by Vance, Ramy
He was too slow.
Too weak.
Too stupid.
That’s what I guessed she said to him. In truth, I don’t know. While Aelfric and Remi screamed for Jack to return to the room where we battled the zombies, doing everything in our limited power to keep them in the hall, I saw Jack fall to his knees and allow the zombies to swarm over him, ripping flesh and sinew from his body.
With Jack gone, there was no reason to keep the door open. Aelfric and Remi let out a war cry that would have shaken the pillars of Olympus as they pushed back the horde and closed the door.
↔
As soon as the door closed, Remi fell to his knees and began to weep. “Jack,” he said, over and over again. “Jack.”
Sonia, who understood how she’d been tricked, ran to his side, stumbling toward him in her darkness, guided only by his wails. “It’s not your fault, my love. It’s not.”
Remi grabbed her, hugging her with all his might. “I could have saved him,” the ly erg cried out. “I could have saved my brother.” His gloveless hands wrapped around her back and I stared at them as the kaleidoscope of blood stains morphed over his hands like water and two more drops of green appeared in the mix.
King Aelfric stood over them, using his immense strength to stop the horde from breaking into the kitchen. From the strain, he wouldn’t last much longer, but rather than kicking the ly erg and halfling into action, he let them mourn. A good commander knows that a great loss must be felt, even in the heat of battle.
But only for a moment.
And as that moment passed, he gave silent commands to the rest of us to get into position. Then, looking down at his captain and daughter, he yelled, “To your feet, soldier. Jack’s death will be avenged. This I swear. So to your feet, for they will break through, and we must be ready to fight. We must …”
King Aelfric’s voice trailed off as his gaze focused on a point on the floor at the back of the kitchen. I followed his eyeline to see what had caught his attention.
If it wasn’t for the corn holders, my human eyes wouldn’t have been able to see what he was looking at. But corn holders, small as they are, are quite attention-grabbing when they seem to be floating in the air.
The abatwas. They had found a back door.
Back Doors and Magnet’s Helmet
King Aelfric leapt into action, commanding Deirdre, Redcap and Krelis to find as much loose and heavy kitchen gear as they could to block the door. They didn’t hesitate, gathering everything they could find.
Remi, Sonia and I arrayed as much stuff on the ground as we could to obstruct the zombies’ attacks. As intelligent as they sounded, they were still zombies, so cans of food, pots, syrup and oil were great to trip them up. And once a zombie fell, it took them a while to find their feet again.
We were incredibly fast, given how much we were trying to do, but then again, a swarm of the undead is a great motivator (I could just see some jackass putting this in his self-help book). Once our obstacles and traps were in place, we made our way to the back, where Crackle and Pop were smashing through a weak spot in the wall using a meat cleaver and a rolling pin.
These guys were strong.
We finished off their little demolition job with kicks and punches of our own until the hole in the wall was large enough for us to get through one by one.
Sonia was first, followed by Ankou, Remi, Redcap and Krelis (so much for ladies first). I was next, and as Deirdre and King Aelfric made their way through the hole, the zombies were already at our backs.
We all squeezed through by the skin of our teeth (but given how banged up my legs were after crawling over all that loose rubble, the expression should have been “the enamel of our knees”).
We found ourselves in one of the basement storage rooms. Cubby hole after cubby hole of student lockers lined the maze. The door to the main hallway was set into one of these walls, not that any of us rushed to find it. We were probably safer in here than out there.
“How do we stop her?” King Aelfric whispered.
“We don’t,” I said in a low voice. “She’s a cursed creature trapped in a box. She’s using my boyfriend to carry her around. The first step is to separate them, then bury the box.”
“Destroy the box,” Remi said, wiping away a tear.
“No!” I whisper-screamed. “That will release her. You think she’s bad now? Freed, she’ll be unstoppable. Believe me, the only reason we’re alive now is because we’re fighting the lite version of this spirit.”
“I can destroy the box,” the ly erg said. “I can end her.”
King Aelfric put a hand on Remi’s chest and pushed him against the wall. “You will do no such thing.”
Remi pushed against the dark elf’s hand, but couldn’t move the king. “I … I will do what I must.”
“I will not lose anyone else this day,” King Aelfric hissed, each word laced with venom. “Swear to me.”
“But—”
“Swear to me!”
Remi pursed his lips before diverting his gaze and nodding. “I swear.”
“What’s that all about?” I whispered to Deirdre, figuring she might have some insight into that little exchange.
“He is ly erg, a soldier of the UnSeelie Court. Soldiers have many powers, but perhaps the greatest of them all is that of sacrifice.” She gave me a solemn look like that explained everything.
Which, if her goal was to confuse me even more, it did.
↔
“So separate the boy from the box.”
“Well that’s a bit cruder than I’d like, but essentially, yes,” I said to a confused group (flutter?) of fae. “But we have to find them first and—this is crucial, so listen up—not die in the process.”
A zombie groaned to accentuate my point.
“What should we expect out there?”
