He nodded and let me bind it to Göndul’s arm. We left her to rest and trooped down to the kitchen.
I pulled some fish out of the refrigerator, seasoned it, and popped it in the oven to bake. A fruit salad and steamed vegetables completed our meal. The fish bones, head, tail, and some of the flesh went into a pot to make soup for Göndul when she woke up.
While I waited for the fish to bake, I tried to call Valinir again, but my call went straight to voice mail. That worried me. I had numbers in Iceland and Ireland, so I called Altinir, figuring he should know what was going on with the mage circle they sent to Prague.
He answered on the second ring.
“Kellana?”
“Yes. Have you heard from Valinir, or from any of the mages you sent to Prague? We were just ambushed by a bunch of Vampires and Valinir doesn’t answer his phone.”
“No, I haven’t. If he’s in another realm, you won’t be able to reach him. What’s going on there?”
“You aren’t the only people with Mondranar in their sights. I suspect that he is allied with Vampires from Transvyl, so the Vampire attack is worrisome.”
“I’ll call you back,” Altinir said and hung up.
Shaking my head, I checked on the fish, and deciding it was done, pulled it from the oven and served Josef and Cassiel.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” I said as I sat down. “I can’t reach Valinir, and his superiors in Iceland don’t seem to know what’s going on.”
Josef raised an eyebrow in question.
“You said he called in a full circle?” Cassiel asked. “Thirteen battle mages?”
“Including Valinir,” I said.
“That’s a lot of power,” Cassiel said. “Unless Mondranar has help, I can’t imagine he could hold them off.”
I had barely finished half of my dinner, when Altinir called. “Something has gone wrong,” he told me. “There is a battle going on as we speak, both in this realm, and the neighboring realms. I don’t know where Valinir is. Are you safe?”
“I’m safe at the moment,” I told him. “I’m several kilometers from the hotel where Mondranar was staying, and I think our wards would hold against an attack.”
He gave me the phone number of a mage from the Icelandic Alfenholm and said he would get back to me if he learned more information. I put away my phone and looked up to see Josef’s and Cassiel’s expectant faces.
“He said there’s a battle going on, but he didn’t say where. I assume it’s at that hotel we were at.”
Cassiel pushed back from the table. “I need to go. If they are engaged with Mondranar, I cannot sit idly by.”
Josef’s eyes met mine, and by his expression, I could see he agreed with me. It wasn’t the smartest idea I had heard that day.
“Without meaning any offense,” I said, “from what I saw with those Vampires, you’re not going to give an Elven battle mage an even match.”
Josef got up and went into the sitting room where he turned on the TV. We drifted in behind him. The screen showed flashes of lightning and fireballs and white-hot beams of light that I knew were pure ravening energy—what Earth scientists called plasma. In addition to magical weapons, I could discern the muzzle flashes of rifles and machine guns. Men ran back and forth through all of it. The farmhouse hotel was a pile of rubble with fires burning here and there.
I knew the guns were wielded by the Vampires. An Elf would never use a firearm. My paintball guns were something we could accept as simply a potion-delivery tool.
“Holy shit,” Josef breathed. “You weren’t kidding when you said it would look like Dresden.”
“Altinir said the battle stretched across multiple realms,” I said.
“I have to go,” Cassiel said, and headed for the stairs, snatching up his short sword from where it lay across a chair.
I rolled my eyes at Josef. “Keep an eye on Göndul,” I said. “Don’t let her run off and be a fool, too.”
I caught Cassiel at the bottom of the stairs. “You need someone to watch your back,” I said.
“Can you walk the realms?” he asked.
“No, so if you slide, you need to take me with you. But your magic is too slow if those lightning bolts are all that you can do, and your sword is even slower.” A thought struck me. “Göndul is your protection, isn’t she?”
“We are a team.”
“And so shall we be. Don’t leave me behind. I have one partner out in that mess, I don’t need two of you to die tonight.”
