The New Improved Sorceress

by Sara Hanover

  I’d drawn elven blood. Or Scout had. The pup scooted over to me, rope trailing behind him, and sat down on Hiram’s boot.

  Devian breathed hard. “The deal is off.”

  Carter told him, “We’re getting what we came for. You broke with terms first. The pup was indeed mishandled and injured.”

  I looked down and saw the swollen welts on Scout’s neck. I’d been somewhat angry before; now rage coiled up in me, hot and nasty. “Let me go.”

  “No,” Hiram told me. “Not until you cool down.”

  “He hurt Scout.”

  Devian laughed. “Take the cursed dog. See how you feel when the Huntsman shows up on your doorstep and wants his creature back.” He spat a crimson blob to one side in disdain before flicking a look at me. “Damn, woman, you’ve got a fist on you.”

  “I can fight for what I want.” I handed the cane back to Brian who’d dared to come a little closer. “Consider that payback for the way you treated me at the casino.”

  “I saved your life. But never mind that. Humans have always been ingrates.” Scorn poured out with his voice. “Why do you play with your inferiors, Broadstone? I think we shall have to renegotiate your little contract with us. No Queen’s gem until you prove yourself, and the length of term will be considerably longer.”

  I didn’t feel the least bit cooler, and now Devian was threatening Hiram. “Let me at him!”

  “You’re right,” Hiram agreed and dropped me on top of him.

  By the time Carter had us all sorted out again, one of Devian’s scornful eyes sported a nice purple shiner and I had lost a shoe. We’d all gotten to our feet, eying each other with high suspicion, but no one held anyone at bay. Scout helpfully picked my sneaker up and stood with the item in his mouth, sad caramel eyes watching all the fuss. Lest you think this should be beyond a Southern lady, think again. We invented vengeance.

  “Reparations!” shouted Devian.

  That must have been a magical spell because suddenly, elven henchmen surrounded us, and we had no place to run.

  Hiram dusted his hands. “Now that’s the sort of elven deviousness I expected.” He gave a piercing whistle and behind the elves, ranks of Iron Dwarves emerged from the verdant and vast trees lining the roads and country properties, and closed in.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  OOOPS

  FORGET NOT SEEING them. I hadn’t felt them either, not the slightest vibration in the earth, and I knew a dozen Iron Dwarves stomping about could make you think the world was coming to an inglorious shake, rattle, and roll ending. I would never have associated stealth with any of their movements, and I made a note for the future: Iron Dwarves can tiptoe with the best of them. Carter looked about him quickly and then his expression became one of relief.

  It took me a moment to figure out. Having backup was more than welcome, of course, but then I realized that not one of the dozen who appeared had been named by Germanigold, except for Hiram. So that was good. I leaned over to retrieve my shoe and remove the disgraceful rope from Scout’s sore neck. I rubbed his ruff gently and told him again what a good dog he was. He knew it and agreed, wiggling butt pressed against my leg. His golden hide warmed up against me, and his size reminded me that he was still, after all, a puppy. Overgrown a mite, but still. He stayed up close while I put my foot back in my shoe, just like Cinderella, and tightened the laces.

  I fingered a soft ear flap which he enjoyed for a moment before giving a low whine as if that, too, might hurt him a bit. I settled for a few strokes down the center of his head.

  Hiram indicated the troops. “Feel free to negotiate whatever you think best. I think the terms will be agreeable to me.” He held his hand out, palm up. “Hand over the Queen’s gem, as agreed upon, and we’ll proceed.”

  “I think not. We have made other arrangements.”

  “What have you done?”

  “What I must. Tsk. One would think you’d never dealt with elves before.” Devian lowered his eyebrows a bit and looked at Brian, Carter, and Hiram. “I must admit that I have not really met any of you in the last few centuries except for a brief skirmish at the casino. So perhaps you are operating outside your sphere of experience. You didn’t think I’d give it up that easily, did you?”

  “You lied.”

  Devian shrugged. “Elves cannot lie. Make what you can of that. I thought we’d already discussed this.”

  “We are all well aware that you will circle around and about whenever you can.”

