Which would be in about 30 seconds.
“Well, Az, it has been a pleasure knowing you,” I said, shifting my stance so that we were back to back. “Shame we couldn’t enjoy a longer association.”
Caw.
I couldn’t be sure, but that had sounded like it held a sincere tone of regret.
The harpies—my years of reading fantasy novels made me want to call them harpies, and eagle-women was getting tiresome, so, accurate or not, I was going to call them harpies—were landing all around us, and though they didn’t seem to be as nimble on the ground as they were in the air (they hopped awkwardly to move themselves forward rather than walking like any biped I was familiar with), they still seemed more than adequately equipped to kill us both and have time for coffee after.
“We’ll take as many as we can with us, though, right?”
Caw.
It was nice not to be alone, in one’s final moments. I took a deep breath and widened my stance. I was going to make these assholes come to me.
One of the harpies shrieked, in what I took to be a battle cry, but then the one immediately in front of me, the one closing in that I had assumed would be my first opponent, turned to look at whoever had cried out.
I didn’t hesitate. I lunged forward with my spear, taking the opening to stab for the harpy’s chest. She turned back just before I connected, and brought her sword up in time to deflect the spear into her shoulder. I was shocked when the spear tip simply bounced off of her bare skin as if it were actually platemail.
My assessment of how screwed we were went up a few notches.
At least, it did until the shrieks that I’d been hearing all around us, shrieks that I’d assumed were harpy battle cries—you know, getting pumped to destroy two unarmed combatants who had no idea why they were even under attack, as you do—abruptly fell silent. I had just enough time to find that totally eerie before the harpy standing in front of me was no longer in front of me, but instead pinned to the nearest tree by what looked like nothing more than a grey haze.
“Did you want this one?” asked a raspy voice I didn’t recognize.
I blinked, and the outline of a small figure came into focus in the midst of the haze. I said nothing, and the voice must have taken that as a “no,” because the next thing I knew there was a sickening crack and the harpy collapsed to the ground.
In the sudden silence of the forest, I blinked and looked around. Harpy bodies lay everywhere, and not one of them was moving. Whatever the grey haze was, it had taken out every single one of our opponents singlehandedly.
UNSURE OF WHETHER or not we were actually safe now, I turned to look at Azrael. They stood abnormally still beneath the hulking pine trees, which cast us in enough shadow that it was difficult to be certain it was still daylight, even though it had clearly been close to midday when we had been up above the trees less than three minutes ago. Amid the smell of pine needles and some sweet-smelling sap, Az stood blinking their large raven eyes, as if they were still trying to adjust to a change in light.
I was about to laugh with relief when Azrael’s legs seemed to give out from under them. I ran to their side.
“Az, are you alright?” I asked, kneeling beside the enormous raven.
Caw.
I was not reassured by the weakness of Az’s voice.
“Its wing is hurt,” said the same raspy voice that had asked me if I wanted the final harpy.
I turned and found what looked like a twelve-year-old girl staring at me from a meter away. She was lithe, and had long flowing hair, but that was all I could really see about her. She was enveloped in a continuously shifting haze, or maybe she was just standing in her own personal sandstorm. I couldn’t see all of her at once, and everything about her was an uncertain shade of grey. Despite that, some part of her seemed eerily familiar.
“I wasn’t quite fast enough,” the girl said. “One of the harpies got to the raven before I could stop her.”
Caw.
Azrael seemed to be agreeing with the girl.
Could this petite creature actually have killed over a dozen harpies in a minute? I wondered. I shook my head at that line of thought. Whatever she looked like, she was dangerous. Looks were deceiving enough, even back on Earth, and here? Well, Az was a giant raven instead of a squirrel or an angel, so… I had no clue what the rules were like here.
“Thank you for your help,” I said. Then, turning to Az, “Can you show me where it hurts?”
Az turned a bit towards me and I realized that the wing they had been facing away from me was all but snapped.
“Shit,” I said, sucking in a breath. I immediately began to search for splinting materials on the forest floor, and was exceedingly grateful, not for the first time, that I had taken more than one wilderness first aid course since I’d started high school.
Luckily, the forest floor was littered with long, straight branches from the tall pines that surrounded us, and it was warm enough here that I felt comfortable shedding the black leather jacket that had materialized with me the last time that I’d shifted. It was just barely large enough—when tied to one of the leather belts I’d taken off of a fallen harpy—to make a supportive sling and splint combo for Az’s wing. I’d had to use my T-shirt as a bandage for my own arms, both of which were bleeding quite a bit more than I would have liked.
“Well,” I said, looking between Az’s ramshackle sling and my recently reduced ensemble. “Neither of us is going to be winning any fashion contests today, but at least you won’t be in quite as much pain, and I still have a sports bra on.”
Caw.
“You’re right. I could do a decent Lara Croft cosplay right now.”
The raspy voice chuckled, and I looked at the warrior girl who’d just saved our lives. As the hazy grey that shrouded her swirled around, I briefly caught a good look at her eyes. Then I felt a gasp escape me, when I realized what looked familiar about her. I’d seen those startling blue eyes before, more times than I cared to remember, most recently just before they’d been engulfed in flames.
