What Man Defies

by Clara Coulson

  “Wait,” I said, “is that what you did? Started a fight club? That’s what Saoirse is lording over you?”

  “Not the club itself.” She glanced away, ashamed. “Some kid got himself killed when I wasn’t paying attention. I should’ve been playing ref, but I was too busy drinking and laying down bets. He took a bad blow and hit his head on the concrete floor. Cracked his skull. Dead before he reached the hospital.” She sighed. “Daly only let me off without jail time because I was a witch, and she had better uses for me.”

  “I’m guessing your fight club is no longer a hot commodity?”

  “Daly said if I ever attempted to start one again, she’d send me to solitary.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” I slipped one of the switchblades from my belt and grabbed the rest of my ornament explosives from my coat pocket. “Tell me, did you learn your lesson?”

  “I’m about to sacrifice myself to save a bunch of people I don’t know. Which is an idea I would’ve laughed at last year, before the incident.” She shrugged. “What do you think, Whelan? Am I a better person now?”

  “Not sure I’m the best judge of character.” I siphoned a large portion of magic from within my soul. It exuded from my skin like mist. “I was acting like a royal asswipe myself, until three weeks ago, when Saoirse talked some sense into me.”

  “I guess she has that schoolteacher effect, huh?”

  “I was going to say ‘stern Catholic nun,’ but I suppose it’s the same general idea.”

  “Here’s to hoping she’s still kicking in the fortress of doom then. Because if she dies here, all the common sense in Kinsale dies with her.”

  With a flourish, Odette stripped off her coat and tossed it aside.

  Oh. I was wrong. I was so wrong.

  Odette Chao wasn’t athletic.

  Odette Chao was fucking ripped.

  She had the biceps of a professional boxer—the lines beneath her shirt suggested she had the abs to match—and between the physique, the hand wraps, and the fight club, I got the sense she might’ve been exactly that in the time before the collapse. She worked out her muscles in that casual practiced way all highly skilled fighters did in the minutes before the first fist went flying. And then, like the twenty dark elves sixty feet away, all of them armed, all of them dangerous, all of them itching for bloodshed, were nothing but a mild inconvenience, Odette strode onto the empty plain, her fists and feet glowing green.

  She called to me without turning her head. “Be ready with your best attack spells. And be fast, Whelan. I don’t have all day to watch your ass. I got to watch mine sometime too.”

  The instant the word too rolled off her tongue, Odette stopped walking. At the exact midpoint of the field. Thirty feet from me. Thirty feet from the dark elves. She slid one foot back, reeled an arm up to the starting point of a brutal punch, and set her sights on the elf at the center of the pack. The amorphous green glow around her right fist tightened into a shape that resembled a boxing glove.

  “Hey, you ugly dickwads!” Odette shouted across the field. “Eat this.”

  She punched the air. The magical boxing glove shot away from her fist at the speed of a missile and collided with the center elf’s head so hard that it disintegrated into a spray of pink mist. The mist washed over the other elves, who shielded themselves too late to avoid being covered in the remains of their friend’s brain matter.

  The center elf’s headless body wavered side to side for a moment before it collapsed onto the ashen earth. The other elves, startled, confused, and disgusted, looked from the headless corpse to the witch standing before them. Odette’s right fist was already glowing green again.

  One of the elves shouted, “Kill her!”

  That’s when the real battle began.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Odette was a beast. She charged the elves with abandon, fists flying. Each punch to the air launched another phantom boxing glove at the elves, and though the rapid-fire attacks were not as strong as the one she’d initially used, the sheer number of them left the first wave of seven elves struggling to stay on their feet. One elf took a blow to the head at the exact wrong angle, and his neck audibly snapped. Another got hit in the gut and was thrown off her feet, face smacking the ground with enough force to shatter her nose. A third was struck by two at once, in the face and in the neck. His left eye was driven back into his skull, where it popped like a water balloon, fluid gushing out, and his trachea crumpled, leaving him gasping for air. The remaining four dark elves took less serious hits, but by the time they reached Odette, they were all injured.

