Prince of Air and Darkness

by M. A. Grant

  “Thank God.” I glance over my shoulder, checking for the bridge troll in the crowd. Like most bridge trolls, he towers over everyone, except for some of the giants and minotaurs, so it doesn’t take long to spot him. “If someone else gets it, I’ll cover the next pitcher.”

  “Bad day?” Sue asks without looking up from her page.

  “Not one of my best. Not one of my worst, though.”

  Herman and I watch the roving tentacles and hands of the nearest dancers in comfortable silence while we wait for Gumba to return. It doesn’t take long. He uses his stony elbow to bump my shoulder as he rejoins us, rumbling a greeting as he sets down the tray filled with glasses and two pitchers of cheap pale beer.

  I pour myself a glass and take a long swig before leaning back in my chair and grinning up at him. “You look good tonight. Any special reason?”

  Gumba lifts a hand self-consciously to the thick layer of rich green moss covering his head, moss that looks carefully sheared. “No,” he says.

  “Liar.” Sebastian, Gumba’s roommate, slides into the chair beside me. “He’s finally going out with Winnifred tonight.”

  Sue, who’s already marked her page and set aside the book, smiles at Gumba. “That’s great!”

  “Took you long enough to make a move,” Seb teases.

  “Not all of us can charm our way through both sídhes.”

  I shake my head and focus on my beer, amused by the familiar argument. Gumba and Sebastian are both Unseelie, part of Queen Mab’s Winter Court, but that’s the only similarity between them, in looks and personality. Gumba’s painfully shy and hyper-aware that his rocklike appearance can scare off others, despite it being proof of his specialized magickal talents. It’s taken him two years to work up enough courage to ask Winnifred, a Seelie dew sprite, out. Sebastian, on the other hand, is openly friendly to almost everyone and doesn’t take on the physical characteristics of his magick. Instead, he takes after the painfully attractive human appearance of other powerful faeries. Faeries like Roark.

  Sebastian nudges me, derailing that train of thought. “You, on the other hand, look terrible. And it’s not from your disgusting workout clothes. Did you cut the sleeves off that shirt yourself?”

  “Someone woke up early again,” Herman informs the table over Sebastian’s fashion commentary.

  Sue sets down her beer and shoots me a worried glance. “Is everything okay? Hasn’t that been happening a lot?”

  I shrug and rub at the back of my neck. “It’s fine. Had to get in some practice for class anyway.” Always look on the bright side, that’s what my mom says.

  Conversation meanders around various topics as we settle in and get comfortable. At some point, Sebastian goes off to dance with William, a rot faerie from one of our agriculture classes, leaving the rest of us to continue jawing. Moments like this have a funny habit of catching me off guard. I never once thought I’d be sitting in a dimly lit bar, surrounded by beings I’d read about in fairy tales, talking about how much my Advanced Potions and Antidotes test sucked weasel balls, or how Herman’s Fundamental Circuitry with Cosmic Couplers is the most fascinating thing since he discovered tits, or how Gumba’s working on getting legislation passed to secure water rights for his clan’s watershed.

  Before being invited to attend Mathers all those years ago, my life’s course seemed etched in stone. I’d have graduated from a local college I attended thanks to a football scholarship. I’d be back on the farm in Iowa, helping my dad. There wouldn’t be other options. There wouldn’t be much except a lifetime of hard work spreading out ahead of me.

  The ley line awakening in me gave me freedom. It opened up doors to opportunities—to fucking worlds—I never imagined could be real. It made me unique, one of the few human hosts in history to have access to this kind of power, and my need to learn control over it is what pushed the world’s magickal governments, the Pantheons, to give me a full-ride scholarship until I finish my master’s.

  No matter what happens in the future, no matter the irrevocable physical cost of channeling this kind of power, it will have been worth it if I can use the ley line to help my family before...well, before I can’t help anyone.

  “Finny, seriously, what the fuck’s wrong with you?” Herman asks, forehead wrinkling in concern. “Did something bite the back of your neck?”

