the cops, the lawyers, even the morticians.”
“That’s sick,” Xlina shot back defiantly.
“You cut out his heart,” Puc spat back. “The Brothers Three brought it back to me on a platter.”
“Well there is that,” Amber interrupted again, rolling her eyes.
“I have a status to maintain here, Baku dog,” Puc growled in contempt. “Your master brought you here and set you free from your leash just to meddle in my affairs. You have been used. Can’t you see that?”
“Don’t listen to him, Xlina,” Amber barked reassuringly. “This ugly bastard was going to serve me to that thing. I’d be dead if not for you.”
“Strike her down,” Puc bellowed, pointing at Valeria. “End your pact and bring that bitch’s patron here so I can kill him myself.”
“That’s not how it works,” Xlina replied, looking at the emaciated form of Valeria and remembering the warning from her dream. She scanned the room, and sure enough, lurking in the corner was the warlock, steeped in shadow and still missing an arm. Xlina pointed at the warlock and scoffed. “It seems I’m not the only one being played, Puc.”
“We have an accord,” Puc answered. Xlina could feel the anticipation of the goons at her back. They were itching to gun her down, waiting patiently for the right moment; she had to think fast.
“So what?” Amber asked defiantly. “You kill us all here and then throw down with that hell-bitch’s boss. Not a great plan.”
“You understand nothing,” Puc barked back. “You’re a meal—nothing more. You’re cattle, being fed and grazed until it’s time for reap. You know nothing of the fae.”
“You will die,” Morticae gloated, stepping forward. “It was going to be quick, but you have been such a pain in the ass, I’m going to bleed you slow.”
“Morticae the Damned,” Oxivius called from his manacles, looking up with utter disgust. “I’ll eat your filthy heart before the darkest hour this night if you but touch a single hair on her head, I promise you that.”
“Oxivius Soulstealer,” Morticae called back tauntingly. “Week of torture and he doesn’t say a peep. Just hangs there grinning like a ghoul. Looks like we found something you do care about. What in god’s name brought you back to Earth Realm after all these years?”
“She did,” Oxivius spat back, looking to Xlina. “Hey, love. Took your bloody time.”
“Nice trick,” Xlina nodded back with a smile. “The dream was your idea.”
“Guilty as charged, love,” Oxivius smiled back.
“He hasn’t slept a wink,” Morticae shot back defiantly, looking at Puc.
“Not me,” Oxivius smiled, looking at Valeria. “Her.”
With a nod of his head at the hanging, impaled Valeria, Oxivius’ smile grew wider. Puc looked back at Morticae, who answered with a shake of his head.
“Impossible,” Puc spat. “Demons don’t dream.”
“Old dog,” Oxivius answered. “New tricks.”
Oxivius blew a short whistle as if calling a dog, drawing Morticae’s wrath as the warlock cast a defensive barrier around Valeria, sealing her behind a wall of infernal magic. He grinned, thinking himself clever.
“He is in league with the succubi,” Morticae exclaimed to Puc when the fae turned an angry glare on the warlock.
The wolf tattoo answered the call, bursting from Amber’s back in a plume of fire that enveloped the goons in the back, scattering them as the flames took shape into the massive flaming wolf that was Brick. Xlina inhaled a deep breath as Morticae flung a searing wave of energy where she had been standing. A heartbeat was all she needed for the shadow step. Unlike the warlock, she was no coward hiding in the shadows; she emerged immediately behind the warlock. She connected with a solid cross to the temple, sending the man spinning on his heels. A goon in the corner pointed her gun in her direction, but she had noticed the movement and held her breath again as he unloaded his clip into the wall where she had once stood.
Popping from the man’s shadow, she struck home with a vicious clap of her forearms, the force of her attack buffeting his ear drums. He turned just in time for her knee to land in his ribs with a sickening crack. In a fluid motion, her hand came down in a hammer fist strike, landing just above the wrist with a burst of nightmare energy, crushing bones and sending the gun to the floor.
“No!” Puc wailed in dismay as Brick collided into the remaining goons, all teeth and claws. Driving them back to the stairs, the wolf picked them off on by one, immune to the crude weapons, which fell like wheat before a scythe as Brick howled in glee. Amber was crouching. Her newfound strength and confidence diminished now that she was entirely herself again, she scrambled to Oxivius.
“Oxivius Soulstealer,” Morticae called once more, turning his eye back to the necromancer, but if Oxivius was concerned, he didn’t show it.
“For two hundred years, I walked the Earth Realm under that name,” Oxivius spat back, his voice filled with anger. “For twice that time, I walked the Otherworld, learning the dark arts. I emerged because my transformation was complete.”
“You emerged to die,” Morticae exclaimed, cutting him off and unleashing a bolt of violet energy at Oxivius. But it flickered into fumes as it approached Amber, being absorbed into the silver bracelet.
“Thanks, love,” Oxivius smiled devilishly, “Now how about you stamp out that warding circle stretched about my feet and I’ll see to getting us out of here in one piece.”
Amber looked down at the glowing blue glyphs and began scuffing at them kicking and stamping to deface the carvings in the dirt floor. As the glyphs were compromised the light of the circle faded and Oxivius seemed to perk up with renewed vigor.
“Impossible,” Morticae exclaimed again, his eyes wide with rage. In but another breath, Xlina appeared in his shadow once more, lashing out with combination strikes, landing lefts and rights in rapid succession as the one-armed warlock struggled to defend. Two lefts landed hard in his exposed ribs before he could position his remaining arm defensively to parry the strikes, but he was too slow as her right came in with a heavy cross, once again catching him in the temple. His legs buckled as Xlina continued her assault. Lacking the nightmare energy to finish the job quickly, she relied on her skill alone, lashing out in combination strikes as if the warlock were her own personal heavy bag. Her left came from below in a fierce driving uppercut that caught Morticae in the solar plexus, lifting his body under the weight of the blow. His arm tried to catch up, but he was always just a moment behind as Xlina unloaded with a straight right punch, splattering the warlock’s nose with a satisfying crunch. She followed with a second, then a third, grabbing his collar roughly with her left as she drove her hand home into the splattered nose again and again, into the bloody mask that was his face.
“Who do you think you are?” Puc exclaimed as a wave of magical energy shot forth, knocking both Xlina and the battered warlock to the floor. “Whelps, all of you whelps!”
The enraged goblinoid fae jumped to his feet on the throne and angrily waved his spindle-like arms threateningly. The sight would have been humorous had not the raw magical energy emanating from the fae been so utterly terrifying.
“I am Oxivius,” he barked back over the wave of energy. “I am steeped in the dark arts, and I have mastered myself, fae.”
With Oxivius’ mouth open, a dark black cloud spewed forth, wrapping around the manacles and aging them until they withered into a crumpled mess of rusted iron. With a flick of his wrists, he was free. Standing defiantly, he strode forward, the faces on his skin swirling violently.
The Infernal Games Page 25