  When a sword came swinging for Odette, I jumped into action.

  Calling up my spinning ice blades, I shot two dozen slim, sharp pieces through the air, the bulk of them aimed at the line of svartálfar still guarding the door to the thorn fortress. Some of these elves were clearly the ones who’d ambushed Saoirse and me last month and forced us to take a detour to the Endless Sea, because they recognized the blades and acted accordingly to counter them. Thing was, they didn’t know about the new shrapnel feature.

  An unlucky elf near the front of the group shot a wave of raw force at the incoming blades—and they exploded into a thousand large splinters. The shrapnel shot into the group, piercing eyes and necks and every other piece of exposed skin they could find. Almost all the elves lost their defensive formation as they clutched their heads, shrieking. The line broken, I took off across the battlefield at full speed.

  Passing Odette and the four elves who were trying their hardest to cut her down, I tossed my switchblade and activated the homing spell. Like I’d done with the tripwires at the entrance to the cavern, I directed the blade toward all four elves in a sharp arc. It cut two legs and two arms, throwing off three different strikes and sending one elf to the ground, tendons severed. Odette, using the opening, brought up her glowing foot and kicked one of the elves in the chest. The man’s ribcage imploded with a loud crack, and he shot back into a second elf, sending them both tumbling across the field. Odette then rounded on the one elf left standing and punched him square in the jaw.

  His jaw almost tore clear off his face.

  Odette fell in behind me as we crossed the remaining half of the battlefield. Most of the elves I’d punctured with the shrapnel were recovering, a combination of the ice melting and their accelerated healing factor. But they were poorly arranged to defend the door now. I called back the switchblade, caught it, and then threw it again as hard as I could. It sang through the air in a wide curve and came around to the defensive line from behind. One of the elves spun around and batted it away with his sword.

  Giving Odette the opening she needed to throw another phantom boxing glove.

  It hit the elf who’d taken the bait square in the back, flinging him into the doorway of the fortress. And leaving an opening in the defensive line big enough for me to slip through. I funneled an extra ounce of magic into my legs and barreled forward, blowing past most of the elves before they could try to strike me. The closest ones made an attempt to skewer me with their swords, but they were rebuffed by my Christmas ornaments. I threw the last three, one to the right, two to the left, and they exploded simultaneously, searing skin, catching clothes alight, and turning one elf into a bonfire.

  I broke through the defensive line, and kept on running. The elf who’d been thrown into the doorway was staggering to his feet, only to be met by my switchblade as I recalled it again and hurled it at his face. It rammed straight into his eye, piercing his brain. He dropped instantly, dead as a doornail. I swung down and ripped the knife free as I cross the threshold of the broken doors and entered the fortress of thorns.

  Behind me, Odette engaged with the remaining dark elves. Too many elves for a lone human witch to handle.

  I didn’t turn back to help her, even though I desperately wanted to. Because up ahead, the scream I’d heard earlier had morphed into a cacophony of panicked voices. Both women and men pleading for mercy, their cries layered overtop th
e earsplitting shriek of a woman I knew would be dead before I reached her. Whatever this last obstacle was, it was as lethal as the other four. And the remaining prisoners were being fed to it like slabs of meat. Abarta’s crew wanted their prize, and they didn’t care how many humans they had to slaughter to obtain it.

  The wall of vines was almost fifty feet thick, the corridor between the door and the interior completely unlit. Black shadows danced around me, many of them armed with sharp points. I put one foot ahead of the other, keeping my strides as straight as possible. For all I knew, the thorns were poisonous, and a single prick would leave me seizing on the ground until my heart and brain gave out. I wouldn’t put such a tactic past the creator of this vault of horrors.

  Finally, I emerged from the pitch-black corridor. Knife up and ready to throw. Spells sitting cold on my tongue.