Outside in the alley, he said, “You can’t fly.”
“Can Göndul?”
“I carry her strapped to my body when we must move fast.”
Be still my heart. I opened my mouth to answer him, but nothing came out. Finally, I managed to croak, “I’m probably lighter than she is.”
He nodded and pulled what looked like a leather harness from his pack. First, my arms and then my legs went through straps of leather held together with metal rings. A flat strap down my back held the leg and arm loops together, then another strap ran between my breasts in the front. I reflected that Göndul probably didn’t have a problem with the front strap staying in place, but I could foresee it sliding back and forth across my chest. He tightened the straps in several places. I figured Göndul outweighed me by fifty pounds.
Cassiel pulled on a similar harness, then turned me so I faced away from him, and clipped his harness to mine. Göndul was almost a head shorter than me. Cassiel and I were about the same height.
“Don’t do anything. Don’t move, don’t squirm,” he said. “It is very awkward when your weight shifts and it throws me off.”
Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw his wings spread. He bent his knees, and the harness pulling on me caused me to bend mine. His wings flapped down, then up.
“Now!” he said, and I leaped with him as his wings beat down again. The ground receded, and the next thing I knew we were rising past the roofs of the buildings around us.
Cassiel’s chest was warm against my back—and hard. The most incredible muscles. I guessed you’d have to be strong to carry such weight through the air. Goddess help me. We were headed into a battle where people were probably dying, and I was having bedroom fantasies.
We rose far past the tallest of the churches and then leveled out. The wind whipped past us, bringing tears to my eyes. I murmured a spell to shield my face, and then I could see again. Goggles would be better, I thought.
A column of smoke rose to the east, leaving little doubt as to our destination.
“How good is your shield spell?” I yelled.
“Good enough, though Göndul usually shields us.”
“I can shield us, but I don’t know how that will affect our flight,” I responded. “The bullets I can deal with but shielding from magic might require an airtight shield.”
We flew on for several minutes, then he said, “I’m not flying into that mess. I’ll set down beyond the battle and we’ll go on foot.”
That was a relief, though as we drew closer, I saw the flashing lights of police cars, and there appeared to be some military units as well.
We swooped down to treetop level, and I started to panic. “How are we going to do this? What do I have to do?”
Cassiel chuckled in my ear. “Just bend your knees.”
He dropped us down within ten feet of the ground and flew under a tree. I cascaded into full-blown panic mode when the tree trunk whizzed past. On the other side of the tree, we rose a little, then I felt wind all around me as his wing angle changed, his wings beating at the air right in front of me. We seemed to come to a complete stop, hanging in the air, and then gently floated to the ground. At the last instant, I remembered to bend my knees, and my feet touched solid earth.
Cassiel did something with the harness, and I stumbled forward as he released me. His hands grabbed my upper arms, catching me before I fell. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I felt as though I couldn’t get enough oxygen.
“C
alm down. Just breath slowly. You survived,” he said. His voice in my ear made me want to melt into him. I hadn’t felt that way about a man in decades.
Instead, I drew my sword and a paintball gun. “If you decide to slide into another realm to escape a situation, I would suggest Were rather than Transvyl. The Werewolves are less likely to have machineguns,” I said.
We cautiously made our way toward the hotel. The magics of the Elven mages were highly visible and gave us some direction. I soon suspected that Mondranar had allies other than the Vampires. The magical assaults often traveled in both directions.
Most countries had adopted similar surround-and-contain strategies to deal with magical conflicts and the regular demon incursions. Unless they had to, only highly militarized countries such as the United States, Russia, and China actively fought against beings from other realms. Considering that a single Elven battle mage was capable of routing a small Human army, that was a wise decision.
Our first major obstacle was of the mundane type. Czech Army units blocked the streets leading to the battle area and didn’t look disposed to allow us past them.
“Suggestions?” Cassiel asked.