“Renata?” I asked, amazed that my mind could conjure up a name I’d only heard mentioned once, in a conversation that felt like it had happened a year ago, though it had only been a matter of weeks.
Before I could take the breath to form a follow-up question, I found myself pinned to a nearby pine tree, with no idea how I’d gotten there except that there was now a small hand holding me by the throat and a swirl of grey mist in front of me.
“Did he send you?” the raspy voice asked from within the mist.
I wouldn’t have known who the hell she was talking about except that the entire reason I’d recognized her was because she had her father’s eyes.
“No, he didn’t send me,” I replied, as calmly as I could given my position. I was impressed that I was still able to speak over her grip around my throat, especially since I was also pinned to the tree. How strong was this creature, that she could hold me up by my throat without crushing it?
She eyed me for a full minute, while Azrael let out a series of startled and pleading caws, and I felt fairly certain that if this tiny person decided she didn’t trust me, I would be dead and there would be nothing anyone could do to stop it.
“Why are you here, then?” she asked, eventually.
“Look, Renata, I’m not even entirely sure where here is, but Azrael and I were just trying not to get killed by a demon stampede when we landed in a field of wheat not far from here. As to your dad… when was the last time you had any news about him?”
I would have swallowed after asking, but Renata’s grip tightened on my throat after I mentioned her father.
“Weeks ago, right after your friends deposited all of us in Unterberg.”
So, she had recognized me from our rescue at Bolivia’s MOME headquarters. I tried to take a deep breath, but mostly choked on my own spit. Renata loosened her grip marginally.
“If you know who I am,” I began, once I’d stopped coughin
g, “then why would you think I was here at your dad’s behest?”
Renata snorted and then spat on the ground.
“You wouldn’t be the first beautiful woman whose head was turned by a vampire.”
I laughed, and then choked a bit more, because it’s hard to laugh when someone is holding you by the throat.
“You really don’t know who I am, then,” I said, still coughing. Renata dropped me and stepped back from both me and the tree.
“Explain yourself,” was all that she said.
“First of all, before you worry about me being here on Edik’s behalf, let me be the first to inform you that he is dead.”
I wasn’t one hundred percent certain that sharing that news with Renata would help things. It could turn out her love-hate relationship with her father was complicated enough that she would be quite upset to find out he was no longer among the living, but I got the distinct impression she wasn’t going to be too cut up about it.
“Are you certain? Vampires are very difficult to kill,” she said, and I could have been imagining it, but I thought her voice sounded… hopeful.
“Yeah, I learned that the hard way, but I am quite certain. He’s dead.”
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“Well, first a succubus ripped his head off,” I explained. “But he was close to the Tree of Life when it happened, so it didn’t stick, as it were. The next time I saw him, he attacked my brother, so I ripped his head off again and then had a dragon hit it with fire.”
It was basically the truth. I was the dragon that had hit it with fire, so it was slightly misleading, but… well, I wasn’t sure I wanted Renata to know all of my tricks. After all, I had no idea who, if anyone, she reported to.
I was bracing myself for some rage, or at least some verbal abuse for killing her dad. It even occurred to me that she might just straight up kill me, as she’d done with all the harpies who still littered the forest floor.
Without warning, I felt myself pushed against the base of the tree again, heard Azrael’s startled caw as I felt the bark carve into my back, and expected that to be my final moment of existence.
Instead, I found a pair of lips pressed enthusiastically up against my own.
WHEN THE LIPS finally pulled away from mine, I dropped back to the forest floor and coughed again, mainly to cover the flush that had gone to my cheeks. I was not at all sure how I felt about being kissed by a woman who looked like a twelve year old, even if the chances were good she wasn’t what she seemed. Icky probably summed it up, but damned if I was about to say that to Renata. So, I inspected the pine needles at my feet and coughed some more, while she gave me some space.
“I am free,” she said, her voice full of wonder. “I am finally, truly, free of him. Thank you. I am in your debt.”
I brought my eyes up and waved my hands in the kind of gesture one might make to calm a rearing horse.
“I don’t think you owe me anything for killing your dad,” I said.
“I humbly disagree. You have no idea what a nightmare he has made my life for the past few decades. Please, allow me to accompany you to the citadel. That’s where you’re headed, isn’t it?”
I looked between Renata and Azrael. Azrael gave a slight nod, which I took to mean they thought we should accept the offer, but truth be told, I didn’t particularly want to travel with Renata. She was… disconcerting at best, and… well, I didn’t think there was anything I could do to stop her from kissing me again, or killing me, if she wanted to, and I didn’t like feeling defenseless. So, I shrugged.
“I mean, we had planned to just take the same seam that brought us here and go back to the realm we came from, so—”
“Ah, no wonder the harpies set upon you! You cannot use any of your magic here without express permission from Hel.”
“Hel?”
Renata quirked a smoky eyebrow at me and for the first time I wondered why she constantly looked like she was walking through a grey and swirling mist.