  He smiled at me, busted lip and all. “You should have brought Malender with you. That one would make an opponent.” Silence greeted his declaration except for me. I didn’t speak, however. My face heated, especially that cheek where he’d slapped me roughly. Devian pivoted about to look at the others. “Oh, dear. She didn’t tell you, did she? Before you all came rushing in to save her, Malender took her from me. She really didn’t need saving by any of you.”

  But I had told them. I just hadn’t expected Devian to rub their noses into it.

  He took a step closer, but Carter moved to block him. “Witness. Still protecting her. I had hopes. Plans. Something about her intrigues me and not just that she did not mention her rescuer to you. Why is that, do you suppose? She wears his mark, he told me. He told me to stay clear of her, but I can’t do that. She draws me. It looks as if she attracts all of you, as well. We should investigate what it is we find so alluring. Besides the obvious, of course.”

  I really wanted to wipe that smile off his face.

  “She calls us friends, as we do her,” Hiram answered.

  I wanted to remind them that I stood right there, but there seemed to be a battle behind the words that I was not entirely aware of, and ought to stay away from. Not that I like being talked about, but at least it wasn’t behind my back. I knew it wasn’t the maelstrom stone that made us friends. It couldn’t manufacture loyalty; its strength is chaos.

  Devian tossed his head back. “Yet you haven’t introduced her to your little Society. Again, why? Tainted, perhaps?”

  “We won’t respond to your baiting,” the professor told him. “Honor your agreement, or we’ll withdraw.” He raised his cane into blasting rod position as if he, and it, were fully loaded. I was happy to hear that he still operated somewhere inside of Brian.

  “Not quite a society of fools,” Devian returned. “But no brilliant geniuses, either. As you wish.” He fetched the diadem and ruby from inside his shirt, held it up—and dropped it.

  Carter pitched forward in an all-out dive. He missed.

  It hit the driveway and shattered with a noise of splintering chimes, scattering red fragments everywhere. The hard smack of Carter belly flopping on the drive followed immediately after. Hiram uttered a moan of dismay, and Brian stepped smartly back behind me.

  Carter rolled over. Crimson shards filled the hollow of his palm. He exhaled, and the crystals floated off, disappearing. “Fake.” He stood and dusted his hands off. “Not a move I would suggest making, considering you’re surrounded.”

  “Me? Surrounded?” Devian gave a short, bitter laugh and Scout shivered against me. “Have at it if you think you’ve got me. As you might say—bring it on.” He raised both hands in entreaty.

  Brian let out a professor-infused curse, but no one moved.

  Then, almost quicker than the eye could follow, Devian began to melt until nothing more remained of him than a pool of mercury on the red brick driveway. The silvery-gray puddle caught the slanting rays of late afternoon sunlight. His henchmen dissolved after him, not even leaving a memory behind of their existence. Hiram’s fellow Iron Dwarves called out to one another in alarm, as behind them, a ring of elven archers appeared, with drawn bows in hand and a target sighted. They wore black and gold, each of them handsome is as handsome does, cold and deadly so, and their arrowheads shone as though honed within an nth degree of death. Now these guys look
ed like true elven.

  It began to occur to me that this fellow had magic my guys couldn’t even anticipate—and we could all be in serious trouble. The bowmen knelt poised for orders, yet no one stood to take that command. A shimmering at the far end of the drive opened up, and I sensed the tug of an elven archway as it did. My heart felt as though it slid sideways when Devian materialized next to it. He looked almost the same except more slender and taller. Imposing.

  “Pity. That doppelganger had its uses. He failed me at the casino, however. He could have had you instead of the ruby. He had a chance to learn your mystery and failed. I don’t intend to fail.” He put a hand out to me.

  Beyond the rainbow arch, a land lay in full autumn color: red, orange, yellow with carpets of green still at the trees’ roots, and the sky pulsed a clear, eye-burning blue. It looked incredibly beautiful and yet sharp, like a glass of lemonade promising a cold, sweet drink and betraying the tongue when found to be pure juice, acid and bitter. A wind rippled the alien landscape, or perhaps something immense moved behind the branches, sinister and unseen. I hated that I wanted to enter and that fear kept me from moving to it.

