Queen of Swords and Silence

by Carrow Brown

  A young male voice said, “I’m telling you I heard something.” I placed him as northern American by the subtle twang of his words. “First a crash and then the temperature of the room keeps changing.”

  Another, deeper in tone, asked, “Then why not go see?” I placed his accent as Russian, though couldn’t narrow down which part. “Why sit here like little sissy?”

  “Are you kidding? This place gives me the creeps. Besides, my job is to make sure this desk doesn’t go anywhere. You’re the battle magi. You go look.”

  I arched a brow. No one used to sit outside the vault area. Did they not have enough things to do with the trainees, so they stuck them on guard duty? Or maybe he was more like the armory checkout clerk given all the magical weapons stored inside.

  “No,” Deep Voice said. “You are on duty and it is your job. I can make sure desk stays put for you.”

  “I’m not going down there,” Young Man said. “I’ve seen enough movies to know the Black guy dies first when weird shit happens. Call it in and let someone with a higher rank go check it out.”

  I shared a look with David who kept his lips pursed together. He made an arm lock gesture, and I shook my head. Two magi were harder to subdue than one, and I didn’t know anything about the battle magi. They came in all shapes and flavors but always packed a whammy. Different scenarios about getting out without being seen ran through my head, though most of them resulted in someone dying. It was bad enough I’d stolen a cursed book and let all its cellmates free themselves. I didn’t want to add harmed/murdered the staff to the list. Apology cards didn’t make up for that kind of thing. And Aaron Hardin didn’t strike me as the forgiving sort.

  He seemed more like the-fist-of-the-Old-Testament-God kind of guy.

  The lights overhead flickered and the whisper of children’s laughter filled my ears. Something scraped across my skin, sending a shiver through my body and left every hair standing on end. The lights stabilized, letting me see my breath fogging the air in front of me. Small bits of frost covered David’s eyebrows and the tip of his nose. The squirrel god’s small body trembled inside my jacket, burying himself into one of the inner pockets.

  On the other side of the door, Deep Voice asked, “What was that?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t like this. Seriously, can you call someone over?”

  “Yeah. I’ll... Where did that teddy bear come from?”

  “Wha—”

  Screaming and cursing sounded along with thudding. David and I stared at each other with wide eyes as the commotion continued.

  “It has knife!” Deep Voice yelled. “Run!”

  “Run? Aren’t you the battle mage?”

  “That Peaches! Run!”

  Footsteps pounded the ground and headed away from us. I waited a bit longer before nudging the door open to the circular room. I was confident the room had looked better before we’d walked into it. Slash marks ruined the few paintings in the room, and the head of one of the statues rested in bits on the floor. The oak desk rested on its side, papers scattered all over the place, but I didn’t scent blood. We walked into the desolate space, and I stopped when my foot stepped in something squishy.

  “Ugh.” I lifted my leg to examine the clear substance. “Ectoplasm. Great.”

  David made a face. “At least it doesn’t smell. It’s ghosts that make that stuff, right?”

  “Sometimes.” I lowered my foot.

  “Should we step in and help?”

  Did I really want to? Part of me felt bad since I’d made it possible for the teddy to escape. A good person would have felt accountable for their actions and taken steps to right their wrong. At the same time, the magi hadn’t deemed it dangerous enough to store it in its own little container, so whose fault was that? And the bear looked husky. It would have been wrong to not let him get a bit of exercise and mental stimulation. The name “Peaches” didn’t help, either. I didn’t know a lot about possessed teddy bears throughout history, but the ones I did recall possessed infamous reputations. And if I decided to be honest with myself, the creature from the safe scared the living jeebus out of me. I’d stared into those demonic button eyes and would rather let it go off into the world than chase after it.

  But I wasn’t going to voice any of that. Instead, I said, “No. It’ll be a good distraction. We can take advantage of it. Besides, if the magi can’t handle one little possessed teddy bear, they are losing their touch.”