“Are we in another hell dimension?” I asked.
Renata shrugged.
“All the realms seem like hell realms if you ask me, but this one is ruled by a being named Hel.”
“Like the Norse goddess?” I asked.
Renata shrugged.
“Perhaps? My Earth folklore is not what it could be.”
I sighed.
“So... are you saying we wouldn’t be able to use the seam, even if we managed to get back to it without being skewered by a bunch of harpies?”
Renata nodded.
“It is not that you cannot use it without your powers, since one does not need powers to access a seam, it is that Hel will not allow anyone to access the seam without her express permission. The same is true of using your own power. If you wish to return to where you came from by seam or by magic, then you have to go to the citadel. Hel awaits everyone who comes to her realm there.”
Renata seemed to sense my hesitation and she rushed to reassure me.
“I was headed there anyway, it is hardly any trouble. I would be more than happy to ensure that you arrive there safely.”
I sighed. I felt terrible enough for Azrael having a broken wing, just because it must’ve hurt like a bitch, but now I was doubly upset that the giant raven couldn’t simply fly us to this citadel.
“How long will it take?” I asked, thinking of Siara sitting alone on that cliff, waiting for us. Thinking of Sol, Seamus, Rhelia, and Trev, all of whom probably thought I was dead, and knowing that every minute I was gone and they hadn’t heard from me probably only confirmed their worst fears.
“Only a handful of days!” Renata said brightly, before flickering out of sight just as an arrow hit the ground where she’d been standing.
“Run, Victoria!” called the raspy voice in the mist, as more arrows thudded into the trees around us. I knew there was little I could do to help, and that Renata was clearly more than capable of taking care of herself. I would probably just get in her way. So I did the only thing that made sense. I ran.
OF COURSE, I didn’t get far before realizing that Azrael was going to need my help to get anywhere without taking more than a healthy dose of arrows, so I slowed my own escape and focused on supporting the giant, hopping raven as they bounced between trees and over rocks, and generally tried to avoid tumbling ass over teakettle down the steep slope we suddenly found ourselves descending.
The terrain in this realm changed so abruptly that if I didn’t know better I would have thought it was altering just to spite us. I didn’t have long to contemplate it, though, because even though we weren’t running amid a hail of arrows anymore, the footing on this hillside was the exact combination of steep, rocky, and muddy that meant watching my footing was going to be key.
I’m not entirely sure what we would have done if Renata hadn’t been there, but I’m pretty sure that the short answer is “died.”
As it was, I kept an arm around Az to help them keep their balance on the side where their wing was tied up, and we ran/hopped as fast as we could down the slope while Renata killed all the things that were trying to attack us from behind.
I was becoming more and more curious as to just what a Damphir could do, as the sound of flying arrows faded and we came to a somewhat sudden stop. Unfortunately, I had other questions that I needed to address first.
Such as, “Where the fuck did this canyon come from?”
“My best guess would be erosion,” replied the raspy voice behind me.
I would have laughed, but I was too busy being dumbfounded by how a canyon as large as the one that spread before us could have been impossible to see in the distance when we were in the air fifteen minutes ago and had a literal bird’s eye view of the place. And I must have been dumfounded enough to say part of that out loud, because Renata replied in short order.
“It could be enchanted to be invisible from the air, or possibly even to move at Hel’s discretion. This is a very strange realm.”
; “I thought this place suppressed magic. I can’t access any of my powers,” I said, my brows furrowed as I looked between Renata and the giant gap in the landscape that looked at least a kilometer wide.
“You cannot access your powers, but not because magic is suppressed here—simply because Hel does not permit its use.”
“Well, how in the hells does she regulate that? It’s not like you can take people’s magic from them.”
Renata quirked an eyebrow at me.
“Well, I cannot speak as to what anyone else can do, but in this realm, Hel absolutely takes people’s power from them. She alone has the discretion to use her powers or not, as she sees fit, in the Realm of the Dead.”
She looked out across the canyon and sighed.
“Regardless of how it appeared here, we will need to find our way around it. It may add some days to our journey.”
A million questions swam in my head in that moment. How could anyone take someone else’s power, how could anyone hide a whole fucking canyon, what did it mean that this was called the Realm of the Dead, and did it mean that I had died somehow? Also, how in the name of Gwen was I supposed to convince Hel to let me use my powers to get out of here? I took a deep breath and stilled them all, because in that moment only one thing really mattered. I looked out across the canyon again, and then bent over and crawled to the nearest ledge to check out our options.
“The fastest way past this thing is going to be across it rather than around it,” I said. “It could take weeks to bypass it, but down and through… it should just take a couple of days.”
I looked at the sun.
“We should descend almost to the bottom today, but not quite all the way. If days are the same length here that they are back home, or close to it, then we don’t have enough sunlight to make it all the way across, and we don’t want to risk sleeping on the bottom in case it rains in the night. Could be prone to flash floods. Tomorrow we hopefully cross the whole thing and then make our way up and out on the other side.”
Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series Page 48
