by Rabia Gale
Fire which affected nothing in the mortal plane. Last year’s dried brown grass stood unscorched, untrampled.
The last of the demonic leeches burst into a cloud of black motes. Arabella dropped her glowing hands to her sides, with a weary triumph, an odd sort of peace.
For the first time in this whole nightmarish episode, she felt as if she could do something about her problems.
As if she wasn’t some helpless ghost.
“There’s the Trent constitution for you,” Arabella informed the world. “If we had a family motto, it would be something suitably martial, like Never surrender.” She giggled at the thought.
She’d find that ring, if she had to scour all of Lumen’s streets for it. She’d start at the place her body had been found, poke her nose in every nearby house, look over the shoulder of every suspected thief.
Arabella turned to go.
The attack missed her by a hair’s breadth.
Something sharp and curved, glistening black, streaked past her shoulder. The air bled blue where it cut through it.
Arabella squeaked and jumped away, fear lending her wings.
A huge insectoid shape, thrice her size, faced her. Trapped colors struggled in the bulging black of its eyes. Its multi-jointed body was covered in an obsidian carapace. It stood on its back four legs; its front two were curved into the wicked blades that had nearly pierced Arabella a moment ago.
It swung its head in her direction and lunged.
The creature moved fast.
Arabella leapt into the air, fleeing across the Teme. The phantasm launched itself after her, its shape blurring into a shadowy mass.
It can fly too? Arabella felt a strong sense of injustice.
It could, and well, too. Now it arrowed into something long and lean, with huge wings and a beak that snapped at her ankles.
And change shape. Arabella misjudged her landing and sank ankle-deep into water-logged mud at the river bank. A slimy feeling, like being covered in slug trails, wriggled all over her.
She wrenched herself loose just as her pursuer, now a tentacled blob, landed where she had just been.
Too close! Arabella flung herself forward. Her mind complained that she was tired; she countered it by pointing out that she had no body to be tired with.
Still, there was that dragging feeling of being stretched thin, of being unraveled.
Hadn’t Trey said something about a life line?
Trey. He had wards around his house, hadn’t he? And he lived in the City, near the Keep. Arabella flew upwards to orient herself while the monster crawled on the ground in a jellied mass.
How would she ever find his house? If she strained, she might see the runes around it, but their glow would be lost at this height.
After all, he wanted to protect his home, not light it up like a beacon.
Bat shapes swooped around her, uttering shrieks. She thought they were bats, until one of them bit down on her arm.
Agony flared through her. Arabella screamed and tore off the spectral vermin. To her horror, her arm had lost its shape. It sagged bonelessly, trailing glowing strings of whatever aethereal substance it was made of.
She was dizzy with pain and nausea. Arabella thought she would faint, but that relief was not to be hers. The swarm dove for her again. Her first attacker leapt into the sky.
She dodged out of the way just in time. The larger mass sailed up, scattering scolding bats. They set upon it with tiny cries.
Arabella didn’t wait to see the outcome. She fell to the ground, cradling her torn arm.
Where could she run? Where could she hide?
Where was safe?
The cathedral caught her attention, held it.
That’s it. There’d be wards around the place.
The saints and the God-Father would keep her safe.
If they let her inside first.
The shadow monster dropped out of the sky and surged for her on hundreds of tiny, thundering feet.
Arabella screamed, “Trey!”
She ran.
Trey stood in the Elliots’ fashionable drawing room, trying not to tap his foot with impatience, as Harry Elliot’s halting confession wound its way to its conclusion. The boy sat on his mother’s elegant chaise longue with claw-footed legs, head hanging in shame.
It was not an uncommon tale. A sheltered youth, away to university on his own for the first time. The excitement of making new acquaintances and indulging in pursuits hitherto closed to him. Boxing matches, horse races, cards of all kinds, all accompanied by wine or ale. Before he knew it, Elliot had gambled away his generous allowance. Desperate, he threw all his resources into one last wager, hoping it would pay off.