  “Uh-huh.” David’s eyes look me up and down. “You’re sure it isn’t because it unnerves you?”

  “Please,” I scoffed. “I don’t get unnerved by stuffed animals.”

  David smirked and pointed a finger at my hair. I ran a hand through it and found it’d reverted to tentacles again.

  “Fucking hair. Okay,” I admitted, “maybe it terrifies me a little.”

  His smirk faded away. “What makes creatures like that?”

  I shrugged. “A laundry list of reasons, but normally it’s because they suck up the trauma of a kid.”

  He blinked. “Really?”

  “Think about it. When anyone is small and young, they often have something to cling to for comfort or safety. That belief will cling to the object give it power—a purpose. It’s not uncommon for those objects to sacrifice themselves to protect their special kiddo.”

  “You say that like you know firsthand.”

  I closed the door to the vault and picked up the desk to brace against it. “I’ve raised a few kids. You learn a thing or two.” I grabbed the door into the vault area and gave it a faint tug. Satisfied it would take someone my strength or more to open the door, I faced David. “Let’s get out of here before the real show starts.”

  His eyebrows crept up his forehead. “The real show?”

  “The bear is out. It’s going to cause a lot of fear, and cursed objects feed on negative emotions like fear, anger, and despair. I’d like to be gone before that happens.”

  Once we made it into the main hall, sneaking about proved to be unnecessary. Occasionally a person would run somewhere ahead of us, but never close enough to see us and ask, “Who are you and why are you here?” Part of me thought releasing the bear worked in our favor. I could even see the secret door that would lead us back outside.

  David paused to look at one of many landscape paintings in the hall. “That one is crooked.”

  “Seriously?” I turned to look at him. “We’re trying to escape the headquarters of a major magical fraternity loaded with stolen books and surrounded by escaped demon bears and you’re focus on an off-centered painting?”

  “It’s triggering my damn OCD.” He stepped closer to it with an outstretched hand.

  Only the faint twinkle of magic caused my hand to whip out and stop David before he touched the frame. “Don’t. It’s enchanted.”

  “Good catch,” Ratatoskr said, climbing from my shoulder to David’s. “These are pucks. The offset is just to get your attention. You don’t know what’ll happen.”

  David gave us a look. “How bad could it be?”

  “You could get a minor curse of the klutz, which is what we don’t want right now.”

  “That’s three paintings down,” Goodfellow’s voice sounded. “That one is jinxed to give you ingrown toenails.”

  David and I turned at the same time with our weapons aimed at Goodfellow. He was leaning against the hallway, munching on an apple.

  I lowered my gun and jutted my chin to the paintings. “Nice touch. Disgusting, but nice.”

  “I can’t take credit for it. Cherryflower always likes be ‘artistic.’” He looked up and down the hall. “Why are you still here? I thought you’d be gone by now.”

  “Ran into a little difficulty getting out, so we are taking a minor detour.” I looked up and down the hall with him. “Where are the others?”

  “We lured some into the auditorium to watch the puck version of Midsummer Night’s Dream with an ‘emergency meeting’ notice. It’ll take them forever to
figure out how to open the door and get out. They are going to talk about this for centuries.” His head tilted to the side, and pure mischief danced in his eyes. “But the group is gone now. I was doing a final pass to make sure—what is that?”

  David and I looked behind us to see the teddy bear sitting in the middle of the hallway a yard away from us.

  I let out a curse as I leveled my gun at the bear.

  “What the fuck are bullets going to do?” David hissed. “It’s made of cotton.”

  “It makes me feel better, okay?” I shot back.

  “Uh,” Goodfellow said, “what am I missing?”

  “I may, or may not have, opened a safe with cursed objects and set them free.”

  “You may not have? Take ownership, woman!”

  “Okay! Fine! I did!” I kept my gun locked on the bear, though it only sat there looking at me with those soulless button eyes. “The bear chased some magi and probably caused all the screaming you heard. I don’t know what he wants now.”

  He wants to play. We’ve been talking.