  I knew better, but my right foot shuffled into a step. Scout whined and threw himself against my ankle.

  Wrong foot. Now the left paced forward a half measure.

  “Don’t,” warned Carter.

  “I know. Trust me, I know.” And I did, but still my heart kept slipping sideways, falling toward the elven arch. I grabbed at Hiram’s hand as I passed him and for a moment, the Iron Dwarf anchored me. He felt solid and reassuring, and his hand engulfed mine. For a fleeting minute, I held the surprising image of Evelyn’s hand in his, her very slender and elegant fingers all but disappearing forever in his gentle grasp. Then the tug came at me again and I let go of Hiram—I couldn’t drag him in after me, the pull too powerful for even Hiram to resist if I kept hold of him.

  I thought to strip my left-hand glove off and reveal the stone, as if a cord strung between me and Devian, and I could slice it away as I had carved up the bonds holding Germanigold. But Carter’s glamour weighed too heavily on me, closing the stone as much away from me as from others. I couldn’t reach it or sense it.

  Carter began to glow around the edges.

  “Best not.”

  He did not look back at Brian’s soft words, but he did straighten as if constraining himself. I gave them both an unhappy look over my shoulder as I took another three steps in Devian’s direction. Not that I expected anyone to save me, but it would have been nice if Carter dissolved the glamour so that I could unleash the stone and let the havoc fall where it may.

  I didn’t know what held all of them back. If they waited for me to make a defiant move, I failed. The only thing I could do was walk toward the autumn face of Faerieland. I could smell it, like cinnamon with a sharp tang of something more potent and maybe even poisonous behind it. A faint mist edged it, a creeping fog bubbling forth from the portal’s arch. I struggled to another halt, and Scout wrapped himself about my legs, rope tangling both of us. He couldn’t keep me in place and I knew it, but I’m not sure the pup knew it. He looked up at me, brown eyes bright and expectant. He licked my hand, tongue rasping against my fingers. It brought me back from wherever my thoughts had suddenly drifted, and Devian made a loud, scornful sound.

  “Pay attention, Tessa.”

  My gaze snapped back to his sharp-planed face, the eyes now not icy-blue but a blazing blue, and it jogged something in my memories. The recognition thudded harder when his shadow threw off a darker image: a prancing fox on hind legs with three tails, wielding a katana. There is no mistaking that silhouette. He was the one.

  “You’ve got Joanna.” I thought Malender had gathered up her evil soul but no.

  “Naturellement. I’m not inclined to bring her out. She has been a naughty failure, that one, and does not deserve to breathe freely. Not yet.”

  The shadowy girl-fox shape rippled and then reluctantly allowed itself to be reabsorbed into Devian’s own shade. I looked back at his face. “You pretended to be Malender once.”

  He placed the palm of his hand over his heart. “Me? Or a doppelganger? More than once, actually. It would be enlightening to know when, would it not?”

  Was it, then, or was it not Malender who’d gathered up Remy . . . Joanna . . . Hashimoto at their great defeat? Or had it been Mal, and then Devian had wrested them away from him? I’d just seen the evidence that Devian bossed Joanna. Either way, I had no way of knowing who’d been in charge when or who had not. What I did know was that after Joanna had come after me, it had been the false Malender I’d then encountered. All other meetings, as far as I knew, were authentic. Even when the stag had been killed that night. It was not a Malender that I wanted to know, but that seemed to be the nature of our relationship. He appeared, I thwarted and threw salt on him, and he disappeared. The sum of all those times did not make him into the Great Evil the others feared coming.

  Devian on the other hand . . .

  “I grow impatient.”

  Imagine how I felt, waiting for him to give up or someone to make a big move.

  He lifted something in his hand, something he’d been holding lightly that I couldn’t see, nor could I see it all that well in full sunlight. It looked like someone had tried to make a cloth doll, scraggly and limp, out of a handkerchief and a bit of hair. “My doppelganger didn’t serve me as well as expected, but he did manage to obtain a souvenir from the other night, one that, properly invoked, gives me quite a bit of influence.” He waggled the dolly. “A few strands of hair, only, but that’s all that is needed. When this doll crosses the threshold, you will follow. You’ll have no choice.”