It didn’t.
He was too ashamed to confess his mistakes to his adoring parents, not wanting to disappoint them. He borrowed money and pawned valuables to pay his debts of honor. But the tradesmen weren’t easily disposed of, and now they were threatening to go to his father.
“I told Arabella about it.” Elliot raised a haggard face to Trey. “I didn’t mean to… but I was so down in the dumps… and she saw it… and asked me… I swear I didn’t make her pawn her mother’s ring! I didn’t even know she was going to, didn’t even know she had, until she went missing and my mother sent the servants after her and they brought her back and her reticule fell on the floor…” He shuddered and burst out, “By the saints, I wish I hadn’t said anything to her!”
Trey hefted the reticule, heavy with guineas. On his palm, next to it, lay a scarred wooden counter with the number 13 scratched on it—the sort pawnshop owners gave to people they shouldn’t be doing business with.
The underage, for instance.
“She went of her own will, Elliot,” said Trey crisply. “Can’t be undone. We can only move forward, so show some steel. Blubbering isn’t going to help Arabella—or you.”
Elliot looked up, startled. Trey realized once again just how unsuited he was to dealing with the finer feelings of the very young.
It made him feel very old.
“What you should do,” he said, “is lay it all out before your father. Yes, I know he might ring a peal over you or worse, be disappointed, but from what I know and what Arabella said, he isn’t going to disinherit you.”
Elliot’s lips parted in a But.
“You have to learn to take your punches like a man,” added Trey. “You did it to yourself, but you aren’t the first stripling to do so.” He gave Elliot a thin-lipped smile. “Learn from it and face forward. Here, I’ll take the token.” He held the money out to Elliot.
The young man rose shakily to his feet. He looked Trey right in the eyes. “I ain’t taking Bella’s money. ’Taint right.”
His face was set in resolute lines. He’d be all right.
Trey nodded and slipped the reticule in his pocket. He tossed the token up in the air and caught it again. “This’ll help us put your cousin back together. Now to find the little fool.”
Indignation kindled in Elliot’s face. “Bella’s the sweetest, kindest little thing—” he began.
Trey started, holding his hand up for silence. Elliot cocked his head, also listening, gaze darting from dark corner to dark corner.
A familiar scream pierced through Trey’s skull. He winced at the intensity and pain in it.
It was soon followed by a voice yelling his name.
Arabella.
Trey snapped to attention. He held out his left hand. “Come, Sorrow!”
The wraith sword appeared, misting out of the Shadow Lands. His hand grasped a hilt the color of starlight, the short blade gleamed a sea-grey.
Elliot said, stuttering, “I-is that what I th-think it is?” Then he looked at Trey’s face and inhaled. “Bella?”
“In trouble.” No time to run through Lumen, trying to get to her before the other specters did. He had to take the quick way.
Trey spun on his heel. Looking about the room, searching for the best place.
Ah, rig
ht there.
He lifted Sorrow and made three neat cuts in the air. They shimmered purple.
“Don’t worry, Elliot. I’ll get her back,” Trey told the shaken youth, and stepped through the portal into the Shadow Lands.
Spectral bats flew above Arabella’s head, their high-pitched squeaks drilling into her skull. A black ooze reached out grasping tendrils from the side of a brick building; she kicked it off and kept running.
Her bigger problem galloped behind her. She dared not look back, but she strained to hear it, afraid it was getting closer.
Arabella burst out of the surrounding buildings and into the ring of paved stone that surrounded All Saints’. The edifice bristled with pinnacles and turrets. Lancet windows and pointed arches were black against its moonlight-bleached grey. It looked not so much like a place of worship, but a fortress.
It was the most beautiful sight Arabella had ever seen.
The stone crackled underfoot, green sparks fountaining all around her. The bats chittered their alarm and fell back. She nearly wept with relief.