  I screeched, “What?”

  “Oh, that’s not good,” David muttered.

  We’ve decided on a playdate while you were yammering with Goodfellow. Hand me over to him and I’ll meet up with you in a few days.

  “Ab-so-lute-ly not! You!” I lowered my gun in favor of jabbing a finger at the stuffed animal. “Bad bear! How are you going to find a new child if you do stuff like plotting behind people’s backs?”

  Hey! Stop it with the mom-voice already!

  The bear’s eyes glowed, and it stood on its stubby legs. The air became frigid as children’s laughter sounded from everywhere.

  I took a step away from it. “We should run now.”

  We turned to do just that when a group of men with staffs rounded the corner. There was a brief moment of surprise for all of us. It didn’t last long as the largest man—Deep Voice—yelled, “Get down!”

  I ducked and David rolled forward as a blast of fire went overhead. Behind me, a combination of wailing children and feral beast screeching tore through the air. It sent shivers down my spine, but I pushed myself through the group of magi and booked it down the hall. When we hit the corner, shouts and thuds filled the air behind us.

  “Okay,” I panted, “we are going to have to take the front door since they are fighting outside the back. I don’t think anyone cares one jot that we are here at this point.”

  Goodfellow popped into view at my side. “I just want you to know if anyone asks me about this, I am totally saying it was your idea.” His mouth opened to speak again, but no sound left his lips. He tried to do so again with the same result. Goodfellow looked up at me, pure frustration on his face and worry in his eyes. “Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay. The worst is death, and death will have his day.” He gave a meaningful look down the hall to the waypoint chamber. With another concerning look and sassy snap of his fingers, he popped out of sight, but I could hear him running down the hall.

  David stepped to my side. “What the hell was that about?”

  Ratatoskr said, “Fae are fickle. The way they are one moment isn’t the same as the next. I think it’s referred to as a fluid personality.”

  “No.” I adjusted my bag and looked back the way we came. “He was warning us but couldn’t outright say what is was.” The urge to go back and help the magi danced along my mind, but I squashed it. With both objectives completed and Goodfellow’s warning, we needed to get the fuck out of there. But that nagging sensation didn’t leave. The older, more experienced part of myself I usually ignored in favor of immaturity took root in my thoughts.

  Ratatoskr’s tail tickled my neck. “What’s wrong?”

  I opened my mouth to answer and left it open as I failed to put words to what I felt. It wasn’t the chaos behind us that made the air feel the way it did. Nor the magic of the pucks. I knew those kinds of magic well enough to sort them out to settle on the wrongness. It hovered in the air like a fog. And Goodfellow, who’d always taken advantage of a situation to cause hilarity, took his departure when he still had hours to cause more chaos. He’d taken his people to safety and warned me to do the same.

  What would frighten an ancient Fae to flee? What couldn’t he talk about it? No, those were the wrong questions.

  Why couldn’t he talk to me about it?

  The realization sucked the breath out of me and turned my blood to ice. I felt stupid for not picking up on it before. An image of the fence from my dream came to mind, only with a twisted gap near the bottom.

  I removed my bag and dug inside until I pulled out my sawed-off shotgun. “Ratatoskr, I need you to run to Aaron Hardin and warn him to get as many people out of here as possible and seal the area.”

  “What’s happening?” he squeaked, jumping from my shoulder to the ground so he could face me.

  I double checked the ammunition in the shotgun before adding more into my belt pouch. “An Outer One is coming. Or it’s here. I can’t tell exactly what, but something wrong is happening, and I think that’s it.”

  Ratatoskr’s fur fluffed up until he looked twice his size. He turned and ran down the hallway so fast he blurred.

  “You need to go, too,” I told David.

  “What? Bullshit. I’m staying. If what you said about those things is true, you can’t take it alone.”

  “I’m not going to take it alone. I’m going to stall it while everyone gets out. Maybe I can collapse part of the hallway and trap it.”

  His teeth gritted together. “I ain’t going.”