  My scalp tingled.

  I felt a bit relieved that my compulsion to move did not come from a fatal weakness. He’d been using magic on me. Magic and I had been doing battle for months now, and I’d managed to hold my own. I respected it, and I think I’d fought it enough times to a standstill where it held the same modicum of respect for me.

  At least, that should be how it worked. I might have known better. In fact, I supposedly had the potential to be a kickass sorceress. So why was I ambling across the driveway like a nearsighted possum hoping to make it across the highway yet in no hurry about it?

  Carter caught up with me, wrapping a hold about my elbow. “Don’t do it.” He still glowed, catching the aura of the late sun and its heat, too. It hurt my eyes to look at him and my skin stung where he touched me.

  “Carter . . .” warned the professor.

  “I’m not letting him take her.”

  That made me feel better in spite of the possibility of being strung out between them like a tug of war at a college kegger. I shrugged him off gently. “Remove the glamour.”

  I heard the professor mutter an objection, but Carter only watched my face as he asked quietly, “Are you sure?”

  “He’s seen a little bit of what I can do, so we’re not hiding anything.” Not true. Actually, we were hiding quite a bit, but if Devian was unprepared for that, so much the better. I felt it the moment the glamour let go . . . as if iron shackles had just dropped from my wrists. I chafed both of them lightly, immensely glad for the sensation of freedom, and wishing for my bracers. I turned my face slightly to him. “Why are you glowing?”

  He gave a very small shake of his head.

  “Not good, eh?”

  Carter sighed. “It’s either very little or full-on nuke. And the professor doesn’t seem to want a nuke here. Something about the portal.” We both glanced at the elven arch and silently agreed with each other that the professor could have a point. Blasting a portal of elven power might unleash a deadly amount of magic loose. On the other hand, this was me we were risking.

  Devian jerked his arm, throwing me off my feet and toward the portal. It pitched me forward, and I had to catch up with my impetus or fall flat o
n my face, arms akimbo. From the corner of my eye, I saw something dark and twisty wave in midair. It jerked up and down before disappearing, the vision giving me a jot of hope.

  I caught up with myself, opposite Devian. He exhaled as if he’d just inhaled a deep essence of my very being.

  “Ahhh. I can taste you now . . .” He walked around me. “A veritable Pandora’s box of magic relics embedded in you. Delightful. At the moment, I’m most concerned with the book. That book belongs to my family; we want it back and have been trying to obtain it for a few decades now. We shall have to negotiate, but things will go better over the threshold.”

  His words freed one of my options. If he already sensed it, why not use it? I engaged the stone, looking for that knife-sharp boundary that I’d used to cut Goldie free, narrowing my vision to see what sort of binding he had on me. It could cut both ways, and I might damage myself more than I’d free myself depending on how the magic held me, but I’d no intention of following Devian anywhere. Then I spotted it: a taut red line from me to the doll in his hand. Would I bleed if I sliced it away? Goldie hadn’t, but then, harpies are a different breed from mortal flesh. For all I knew, this cord had been spun from my heart and soul itself. With a twist of my left hand, I began to saw away at it and nearly fell over.

  Agonizing spasms froze my chest until I couldn’t breathe. My stomach went rock hard and my heart stopped a beat or two before fluttering on. I felt as though I’d been hit by a pile driver and the wind knocked out of me. Someone with a nasty sense of humor followed it up with a spear of agony deep to the chest. It buried itself in me.

  The red cord bounced against the maelstrom stone’s edge. I sawed at it again, praying for it to fray or cut through before I stopped breathing altogether. My walk stiffened down to nothing, my whole body now one vicious cramp.

  Devian didn’t seem to notice. Almost blithely, he kept talking to me. “I’ll hold on to the Queen’s gem because it doesn’t enter into the terms for the book, but I will concede that I do have the advantage. In all things. Come along now.” And he waved the doll broadly through the air, it and his hand disappearing into the mist edging the portal.