  Directly ahead of me lay the reason for this entire nightmare. The reason Abarta was so keen to crack this vault wide open. The reason the banshee had plucked thirty-odd innocent people from Kinsale’s streets and thrown them into a torture game they didn’t know how to play. The reason the dark elves had lined up and sacrificed themselves to do their employer’s bidding, as if Abarta was more than a bitter old god who was paying them a fortune for their services. The reason the entire world as I knew it would be upended if Abarta was successful today.

  Whatever I’d imagined the vault might contain, the reality was much, much worse. Because in the center of the enormous room, encased by a ward whose power was too vast to even fathom, whose construction too complex to even contemplate, sat a weapon like no other in this realm:

  The Well of Knowledge.

  It wasn’t impressive, at first glance. A ring of old, mossy stones about ten feet in diameter, containing a pool of tepid water whose surface sat near its lip. But its ordinary appearance disguised a power that had never been replicated by any other relic, spell, or being in Tír na nÓg. When you ingested even the smallest amount of the water in the well, you immediately gained all the written knowledge in this realm at the time of your consumption. Every book. Every scroll. Every stone tablet. Every street sign in the cities of the fae. Every message carved into a tree trunk. Every word drawn into the dirt.

  Abarta had started this scheme to break into the well vault before his attempt to awaken the other Tuatha Dé Danann. Because he needed to give his comrades an edge in their new war with the fae. He needed to acquire an advantage they didn’t have last time, something that would put them on more equal footing with their enemies, whose raw power was greater than their own. And what better advantage to use than a well that would literally spill all the faerie courts’ secrets into your head in a matter of seconds? The tactical applications of those secrets were practically infinite in scope.

  I also understood now why the kidnappings had ramped up after Abarta failed to complete the harp spell: He needed an alternative method of awakening the Tuatha, but he didn’t have an easy one on hand, and the sídhe had been tipped off to his previous attempt. He’d lost the element of surprise. He needed to make up for it and wake his comrades before the sídhe hunted him down and ruined fifteen hundred years of hard work and planning. I had dealt him a serious blow when I burned the harp, but Abarta was far from giving up.

  And if he was successful today, he would have no reason to even consider surrender.

  I can’t let them deactivate that ward. If they get any of that water, it’ll be the beginning of the end.

  The ward was a field of humming blue energy shaped into a nine-sided prism. At each point along its base, there was a circle of glowing light large enough for a human to stand within. Six of the nine circles were currently occupied, each by one of the prisoners, and those circles were glowing more dimly than the others. The three remaining circles were empty, though one contained a large puddle of blood, with a smeared trail extending from it. I followed this trail to one of the walls, where the banshee with the metal arm was busy tossing a woman’s body onto a stack of similarly broken corpses.

  My gaze snapped back to the ward, and I found that most of the occupied circles also sported traces of blood. It’s a combination lock, I realized. If a person enters a circle in the wrong order, the ward will lash out and kill them. The banshee doesn’t know what the combination is, so she’s just been forcing people into the circles in a random order until she picks the right one.

  That absolute bitch.

  “Next,” the banshee called out as she turned away from the pile of bodies.

  On the opposite side of the well from the body dump sat seven of the remaining prisoners—god, there were only thirteen left alive, out of more than thirty—plus Saoirse and Kennedy, who’d been restrained and lined up with them. Two dark elves were guarding the prisoners. At the banshee’s order, one of them perked up and moved from his station, combing the line for his next victim. The prisoners, who’d been put through hell, all of them bloody and bruised and covered in dirt, clothing torn, were trembling in terror. All but one.

  Christie, who now had a matching set of black eyes, was glaring at the banshee with all the hatred she could muster. She was still scared—I could see the subtle quakes in her body—but her rage was overpowering it. I didn’t know exactly why she was so angry, but I could guess: Someone she knew, possibly several people, had been murdered by the banshee. Christie’s little teashop was a fairly popular store, and she treated every customer like a longtime friend. For all I knew, she was acquainted with half the people she’d been forced to watch die in this cavern of nightmares.

  And she wasn’t going to let that injustice slide.