  I met David’s gaze. “Listen, I get you might think you’re Alice falling down the rabbit hole—all fun, games, and quirky tea parties. But this ain’t Disney or even a Tim Burton story.” I pointed down the hall. “The bear is nothing compared to the Lovecraftian mind-melting horror. You don’t bounce back from that, David. It changes you forever. You’ll never forget and always regret the encounter. You want to go in the oven with me? Fine. I really don’t want you to because I like you. Typically, a person can make their choices and live with them. But not this time. I have the possibility of surviving the encounter. You don’t.”

  His chin lifted. “Got any grenades?”

  I nodded to the bag. “Front pocket, left side.”

  He dug into the bag and pulled out several hand grenades before shifting through his own bag and pulling out his rifle.

  “You can still change your mind,” I said.

  David slapped the magazine into place and rose to his feet. “Nah. This is the best date I’ve been on in years.”

  Silence sighed, And all I wanted to do was play with a teddy bear.

  Armed and on guard, we moved down the hall, guided by the abrasive gnawing at our minds. I didn’t see anyone on the way, but with the commotion caused by the cursed objects, no one would wander around there.

  David asked, “Have you ever faced one of these things before?”

  I rounded the corner with him at my back. “No. I’ve only heard about encounters and seen drawings. Occasionally, I retire a survivor.”

  Retired. Such a tame word for murder. A second passed before Silence added, If this goes any further south, we run. I spent a lot of time getting you the way I like you.

  I snorted at Silence’s bravado. He couldn’t hide the jittery sensation of his anxiety from me, but I wasn’t going to comment on it. Sometimes letting someone pretend to be brave resulted in what needed to be done.

  I came to a stop by a set of double doors I knew led to the waypoint chamber. The air around the wood shimmered with magical wards and enchantments. From here, anyone could go anywhere in the world, even to places without a waypoint sphere. And if I were looking to summon something from the void and beyond, that would be the perfect foundation to do it. Regret left my heart thudding as I realized my theft had released of the cursed items from the vault and took away the security who’d normally be there. Whatever happened would be because of me.

  I didn’t take re
sponsibility for my actions often, but when I did, it was because I didn’t want the world to end.

  Moving to the doors, I pressed my ear to the hinges, listened, and almost bumped my forehead into the door as it creaked open. David and I pressed against the wall behind us. Seconds passed before it closed, but it gave me time to hear the other, male and raspy. I tried to make out the words, but it was too garbled for me to make sense of it.

  I adjusted my grip on my Glock, looked to David, and held up two fingers. He nodded and readied himself. Pushing myself from the wall, I yanked open the door and aimed my shotgun inside.

  The man in front of the waypoint didn’t even stop his chanting, his arms stretched upwards as turquoise and gray magic swirled from the waypoint—a stone arch rose from floor to ceiling, each stone embedded with a magical carving. But the markings had been altered, twisted into something grotesque. The chanter was a skinny man. The sickly pale sort found in a terminal cancer ward.

  It was the other man, healthy in comparison to the chanter, who turned to face us. Though the shadows under his feverish eyes altered his appearance into something harsh. His attention shifted from me to David, but outside of the initial shock of our entrance, he relaxed. “You are too late!” he hissed. “The Master’s will be done!”

  David’s voice sounded from my side. “Look, sirs, I’m gonna need you to stop and put your hands up in the air. No sudden movements.”

  A black ripple expanded out of and just as quickly retracted back into the archway. It smoothed out and rippled once more. Every hair on my body stood on end as a voice spoke within my mind. The same voice as I’d heard in the back hall when we first entered the magi enclave. My reaction didn’t come from the voice itself, but because I could understand it again.

  We come. We hunt. Our food. Our world. Give the cattle. GIVE IT!

  With the words came a deep primal urge to hunt. My skin tingled across my body, and a quick glance showed my skin shifting from sheet white to nauseating gray. I willed my appearance to return to human, but my skin darkened further.