If only the shadowy mass would also retreat.
She glanced over her shoulder just as it flowed across the paved stone. The hiss of warning runes did nothing to deter it.
Arabella pressed her mangled arm to her chest and pushed on through the wards. Pins and needles pricked her all over, intensifying with every step.
Better than falling to that thing back there.
Her progress slowed to a trudge. Shivers ran through her, threatening to tear her apart. Vitality bled out of her, leaving her more exhausted than she could ever remember being.
“Fight back…” she whispered to herself. “Don’t… give up.”
Her knees jellied and gave way. She collapsed in a heap of flowing soul-substance. For one horrified moment, she thought she would liquefy. Grimly, she held on to her sense of self.
At that moment, her hunter gathered itself into its insectile shape, front arms curved into wicked blades, and leapt.
Arabella flinched and closed her eyes. Dear God-Father and Risen Lord and Saint Margrethe…
She fully expected searing pain.
It didn’t come.
Arabella opened her eyes.
A warrior stood between her and the shadow creature. His armor gleamed a dark grey as he took the creature’s blow with one gauntleted hand. With his left hand, he swung a sword that seemed to be made of ice fire.
It sliced cleanly through one of the creature’s front legs. The phantasm raised a howl that stripped every bit of warmth and courage from Arabella. She couldn’t have moved an inch.
It didn’t affect the warrior at all. He wielded the sword in a series of blazing movements, cutting the creature, driving it back. The monster rippled, became something with fiery eyes, huge paws, and claws several inches long.
The sword melted in the warrior’s hands, covering both fists with a starry glow.
He punched the creature, hurling it across the courtyard. It scattered into a million inky droplets.
Arabella gaped.
Then he turned and walked over to her. “Got yourself into trouble, didn’t you?”
Arabella stared up at Trey. “L-lord St. Ash.” She couldn’t keep the awe out of her voice—the title wasn’t just for show, after all.
He grimaced. “I told you to call me Trey.” The armor vaporized into nothing, and the glow concentrated around his left hand, lengthened, and dimmed into the shape of a dull fog-grey sword, blurry at the edges.
He looked tired and annoyed and disheveled, not at all like the warrior from a moment ago.
He’d hidden that side of him again. Arabella pursed her lips, putting the observation aside for future contemplation.
“I thank you for your timely intervention, my lord.” Arabella started to rise and winced as the movement sent a flare of pain throughout her.
Trey’s gaze sharpened as he took in her sadly malformed arm, still seeping. “You all right, scamp?”
“Of course,” said Arabella faintly. The agony had dulled to a kind of sawing throb. She told herself it was better.
If only she could believe it.
“Let me see it.” A frown bit deep between Trey’s eyebrows. He turned the sword in his grasp, stabbing downward in one fluid movement. It hung in the air, not moving, when he let go of it.
“It’s quite all right,” began Arabella, backing away.
“Enough of that foolishness, please,” said Trey. He put one hand on her shoulder, the other on her wrist. To her surprise, his grip was warm and solid. Gently, he turned her arm a little this way and that. Arabella clenched her nonexistent teeth.
“Hurts?”
“Perhaps a little,” she admitted.
“What did this?” He probed her not-flesh with cool fingers that almost numbed the ache.
“A bat. One annoying, shrieking bat.” She couldn’t keep the disgust out of her voice.
“Shrikers.” Trey nodded, as if he expected that. “Nasty teeth.”
“Indeed,” said Arabella fervently. His frown had deepened. Her heart sank. “What is it?” she asked, not really wanting to know.
“Infection. Look.” He moved her arm again—carefully—to show her the place where her substance was puckered into ridges so dark a purple they were almost black.
Arabella felt that unfair twisting of her insides again. “How bad is it?” she whispered.
“It won’t kill you any time soon,” he said, with no irony whatsoever. “But you need purification and you need it fast. Luckily, you don’t have far to go.” He gestured towards the cathedral.