  The elf who was hunting for the next sacrifice stopped in front of Christie and sneered. “This one still hasn’t learned her lesson.” He reached out to grab her shoulder. “Why don’t we take her for a spin on the roulette wheel? Maybe we’ll finally be rid of her bitching—”

  My switchblade sliced through his neck, and he died choking as his blood sprayed out, a fountain of red. He collapsed in front of the woman he’d been about to throw to the sharks. Christie, who’d been doused in his blood, didn’t even flinch. If anything, she looked satisfied that the dark elf had gotten his just desserts. She almost looked ready to spit on his corpse, and maybe kick him a couple times for good measure.

  The switchblade swung back around, and I snatched it from the air, letting the remaining elf and the banshee locate me with ease, standing at the very edge of the entry tunnel, still half bathed in shadow. “You’re not throwing anyone else into that ward.”

  The banshee seethed. “How the hell did you get past all those svartálfar?”

  I smiled. “Underestimating your enemy won’t get you very far.”

  She snorted. “You mean like you underestimated me back in your shitty city?”

  “Precisely.” I dug the earplugs out of my glove and casually stuck one in each ear. “Not a mistake I’ll make a second time.”

  The remaining elf made to move toward me, but the banshee raised a hand. “Don’t. I’ll handle him. You get that damn ward down. I don’t care if you have to throw every last one of those sniveling bastards into the circles. Get it down and secure the well water and complete the mission.”

  The elf nodded and immediately reached for the nearest prisoner. A middle-aged woman. Lucy Studebaker. Mother of three. She shrieked in fear and tried to evade his grasp, but he took her by the hair, yanked her up, and started dragging her toward the well. I threw the switchblade at his back, but the banshee knocked it off course with a simple force spell. It disappeared into the wall of thorns and didn’t return at my command. It was stuck somewhere.

  The banshee ambled toward me, a smirk cutting across her angular face. “You want to save the poor little humans, Whelan, you’ll have to win our rematch first.”

  I gritted my teeth, glancing at Studebaker, who was now crying for help as she neared the deadly ward. If I made a break for the well, the banshee would intercept me. And if I wasn’t focused on fighting her,
she’d incapacitate me again. She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t weak, especially with that conduit acting as her arm. I had to take her off the playing field before I could free the prisoners. But that meant letting the elf throw Studebaker’s life into the wind.

  Goddammit, there’s already so few of them left. I growled under my breath, infuriated at having to pick and choose who survived, and who did not. I may win this battle, but it’s still going to be a disgusting loss.

  Even so, I had to consider the overall victory more than the individual lives of the prisoners. As much as that pained me to admit. I had to stop the banshee. Preserve the ward. Prevent Abarta from gaining the well’s knowledge. Beating him was the imperative. It always had been, despite my continual attempts to focus the strike team’s efforts on recovering the victims. Because if Abarta got his way, a lot more people would die. Human. Fae. And who knew how many others?

  I ripped my gaze away from Studebaker’s struggle and said to the banshee, “I’m going to make you bleed. Just like you did to them.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She chuckled. “I’d love to see you try.”

  I took hold of my glamour necklace. In plain sight of over a dozen humans who could, and might very well, spill the secret truth about my heritage the moment they stepped foot back in Kinsale, a possibility that would have sent me running to the hills mere weeks ago, coward that I was, in sight of a banshee who had humiliated me and then struck a damaging blow at the heart of the city I called home, in sight of a well that should’ve been destroyed at the dawn of the new age of the aes sídhe, but had instead been preserved by the fae who were arrogant enough to think it secure, in sight of Saoirse, who’d seen my true self and hadn’t turned her head in fear, only smiled in acceptance and warmth…I broke my fourth glamour. On purpose. For the first time in twenty years.

  The magic that had been beating at my ribs, demanding I set it free, demanding I let it rip into the banshee and repay her for her slights, burst forth from my body as a screaming, frigid gale. It shredded my human mask as it went, leaving not even scraps behind to hide my true nature. That wind buffeted the banshee, driving her back two feet before she dug in and held her ground. She must’ve thought I was attacking, because she funneled her own power into her real arm, prepping a spell, and took aim at me.