Considering that I could see anti-aircraft missiles among the trucks in front of us, flying wasn’t a good choice. I could shrink to my smaller size, as any Elf could, but I had never heard of a halfling who could do so.
“Can you cast a glamour?” I asked in return.
He shook his head.
“Cassiel, I’m not a mage, only a witch. I can cast a glamour over myself, but not over you. I think our only option is to try and sneak past.”
“Do the glamour thing, and I’ll just bluff my way through.”
“Do you really think that will work?”
He grinned. “Trust me. Humans have a thing about Angels.”
I started to protest that he was only half Angel, then realized that Humans probably wouldn’t know the difference. Wings are wings.
With a shrug, I moved away from him and cast a glamour that mimicked one of the soldiers we had passed. For his part, Cassiel unfurled his wings. I had to admit, he looked like pictures I had seen in Earth churches. Although the images in churches weren’t dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt.
He nonchalantly began walking toward the soldiers’ armored trucks, and I fell in beside him. When we reached their position, a murmuring began, and everyone turned to look at us. They parted in front of us and fell silent as we passed. A number of the soldiers crossed themselves. No one tried to stop us as we walked through them and passed toward the battle, which showed no signs of slackening.
“That’s pretty amazing,” I said.
“Never underestimate the power of superstition,” Cassiel replied with a smirk.
We steered toward a couple of mages who were alternating hurling fireballs and plasma beams into the wreckage of the hotel. I sketched a rune and held it while letting my glamour go.
One of the mages was Selinger, the mage who picked me up at the airport in Iceland. He evidently caught sight of us out of the corner of his eye, as he turned toward us and watched us approach.
“Good evening, Sel Kellana,” Selinger said in Elvish.
“Good evening, Ser Selinger. It appears you’ve run into some resistance.”
“You might say that. Mondranar has acquired a number of formidable allies.” He waved his hand, and a fireball falling out of the sky toward us splashed against the shield he devised.
“Do you know where Valinir is?” I asked.
“In Transvyl. We originally sent three of our party there, and three into Were to cut off Mondranar’s escape. One of them returned severely wounded by bullets. It seems the Vampires have adopted Earth weapons.”
“I could have told you that. Why haven’t all of your foes walked out of here? I would think they would feel safer on their home ground.”
“Not all of the mages are walkers,” he replied, “and the Vampires, of course, require a walker to convey them across the veil.”
He turned away from us, quickly spoke an incantation, and let loose a stream of plasma so bright that it made my eyes water. Its image still played across the inside of my eyelids when I shut my eyes.
“So, Valinir and one other are still in Transvyl?”
“As far as I know,” he said, “along with two other mages who slid to Transvyl, but none have returned. I’m fairly sure Mondranar has walked, but his friends have us pinned down, so we aren’t able to provide more strength there.”
“One might think they knew you were coming,” Cassiel said. It was the first time I had heard him speak Elvish, and his accent was like a cross between Swedish and Russian.
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Selinger replied. “They had an ambush set up for us.”
“Valinir told me that all of your party came from the Iceland and Ireland Alfenholms,” I said.
“Yes, but there are halflings in Ireland. I would not put it past at least one of them to look favorably toward Prietnar.”
There was the prejudice against halflings and those of Midgard which I had encountered in Iceland. It was rather disappointing. I resisted the temptation to point out that betrayal by the full-blooded High Elven prince in Alfheim had allowed Prietnar to conquer the High Elves’ kingdom.
“Perhaps we can help those in Transvyl,” Cassiel said.
“You are a walker?” Selinger asked.
“Yes. There is a possibility the Vampires will allow me to negotiate a withdrawal.”
Millennia past, Elves had hunted Vampires for sport. Angels were viewed quite differently in Transvyl, so I understood Cassiel’s thought. I wondered if it had a basis in reality or he was simply naïve.