  I drop my hand, surprised to be caught in the motion again. “No, I just... Something feels off,” I explain lamely. “Prickles and shit. It’s fine.”

  And, upon uttering those fateful words, the door of Domovoi’s slams open. A dark, floating figure hovers in the doorway. Green flames blaze where its eyes should be and shredded cloth hangs from its lanky, decomposing form. Under the partially exposed ribs, a grey, shriveled pair of hearts beat arrhythmically.

  A low whisper of adrenaline mixes with the flip of nausea in my stomach. This thing doesn’t look interested in doing body shots, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s also having a shitty night and is here to relax.

  Domovoi’s goes silent, even Robin Goodfellow, who never stops bragging about his sucky middle-management gofer job.

  “The fuck is that?” Herman whispers.

  Gumba tilts his head and inspects the interloper. “Wraith, I think.”

  The wraith—or whatever the hell it is—takes in a deep, wheezing breath. “I smell,” it says with a slow, hissing exhalation, “power.”

  The entire freaking bar turns and looks at me. Makes sense I can’t catch a break.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, giving a sheepish wave and standing. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I look up toward the wraith. “Hey, man, mind if we take this outside?”

  It makes a noise, some high, keening wail, one that sets my teeth on edge and causes the people nearest it to cry out in pain.

  “Later,” I tell my friends, and hop the railing separating our table’s platform from the dance floor proper. I mutter apologies as I bump my way past a few people, until the rest simply move out of my way.

  My friends are up and following after me, but I don’t have time to wait for them. Removing the undead thing screaming behind me is my top priority.

  I know where the emergency exit is. Just like I know that if I take six running steps up the stairwell immediately outside the door, I can skip the last stair and be in the alley before the wraith can find its way around the side of the building. Another twenty-one steps to hit the half fence in the alley. Thirteen steps and a hard right and I’ll be on the street across from the city park that meanders its way into Mathers.

  Not that I’ve had to do this a few times or anything.

  It all goes according to plan until I jump the fence. Some idiot fuckstain put a pile of trash on the other side. It’d be fine, except the trash isn’t wrapped up in neat little bags. Nope, nothing but flimsy cardboard boxes.

  I stagger out of the alley with a foul, rotten milk slush clinging to my jeans. A patch of coffee grounds and partially dried spaghetti sticks to my shin. But it’s the used condom stuck to the bottom of my shoe that really adds class to the whole thing.

  Another wail from behind me. Damn. The wraith isn’t as dumb as I’d expected. It didn’t bother to chase me down the alley, like the harpies or yeti or river dragon did. Nope, it went around the block.

  My feet pound against the pavement as I book it toward the park. I really don’t want the fight to break out there; Mathers has charms in place to prevent normal people from seeing the weirdness that is our campus. Anyone who drives through thinks they’re viewing a ritzy private college. The park’s outside the university’s jurisdiction.

  There are only two options. I can stick to the paths that lead onto the campus, which are partially hidden by the large trees overhead, or cut across the lawn and take the shorter, but more exposed, route.

  Before I can decide, there’s the warning sensation of magickal power in front of me. Robin Goodfellow appears out of nowhere, drunken smile in place and glass of beer in hand. I let out a squawk of surpr
ise when I run into him, which he finds amusing. He lifts his glass and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Phineas Smith... That’s your name, isn’t it? Your friends were pretty worried about you.”

  No shit, Sherlock.

  I shrug out from under his arm and keep running. Well, trying to run. Goodfellow has a hand gripping the back of my shirt, slowing me down as he stumbles to keep up. He jabbers away, asking how I intend to defend myself, if I think anyone’s coming to help me, if I’m scared to die. I don’t waste my air to answer, even as I respond in my head.

  Can’t defend myself consistently. The only person who ever shows up in the middle of my shitshows is Roark, and he’s not even on campus. As for the third question... Can’t be scared of the inevitable.

  Every moment I’m delayed, the inevitable threat of my death comes closer and closer to reaching me. There’s no way I’ll get to the side paths in time to beat this wraith to campus. I need to cross the lawn instead, exposed to the wraith’s attention and with Goodfellow hanging on me.