“I don’t know, but when Ester and I would do our little haunted house trick, it was always the same: start with something like zombies or giant spiders or whatever the group most feared, then send them on an impossible quest or mission where we teased out their greatest fears while giving the illusion of the hope that if they succeeded, they’d live. That’s how she feeds. Fear. And she used to say that the sweetest fear springs from fading hope.”
“And you?” he asked.
“Me? I’m a vegetarian.”
The dark elf pursed his lips in a that’s not what I meant and you know it kind of way.
“Adrenaline. Pump human blood full of it and it tastes like Drambuie. Funny note: put some blood in Drambuie and you get the same results,” I said, realizing that my funny note was more of a note that shouldn’t have been made.
“Very well,” King Aelfric said as he tried to work through a problem with no solution. “How about hiding from her?”
“You can’t. Not unless you can suppress every ounce of fear you now feel. I don’t know about you, but I’m terrified. And from the looks of you,”—I stared at each of them—“you all looked scared. Even Mr. Reaper here.”
Ankou nodded, and everyone in the darkened room gasped. Never before had a fae reaper done anything but watch. To nod, to acknowledge something said or felt, was unheard of in the fae world.
“We all have fears. Mine are the voices of the lives I took as a vampire. The voices I heard were them coming back from the dead to torment me. King Aelfric already told us he heard Orfeo’s soldiers, and we know who Jack and Sonia heard … Heurodis. You all heard someone, and I can see how shaken up you are. Tell me, is that a fear you can put away? Because that’s what you need to do if you want to hide from the dybbuk.
“In other words,” I said, turning to Aelfric, “unless you have a fear switch for each of us, or a fear cloaking device, we’re doomed.”
King Aelfric smiled. “Fear cannot be dismissed, but it can be masked.”
We’re off to See the Wizard … Ahh, I Mean Witch
“I will not let you go without me,” Sonia said, and something iridescent gli
mmered in her grasp. I looked more closely, and realized it was the abatwas’ thistle blade. “Wherever you go, I go.”
“But Sonia, you are being unreasonable,” Remi said. “The plan is a simple one: the warriors hunt this witch down as the rest of you hide in—”
“Fear?”
“As a distraction. We are going to fight, and you are—”
“Blind?”
Remi looked at King Aelfric for support, but in response, the dark elf lifted his hands in surrender. “I have long learned only to fight battles I have a chance at winning. She is as stubborn as her mother, and this is one battle I cannot win.”
Remi groaned in frustration and turned to Sonia. “Please, my love, you are the only one who can sing with enough fear to draw them away.”
“And I am blind,” Sonia spat. “Do not lie to me. Not when death is so close.”
“Very well, my love,” Remi said, taking her hands in his. “I shan’t, then. You are blind, but that is not why I do not wish you to join us. You are my heart, my everything. I cannot fight what nightmares may come if I am always looking over my shoulder to see that you are unharmed.”
“And I cannot sit here praying to gods that are no longer here that you will return. Nor can I do nothing while my father faces real death—again.”
“Sonia, my love, I swear your father will return to you.”
“And you? Do you swear that you will return to me as well?”
Remi said nothing.
“No, you don’t,” Sonia said, reading his silence for what it was. The fae took oaths and promises very seriously. If the ly erg soldier swore his return, then it meant he would have to hold himself back in battle. He’d have to take the safest route and avoid battles that weren’t a guaranteed success.
In other words, swearing he’d return would hobble him. And Remi was too experienced a warrior to do that. He knew what lay before us and he wasn’t about to make a promise he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he could keep.
“My love,” he said, “when we came up with this plan to kill Archimago and avenge your father, we swore that we would do whatever it took. We succeeded in our plan, but because of this vampire—”
“Human,” I interjected.
“—human vampire, a malevolent spirit threatens us with death. I made an oath a long, long time ago to protect you. We all did, swearing it on your father’s name. Please, let me fulfill my oath. Stay here, sing your song and draw them to you.”
Sonia’s unseeing eyes dripped with tears. “But should you die …”
“Then you will go on. I would die a thousand times if it meant your survival, gladly go into the endless darkness if it granted you one more day. If I die, you live. But I do not wish to die. I wish to spend a million breaths by your side. I swear this: I will do whatever I can to return, but I do not swear to do so if it means there is a chance you will be harmed. Agreed?”
Remi clasped Sonia’s unblemished hands in his own blood-stained ones. “That has to be enough,” he said.
Sonia shook her head before nodding. “Everything you can.”
“Everything I can,” he repeated.
“Very well,” she said, “then I will stay here.”
“And sing?”
“And sing,” she said, using the sound of his last words to find his lips and draw them to her own.
↔
“Remember,” King Aelfric said, kissing his daughter’s forehead, “you have to express enough fear that the hag cannot help but pursue you. That will clear our way.”
“You and my betrothed are leaving to face an unimaginable evil. Do not worry, Father, I have plenty of fear within me.”
“You are so much like your mother,” he said.
