by J. C. Diem
“I don’t know what the artifact is, but I have a feeling it’s important,” I said to the air elemental. Chesi’s nearly invisible form stretched, then she clambered up to curl around my shoulders when I sat up. My sword was already buckled at my waist. Wrath was propped up against the wall. I grabbed him on the way out and sauntered into my kitchen in search of food.
Things had been fairly quiet in Nox lately. After the battle between Jardine and the three male vamps, I’d spent more time than usual in the Vampire District. I hadn’t witnessed anyone being detained, kidnapped or killed so far. No one had asked for my help, so there wasn’t much I could do to protect the civilians who were being questioned.
The city had grown to accommodate the uncursed residents who periodically arrived. Nox had become vast and sprawling. The cursed outnumbered the uncursed by ten to one, but there were new faces that I’d never seen before each time I patrolled the four Districts.
There were a few areas that I was restricted from patrolling. One was the shifter woods where the shapeshifters hunted their prey. Another was the elven woods in the Fae District. The third was one I chose to stay away from. Only a direct order from the Immortal Triumvirate could make me enter the catacombs that lay beneath the city. Demons dwelled in the bowels of Nox. Not even I wanted to tangle with them unless I had to.
I decided to do a sweep of the Vampire District first and took a carriage to the west. The area was quiet as I walked through the narrow, dim streets and alleys. Pasty faces became pressed up against windows when the undead heard my soft footfalls passing by. Most would be hoping that a meal had wandered into their territory. They melted away again when they saw Wrath’s holy glow. None of them wanted to draw my attention to them.
Once again, I didn’t encounter any trouble, so I headed for the Fae District. Chesi left me when she figured out where I was going. She avoided the fae beings so they wouldn’t sense her presence. I crossed a stone bridge on foot and entered the suburbs where the lesser fae dwelled. Their houses were on the small side and were made of stone in various colors. Their yards were modest and were maintained by skeleton gardeners. Compared to the Vampire District, the streets were wide, organized and far easier to navigate. No trouble was brewing here either, but a tense expectation seemed to hover over the entire city no matter where I went.
Chapter Eight
I WAS ON PATROL IN the Shifter District a few nights later when I encountered a group of surly looking uncursed teenagers. They were too young to be able to shift at will yet, so they were in their human forms. Until they reached maturity, they could only shift during the three nights of the full moon.
“Night Cursed scum!” one of them muttered and glared at me when I walked past him. He was a werewolf and he apparently had a chip on his shoulder. I could tell what type of shifters they were due to my link with Lord Graham.
“Excuse me?” I stopped to ask, lifting an eyebrow at his rudeness. He had four friends around his age of sixteen or so. They were a mixture of species.
“You heard me,” the werewolf blustered. His dark brown bangs hung low over his eyes. He tossed his head so he could see me, but his hair immediately flopped back over his eyes again. He probably thought he looked cool. I thought he looked like an idiot.
“Do you have a problem with my kind?” I asked. His friends moved to surround me, but I wasn’t worried. It was doubtful any of them knew how to fight. They were too young to go hunting in their woods whenever they wanted to yet. It was reserved for adults.
“More and more of your type are attacking the uncursed citizens,” the boy said with a sneer. “You should all be eradicated, but you’d just keep coming back. You’re like cockroaches!” His friends muttered and nodded their agreement.
“Nox wouldn’t exist without us, you little turd,” I informed him. We powered the City of Night, but I wasn’t supposed to know about that. No one was. I had to clamp my mouth shut so I didn’t say anything else that might get back to our evil overlords.
“You can’t speak to me like that!” the boy said and flicked his hair back again.
“Sure I can, turd,” I taunted him with a sneer, hoping they would forget the comment I’d made. “I just did,” I added with a smirk.
He took a swing at me and I blocked his arm with Wrath’s handle. “You wouldn’t dare hurt an uncursed civilian,” he said when our gazes locked. He pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and pressed a button to make the blade pop out. “I can carve your ugly face open and there’s nothing you can do about it, ‘Guardian of Nox’,” he said, making air quotes with his free hand as he used my title.
“You don’t know much, do you, turd?” I said contemptuously as he began to circle me. It was obvious he didn’t have any training. His friends began to egg him on, urging him to cut me open.
“What don’t I know, you ugly old bitch?” he asked, then he lunged at me. Anyone over the age of twenty was old to teens, so I didn’t take offense. Being called ugly was annoying, however.
I kicked him in the balls and he folded over with a groan of agony and fell to his knees. I knocked the knife out of his hand, then swept Wrath so close to his face that he blanched. His bangs fell to the ground, leaving his shocked face exposed. “I’m not allowed to kill anyone without the Immortal Triumvirate’s permission, but I’m allowed to defend myself from little shits like you,” I said smugly.
“You cut my hair!” he whined while cupping his bruised balls. I’d made sure to kick him hard enough that he would feel it for at least a few minutes before he healed. Tears stood in his eyes from pain and humiliation.
“Night Cursed citizens are people, too,” I told him disdainfully. “We deserve just as much respect as your kind does.”