  I’m halfway over the expanse of damp grass when Goodfellow stumbles hard and loses his grip on me. A moment later, he yelps a curse and then he’s gone, leaving nothing more than his glass of beer tumbling to the ground.

  “Stop!”

  The force of the wraith’s scream is like taking a socket wrench to the balls. I stumble, wincing as I fight my body’s urge to obey the command.

  We learn spellcasting at Mathers, but most magickal beings these days can’t infuse their words with power. Only the older beings can, the ones that crawl out of the shadows of the outer darkness in search of a fix. They’re bloodhounds drawn to raw power and they never give up the hunt easily, which is why I have more run-ins with them than other magick users do over the course of their entire lives.

  “Stop,” the wraith orders again.

  This time, my knees lock up, my legs snap together, and I eat shit in the middle of the lawn. I roll to a stop a few feet away and try to crawl. Too bad my body’s having none of it.

  The wraith hovers twenty feet from me. That greenish flame has extended from its eyes, engulfing its body in hellfire. A pale, fleshless hand reaches out toward me and even across the distance, the invisible pressure of its bony fingers digs into my chest. “Power.”

  I wince as the wraith’s magick tries to claw its way farther into me, searching for the ley line’s source. “Look, if I could give you some, I would. The problem is I don’t really have a lot of control in stressful situations like this.”

  The grass around my body starts to quiver, like it’s caught in a light breeze. Here and there, tufts begin steaming, then smoking. My control wavers in and out, sending flickers of darkness through my vision and worse nausea curling through my guts. Dammit. Thirsty Thursday and ley lines don’t seem to mix.

  The wraith doesn’t seem to care about my warning, judging by the way its jaws clack together.

  I take a breath, close my eyes, and reach deeper for the ley line. It’s the middle of the park, but no one’s around to get hurt. I’ll take out this freak and head back to the apartment, no harm, no foul.

  The power’s waiting just below the surface. I lift a thick tendril from the ley line and struggle to pull it higher, letting its heat spark against my palms and fingers, crawling its way up my arms. My cursed limbs may not actually move, but the ley line’s magick floods through them all the same, waiting for the strike that will allow all the power to rebound out of me. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire—

  The heat prickling my skin abruptly snuffs out with the whipping arrival of an icy wind. Snow blows past me and catches in my eyelashes. The wraith manages to look confused, but merely slows its approach. The snow thickens, grows harder, sharper. Ice flecks swirl around us and cut my cheeks; I wince when the newly drawn blood flash-freezes to my skin. The green flames licking the wraith’s body extinguish and it suddenly ices up above me, drawing up short in midair.

  Grass shatters as a shining pair of Oxfords tromp across the lawn and come to a halt about a foot away from me.

  My gaze travels up from the shoes to the straight, pressed lines of the wool slacks. The thin leather belt I could never afford. The buttons of the dress shirt. And there, like a freaking cherry on an evil sundae, the sharp twist of the lips that’s the closest he ever gets to smiling. Apparently, superpowered magickal villains don’t need to smile.

  “Wool in this weather, Lyne? Isn’t that a bit douchey, even for you?” I snark.

  Chapter Two

  Phineas

  The toe of his Oxford stretches out and presses against the underside of my jaw, tilting my face up just enough for my eyes to meet his.

  Roark’s eyes are the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen. Ice blue, pale as fuck. Thanks to his dark, nearly black hair, they appear even lighter.

  Right now, that glacial gaze skims over me, dissecting me with the brisk efficiency wealthy aristocrats seem born to use against their underlings.

  The ley line shivers. I pretend it has nothing to do with the man before me and everything to do with the potential threat of the thoroughly incapacitated wraith.

  “Farmer’s tan and athletic shorts.” The edges of his mouth tighten. “Some things never change.”

  Like his voice. The vague hint of Irish that’s just a bit older, a bit smoother than anything I’ve heard before. The utter contempt in it squelches any kind of momentary appreciation I had for his interrupting the situation.

  “Lyne,” I reply, with what little dignity I can manage from the ground, “don’t look at me like that. We both know this isn’t the worst situation you’ve seen me in.”