We cracked the lock on the door and walked into the hall. Behind us, we heard the fae barricading the door with anything they could find. With them as safe as our circumstances would allow, I led the way as we started down the—thankfully empty—hall.
“You have a way with her,” King Aelfric said.
Remi nodded, allowing a smile to brighten his face. “I love her. Why did you hide her? If she had remained in the castle, I would have protected her with—”
“I couldn’t trust anyone with her. King Orfeo entered our kingdom not by Archimago’s magic, but through one of our own.”
I stopped and turned. “What do you mean it wasn’t Archimago?”
“I mean that one of us betrayed me to the human king. One who did not approve of my human wife.”
“Redcap?” Remi said, his eyes flashing with a mixture of fear and anger.
“Calm yourself, soldier,” Aelfric said. “I do not know who. My spies only confirmed that one amongst our ranks did so. But that is something we will deal with later … should we live.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You killed a human who had nothing to do with your whole revenge plot. Do you still object to me turning you in?”
Remi pursed his lips and said nothing.
“Let us live this night, and then let your conscience guide you,” King Aelfric said. “Where is the hag hidden?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “I don’t think she’s changed all that much over the centuries, and when we used to work together, she always liked a room with a view.”
Ester and the Looking Mirror
Sonia’s song was perfect, at least for us. Anyone who had to sit through it would probably be reduced to a bubbling mess of fear, but as a distraction for us to move about unnoticed … well, I guess one lady’s ‘perfect’ is another’s nightmare (specifically, a goblin, trow, reaper and abatwa’s nightmare).
As for our own fear, we were all thinking happy thoughts. I was replaying Legally Blonde in my head for the umpteenth time. I suspected that Remi and Aelfric both thought about the same person when masking their fears: Sonia. And as for Deirdre …
“Penny for your thoughts,” I whispered to the changeling as we made our way to the upper floors of the building and the rooms with the best views.
Deirdre held out her hand.
“What do you need?”
“A penny,” she said, “for my thoughts.” She gave me a solemn look as her hand remained outstretched, waiting for a penny.
Since pennies were out of circulation, I couldn’t give her one even if I wanted to. Besides, I had left my purse behind. I didn’t have any money on me at all. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m fresh out.”
We were in A-House now, and there were only two apartments here. Remi took the left and Aelfric the right.
She pulled her fingers into a fist and gave me a disappointed look. “Did I do that wrong?”
Deirdre and I waited on the landing, ready. We had already checked the other apartments and this was the last place they could be. The two fae warriors were going to scout the apartments—hopefully undetected—and return with a lay of the land. That was the plan, at least.
“What?” I asked, regretting asking her anything in the first place.
“My joke. I know you weren’t being literal in offering me a penny. I thought by pretending to take your words at face value, I’d be achieving what you humans refer to as humor.”
I chuckled. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
Deirdre nodded. “You appreciate my attempt, but not my execution. Understood.” She blinked rapidly several times, as if the action would somehow help her file the information away. “I assume your question refers to what I’m thinking about to keep my fears at bay.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Ryan Reynolds, and how one day we’ll be united. Ester tried to strike me down with Ryan’s angelic voice crying out that we will never be together. But a love like ours is so complete that I dismissed her evil glamor for what it was … a lie.”
“Ahh, I see,” I said. I did, too: Deirdre had several of the actor’s posters on her walls because she was in love. And I don’t mean a child’s infatuation. Fae love is forever, and when they give you their hearts, they mean it. Deirdre loved R
yan Reynolds, and it didn’t matter to the changeling that all she knew of him were his movies and pictures she’d seen online or on posters.
Fae love, the strongest bond in the known universe. With Remi and Aelfric returned, I saw that bond tethering them to Sonia, she the link now irrevocably connecting these two fae.
“She’s not in any of the rooms,” Aelfric said.
“I thought you said she liked a room with a view,” Remi spat without any attempt at hiding his anger.
“That’s what she liked back then,” I growled back. “I mean, she’s a spirit trapped in a box the size of a Rubik’s Cube. Wouldn’t you want a room with a view if you were cooped up in something like that?”
“Aye, but with all this snow there is no room here with any view of worth,” Aelfric said.
“True,” I said, “but you take what you can get, after all—”
“Milady,” Deirdre interrupted in a way very unlike her, “when did you say you last frolicked with the spirit?”
“I’d hardly call it ‘frolicking.’ ”
“You mentioned that you two played together … in an evil way.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I was starting to hate Deirdre’s literal interpretations. Who was I kidding? I always hated Deirdre’s literal interpretations. “A century ago, at least.”
“And has she ahh … played with anyone else?”
“To the best of my knowledge, no. When we parted ways, she bounced around from owner to owner for a while before eventually winding up in a museum.”
“Then I think I know where she is,” Deirdre said.
↔
Deirdre led us to the common room with the big screen T.V. “What amazed me most about the GoneGod World was the humans’ magic window. The one that let you see the world without actually moving,” she said.