“No, you don’t,” one of the others said scornfully as he helped his wounded friend to his feet. He was shorter, but wider than the others. I sensed he was a werebear. “You’re so dumb that you won’t remember this, but we will. The next time we see you, we’re going to make you wish you’d never been born.”
“Ooh, I’m so scared,” I said and pretended to shake in my boots. The teens left, casting furious looks at me over their shoulders. The clump of hair vanished by magic, relegated as being trash now that it was no longer attached to the werewolf’s head.
I was confident the shifters wouldn’t remember the comment I’d made about Nox existing due to the Night Cursed. Only a handful of us were aware that our kind acted as batteries for the Triumvirate. We were all linked to our leaders and we boosted their strength and power. If we were to die, there was a good chance that the City of Night would fall along with us.
It was disturbing to see the mistrust some of the uncursed had for my kind, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. To them, we were all freaks and weirdos. Even the healers and other benign people were often looked on with scorn and derision.
A thought occurred to me as Chesi arrived and settled on her favorite place across my shoulders. The padlocks on the cemeteries had been deliberately tampered with and the walking dead had been set loose. None of the uncursed had been caught up in the attacks so far, but it had still frightened them badly. There had been enough instances of Azazel possessing puppets and harming the uncursed for growing hatred to rise.
“What if they’re linked?” I murmured to Chesi and she made an enquiring noise. “What if the demons are responsible for breaking the padlocks on the cemetery gates?”
Chesi scratched her head, then grabbed my chin and angled my face towards a church that sat on a corner ahead.
“Good idea,” I said, grateful one of us had a brain. “I’d be lost without you,” I added and stroked her head in adoration. She made a sound of agreement and even Wrath pulsed to let me know he shared the sentiment.
A carriage arrived right on cue and carried me back to the Miscellaneous Beings’ District. We pulled up in front of the church closest to the biggest graveyard and I climbed out. Chesi made herself scarce so no one would sense her. Holy folk we
re more highly attuned than usual. It would be best for the air elemental to avoid them.
The church was on the small side, but it was packed with priests, monks, normal nuns, sexy nuns and other religious types. Angels had made their homes in the rafters of the holy places. I could hear them singing even before I stepped inside. Their voices were so beautiful it was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.
“How can I help you, child?” a nun asked when she approached me. Like the rest of the Night Cursed, she seemed as ageless as the fae.
“I was wondering if one of you could accompany me to the cemetery,” I said and gestured to the west where the largest boneyard lay. “I need to check on something and I need the help of a holy person.”
“We shall accompany you, child,” one of the priests said as a group approached me. He picked out two more nuns, a couple of priests and a monk to come along.
“I doubt we’ll run into any trouble, father,” I said. Seven holy men and women seemed a bit excessive to me.
“There is evil afoot in Nox,” the monk said. He wore a brown robe and had a fringe of red hair circling his otherwise bald head.
“What type of evil?” I asked as we headed for the exit.
“We aren’t sure,” one of the other nuns said. She was a sexy nun and her scandalously short habit revealed her generous cleavage, shapely legs and a pair of red stilettoes. “We can sense something building, but we can’t tell what’s going to happen.” Things had to be bad if I wasn’t the only one who could sense the rising tension in Nox.
We were close enough to the boneyard that we reached it after only ten minutes of walking. My unlikely entourage clutched holy items and their heads swiveled from side to side as they searched for danger. We reached the biggest graveyard without encountering any trouble and I led them to the gate.
“Why are we here, child?” the head priest asked. “What do you wish of us?”
“Can you sense any evil here?” I asked, deliberately being vague.
“We are in the presence of the undead,” one of the nuns pointed out. “They all exude evil.”
“Except for the skeleton work crews,” the monk pointed out and gestured at a trio of walking corpses that were shaping a hedge across the street. “They’re benign.”
The sexy nun had drifted closer to the gate and her forehead had a crease in it. “I can sense something,” she said uneasily.
“What is it, sister?” the head priest asked.
“It feels demonic.”
Soft gasps sounded from the others as my hunch was confirmed. The seven holy men and women gathered around the gate to confer. “There was a demon near here recently,” the head priest determined and turned to me with a grim look. “You don’t seem surprised, Ms. Evora.”
“I think the padlocks are being tampered with,” I told them. “Someone wants the undead to escape and to attack the innocent.”
Disturbed glances were exchanged at my remark. They sensed I was speaking the truth. “We must put a stop to this,” the monk said.
“We should bless the gates, so that no demonic creatures can tamper with them again,” a nun suggested.
“It would be best for us to take steps to avoid an outbreak of the inhabitants of the cemeteries,” the head priest decided. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Ms. Evora. We will visit each of the graveyards and perform a blessing to prevent this from happening again.” All of the cemeteries were in our District. There were so few deaths in the other Districts that none had boneyards of their own yet. Fleeting memories of souls periodically being drawn into Wrath hinted that there were many more deaths than I’d realized, but the thought fled before I could grasp hold of it.
“Thank you, father,” I said and left them to their task. I wasn’t sure how long their blessing would last, but it would hopefully remain in place long enough for me to get to the bottom of what the demons were up to.