“We’ll take any assistance we can get,” Selinger said. “We’ve got ourselves in a situation, and I’m sure the Humans aren’t happy about it. I would happily withdraw and hunt Mondranar another day.”
“Do you know where Valinir and the others crossed over?” I asked.
“They crossed about two hundred meters north of the farm,” Selinger said. “That is also where the wounded man walked back to us.” He pointed to another center of battle activity in the distance.
A lake bordered the hotel to the west, and an area of forest past the road on the other side of the lake seemed to be where the Vampires were entrenched. So, we worked our way to the east, using the area of devastation as a guide for where it was safe to go.
Several buildings that weren’t part of the hotel complex had been damaged, and of course any living Humans had long since evacuated the area. Flitting from one place of cover to the next, we circled the battle.
We came around the corner of a large building and ran into a group of Vampires armed with rifles and submachineguns. Immediately, I spoke the Word to activate the rune I still carried. Bullets bounced off my shield as I frantically looked around for some kind of protection.
Cassiel began to chant a spell. He had to know I had cast a shield, so I wondered what kind of spell he was planning to cast. The ground erupting under the Vampires answered my question.
“Run!” he shouted, and I took off away from the Vampires.
I ran into a line of trees that were still mostly standing and looked back over my shoulder. Cassiel was right behind me and pushed me forward. It didn’t take more for me to start running again.
More than an hour later we found our way to the battle mages holding the northern point of the Elven line. Selinger had phoned ahead, so they were expecting us. The sun was setting, but that provided little help to either side, as Elves and Vampires see equally well at night.
“We had a group of Vampires try to come through a rift in the veil a couple of hours ago,” the Elf we met informed us. “About seventy meters in that direction.” He pointed northeast. “I slipped into Transvyl shortly after that and saw signs of battle but no sign of any Elves. So, I can’t help you to find them. If you do go, don’t go west. You’ll cross the veil to this realm right in the middle
of the Vampires and mages on the other side of the lake. And there isn’t a lake in that realm, so be careful coming back unless you swim well.”
Cassiel nodded and took my hand in his. Reality rippled—a feeling I knew all too well—though it had been seventy-two years since I crossed a veil.
Chapter 12
When the world stabilized, we stood on top of a hill surrounded by forest. In the distance to the northwest, I saw plains with vast herds of cattle-like creatures. As the mage told us, the area around us showed the signs of battle. We saw pockets of blasted and burned trees. A number of Vampire corpses littered the hilltop. A wide footpath led up the hill from the plains and disappeared into the forest to the east.
The sunset was spectacular, bathing the low, black clouds and the countryside in blood-red light.
“Have you been here before?” Cassiel asked in a low voice. I knew he meant Transvyl.
“No. We came widdershins through the realms,” I said. “We got only as far as Earth before Alaric was killed and I was stranded.”
“Now that we’re here, any ideas about how to find your friend?” he asked.
Taking him by the arms, I said, “You be careful. Understand me? The last time I realm-walked I got stranded on Earth. I have no desire to be stranded in Transvyl. If you die, I will find a necromancer, resurrect you, and torture you through all eternity. Understand?”
He nodded like little boy being chastised—eyes wide and wild—but I thought I detected a bit of a smirk in the twist of his mouth.
I slipped away from him and into a stand of large rocks a few paces away. Finding a place to sit down, I dug into my bag and found the small plastic bag I had prepared for such an occasion while we were in London. Inside was some of Valinir’s hair I had taken from his hairbrush.
Next, I retrieved a potion bottle, a piece of lapis lazuli, and a small bowl.
“Is it my imagination, or do you have some kind of warehouse in that bag?” Cassiel asked.
“It’s a pocket dimension,” I said as I started to work. “Crafted by a master mage using Dragon’s hide. It’s the size of a pantry inside. I understand that something the size of a warehouse is possible. Now, hush, and keep an eye out for nasty people.”
Dragon's Egg (Dark Streets Book 2) Page 9