  “True.” God, how can his voice possibly be so dry? “Although teasing revenants without putting them out of their misery seems a bit gauche, even for you.”

  “Hey, I thought it was a normal wraith. There’s no reason for it to terrorize me.”

  A single brow rises and his condemnation grates. “It’s a neamh-mairbh, you idiot. I wish I could be surprised that something this ancient decided to come after you.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” I agree, still stretched on the ground on my stomach, wishing Roark would either free me and send the wraith away, or just unleash it so I can be put out of my misery.

  He makes a noise of discontent and prods me with his shoe, urging me to right myself. The best I can manage is rocking onto my back, forcing him to crouch beside me and sit me up. His fingers hover over my garbage-covered legs, moving carefully, like he’s trying to decide where to touch them.

  “Nasty,” he murmurs. I start to protest his insult at the state of my clothes when he finishes the thought with “Their kind were always good at curses.”

  Oh. He meant the wraith. Not me.

  He makes a decision and places his hands lightly on my shins before closing his eyes and whispering words over and over under his breath. The curse breaking is a slow, painful sensation, like unsticking your naked back from a searing vinyl seat in the heat of summer after you’ve been swimming in the creek. I grimace as the pain intensifies at my knees. Roark’s whispers shift, become coaxing, and the slow, steady pulling sensation at the joint fades some. The last bit of the curse removes itself from my body like a cork from a wine bottle.

  There’s a gentle pop of the magick dissipating and my legs are free. I mumble my thanks and reach down to rub some feeling back into them, but Roark hasn’t removed his hands. He’s looking back at the frozen wraith, expression strangely tight.

  “Lyne?”

  He ignores me and rises. The royal indifference of his dismissal isn’t unusual, but the way he stalks back toward the wraith is.

  “Lyne?” I try again.

  He holds up a hand in irritation, a clear shut up, but it doesn’t matter. One second, the wraith is encased in ice, the next the ice shatters away. Roark protects his face with an arm and I throw myself back down on the grass to avoid the worst of the shards.

  The wraith levitates out of our reach. Its voice
scratches and chips at some ancient incantation. I push myself up off the ground and hurry to join Roark. Technically, I’m a few inches taller than him. The shift in perspective is good. I’m less awkward when he’s forced to look up at me than when I’m face-to-face with his shoe.

  “What did you do?” he demands of me, waving a hand at the hovering spirit with the same casual irritation he directed at the griffin and the lamia and the salamander king.

  The familiarity of the cycle grounds me enough to protest, “Nothing! I swear to God, I didn’t do anything.”

  Above us, the wraith continues its horrific litany. Whatever it’s saying, I doubt we’re about to see a cloudburst of kittens and puppies.

  “Smith, if I’m forced to defend your sorry ass one more time—”

  The partially fleshed paw that sprouts from the earth by my foot, shocking a yelp from me, ruins Roark’s threat. Fluffy the formerly living cat claws her way out of the ground and rolls her rotting head toward me, yowling even though her vocal cords are long rotted out. All around us, the park pulls a night of the living pets. Dogs, cats, squirrels, and even a freaking gerbil work their way out of the dirt like nightmarish daisies.

  Roark grunts and kicks the skull of a particularly energetic hound that’s attempting to bark and bite him, even though only its head and shoulders are free of their burial site.

  “This isn’t good,” I say as we start a hurried retreat.

  Roark doesn’t say anything, just shoots me a death glare as we run. It’s a familiar sight. No matter our personal differences, Roark and I have a bad habit of landing in sticky situations together. It’s happened enough I almost look forward to these brief moments of camaraderie. They’re a refreshing change from his normal die die die attitude toward me.

  A groping cat claw latches onto my shin. I hiss when a series of scratches mark my skin. Definitely going to need to clean that later.

  “Who the fuck buries their pets in a public park?” Roark snarls. He flicks his hand toward the offending zombie creature. Its paw solidifies into a corpsicle. He shatters it with a well-placed kick and we continue our attempted escape. Not much farther to the edge of campus.