Arabella glanced at the edifice. Now that she wasn’t running for her life, she could make out the shimmer of runes laid in the stone traceries of the windows and the decorations on the pinnacles. Some even lurked deep in the buttresses.
“Is it safe?” she asked doubtfully.
“Not completely. But I think you have a good chance.”
Arabella regarded him, trying to read more into his lack of expression. She remembered the prickling of wards when she crossed the stone yard. She tried to imagine what it would feel like intensified ten or a hundredfold.
It was not a pleasant thought.
“Better get going,” said Trey. “It’s coming back.” His gaze was back at the edge of the courtyard, among the dark buildings.
Shadows writhed and came back together into a heaving charcoal mass.
“What is that thing?”
“Barghest.” Trey took up his sword again, not looking, the gesture easy and practiced.
“I thought they were big black dogs!” There was nothing canine about the form the barghest took, all angled legs and sharp blades protruding from the blob.
“They’re whatever shape they want to be.” He threw her an impatient look. “What are you waiting for?”
“I feel bad about leaving you to face it on your own,” she confessed. After all, she was the one who’d stupidly run out into the night, attracted the barghest’s attention, and yelled for him to rescue her. If only she hadn’t lost her head back then—
Trey threw his head back and laughed. He sounded genuinely amused. “What? You don’t think I can face this barghest on my own?”
“I’m saying,” said Arabella, as the barghest grew far too many spines in a ridge down its carapaced back, “that you shouldn’t have to. Because this is all my fault.” Her wounded arm hurt all the more. Black clots moved up to her shoulder, shredding and tearing her aethereal flesh.
He grinned at her, eyes alight with a fire she couldn’t understand. He looked fierce and a little scary and oddly so very young. “I was going to have to face this barghest some time, Arabella. Might as well be now as later.”
The sword blazed in his hand. Grey smoke lay thick around him, then hardened.
With a yelled, “Run, Arabella!”, Trey leapt in to meet the barghest. His sword clashed with the creature’s bladed arms. The two tussled, sprang apart, circled each other.
<
br /> Arabella cast one look at them and then up to where a swarm of shrikers still hovered above the rooftops.
The barghest and the man closed in again, in white slashes and black blades.
He was a Shield. He was the Shade Hunter. She recalled his practice area in the cellar. She had to trust him.
Her left arm was nearly all black now, and smoking. The stench was foul and acrid. Arabella quivered as the corruption creep-crawled questing tendrils all throughout her.
She had to go. One last glance at the fight, and Arabella turned and ran. God-Father protect him!
The tingle of the wards changed into an acid rush, centered around her hurt arm. Arabella turned sideways, head down, pushing through with her shoulder.
Her clothes had changed again. She wore a linen shift, ragged and frayed at the hem. Her legs were too translucent to make out details, but she knew they’d be covered with welts made by an ash switch.
Her past was breathing down her neck again.
Arabella forced herself all the way to the bottom of the stairs. She lifted a foot to climb.
A curtain of crackling white blazed up in front of her.
Arabella staggered back from the heat of it on her face. She could smell burning; looking down she saw her arm was shriveling.
The purity of the light in front of her terrified her. No spot nor shadow could survive it.
But how much of her would be left once it finished consuming?
Risen Lord, shield me.
Arabella ran through the light.
It hurt, but not like the shriker’s bite. No, this was like being hit by lightning, only it went on for far longer. The light illuminated everything inside of her, searched all. For an eternity, it felt like her mind and heart had been laid bare, every thought and every feeling exposed to a majesty she had never before experienced.
It found every dark clot and speck, touched them all with it gaze. The corruption writhed and shrieked and scorched. It didn’t die easily, and Arabella felt its every struggle.
Even worse was the feeling that the corruption did belong to her, that it was made up of her own petty resentments and careless thoughts. It had gained a toehold in her because she had let it.