Chapter Nine
ALTHOUGH UNCURSED WITCHES, wizards and other types of magic users weren’t fae, most of them lived in the Fae District. They had their own suburbs and their houses were spacious, yet not quite as big as the mansions the fae lived in. The Night Cursed magical folk lived in the Miscellaneous Beings’ District with the rest of us who didn’t fit in anywhere else.
I was patrolling in a carriage rather than on foot when I felt a surge of magic. It wasn’t unusual to feel spells being tossed around in the Fae District, but this one felt dangerous. “Stop!” I ordered the driver and the carriage lurched to a halt.
Climbing out, I peered in the direction where I’d felt the spell being cast. Heads popped out of windows and doors as the inhabitants of the area investigated what was going on. Another enchantment was cast and it was even stronger than the first one. My instincts told me I needed to put a stop to this before someone died, so I took off running.
Witches and wizards emerged from their houses to gather on the sidewalk. I dodged around them and sprinted towards the modest house where it felt as if a war had broken out. Chesi was absent, since I was in the Fae District, so I was on my own this time.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” a witch warned me when I neared the house. Unlike the Night Cursed, the uncursed magical folk weren’t all hideous and they were dressed in a variety of clothing. She wore a red dress with a deep V neck that exposed her generous cleavage.
“It’s my job to rescue anyone in need,” I told her.
“Wait,” a wizard said and produced his wand. “I’ll make a shield for you,” he offered. “You’re going to need it if you want to last more than five seconds in there.”
“Do you know who the house belongs to?” I asked as he readied his spell.
“A witch called Poppy,” another bystander told me.
“Who is she fighting with?” I asked. We all winced when another surge of magic came from within the house.
“I saw a wizard called Lester enter her house earlier,” the witch who had warned me not to enter the house said. “I think they’re dating.”
An invisible magical shield formed around me and I nodded my thanks at the wizard. “I guess I’d better get in there and try to calm things down,” I said with a marked lack of enthusiasm.
“Better you than us, Ms. Evora,” the wizard said.
Bracing myself, I strode down the path to the front door and knocked. The door swung open and I cautiously peered inside. “Hello?” I called out. “Does anyone need any help in here?”
“I do!” a male voice shouted from somewhere deeper inside the house. “Poppy tried to bamboozle me with a love potion and she’s gone mad!”
“Is your name Lester?” I called back.
“Yes! Get in here and help me subdue this crazy witch!”
He didn’t own the house, but he needed help, which was enough for me to be able to enter the premises. A mad cackle sounded when I stepped inside. The door slammed shut with a bang that made me jump. “Welcome to the party!” Poppy said, then cackled again. Magic surged and I felt a spell being cast on the door. I was trapped inside with Lester and the witch who had apparently gone completely bonkers.
Soft, magical candlelight lit the house. Poppy was a fan of animals, it seemed. Paintings of dogs, cats, horses and birds adorned the walls as I passed through the foyer and into the dining room. The table had been set for two, but their half-eaten meals had been abandoned. A glass of what looked like red wine had been knocked over. The white tablecloth was stained dark maroon and it looked like it had been murdered. The room would almost have been cozy if the air hadn’t been so charged with magic.
I found Lester cowering behind an overstuffed blue armchair in the living room. His head popped up and he frantically motioned me over. I glanced around, but I couldn’t see Poppy anywhere. “Are you okay?” I asked when I reached him.
Somewhere in his early thirties, Lester had thinning black hair. He was tall, skinny and mildly handsome. He wore brown trousers and a long-sleeved white button-down shirt that ha
d a red wine stain on it. “I’m alright so far, but Poppy needs to be neutralized before she hurts someone.”
“What happened?” I asked.
He ran a shaky hand through his hair, making the wispy strands stand on end. “She’s been trying to convince me to date her for a few weeks, but I’m just not interested in her in that way,” he explained. His eyes darted around to make sure the deranged witch wasn’t trying to sneak up on us. “I only accepted her dinner invitation tonight so I could let her down once and for all. I sensed she’d put something in my wine and switched our glasses without her knowledge. It seemed she’d tried to use a love potion on me.” His tone and expression were disapproving at Poppy’s subterfuge.
“She drank her own love potion?” I asked. “Does that mean she’s in love with herself now?”
“Of course not!” the wizard said scornfully at my lack of knowledge. “Magic doesn’t work that way.”
“Why did she go crazy, then?” I asked.
“Her spell was apparently quite strong and since it wasn’t intended for her, it’s backfired,” he explained.
My eyes widened when I remembered a conversation that I’d had with Quilla the night the mimes had forced me to watch their performance. She’d foreseen that one of her clients would concoct a disastrous love potion. She’d warned her customer that it would backfire horribly and now it had happened. Poppy hadn’t taken the gypsy’s advice after all and I was now going to have to try to calm her down. “How can we neutralize her?” I asked.
“With this,” he said and used his wand to summon a vial filled with clear liquid to his hand. “It’s a dispelling potion,” he told me. “You need to force her to drink it and her spell will wear off instantly.”
