Dark Horse

by E. A. Copen

  He tried to pull his hand away but I tightened my grasp around it. “We have a deal. Now tell me about this other way of getting a fae soul.”

  Finn glanced up and down the alley as if he expected someone to be listening in. “The Winter Queen has a whole cache of them in her treasure room. I saw it when I was...er...looking around.”

  “Stealing from her, you mean.” I let go of his hand.

  He shook it out. “I wasn’t stealing. It’s only stealing if you manage to get it out the door. Technically, the guards caught me before then.”

  I looked up at the sky as the rain picked up and then slid under the small awning next to Finn. “Your stunt will mean she’s tightened security. I may be able to break into places, but a Faerie Queen’s vault is another thing entirely. It’d be like robbing Fort Knox.”

  “Not if you’re me. Observe.” Finn slid six inches to the right, putting him in the narrow shadow of a dumpster created by one of the street lights at the end of the alley. It wasn’t true dark yet, but they’d come on early thanks to the rain and clouds. He pulled his arms in close to his body and closed his eyes.

  And then he wasn’t there. He didn’t melt into the dark. The shadows didn’t envelop him. Finn simply disappeared without a trace.

  In a panic, I stepped away from the wall and went to stand in the shadow. I pressed my hand against the brick wall, checked behind the dumpster, looked everywhere he could’ve possibly disappeared to only to find he was gone.

  A low whistle from the other end of the alley drew my attention. I turned around to see him step out of another shadow down there, hands in his pockets as if his disappearance and reappearance were a common event.

  “You can travel through the shadows,” I said as he came closer.

  “More or less. There are some places I can’t go. If the shadows aren’t deep enough it doesn’t work either so I’m limited on where I can go and when, but yes. I can go anywhere that I have a map to so long as there are enough shadows in the room.”

  I shivered, wondering if the Shadow Court had ever spied on me from the shadows. If they had, I’d never know about it.

  “Okay.” I scratched my chin, deep in thought. “How do you plan on getting the soul out? You can’t interact with them, not like I can.”

  “Oh, I won’t be doing that. Our deal didn’t include actually going into the vault, just me telling you about it.” His eyes snapped to my clenched fists. “We can come to another arrangement. I can transport you to the vault with me, since I plan on going there myself shortly. It will cost you another favor, however.”

  “No deal. I spared your life. That puts you in my debt. We’re still not even until you’ve done one more thing for me. You can either fix Emma or get me into the vault, but you’re doing one of them, no charge.”

  Finn frowned. He’d been hoping I’d forget that sparing him meant he owed me first and not the other way around. Just like a faerie, too, to squeeze as much out of me as possible.

  “Or we can forget the whole thing and I can just use your soul and find another Spellweaver.” I rolled up my sleeves.

  “Okay!” he shouted, waving his hands. “All right. You win. I’ll get you into the vault.”

  “And out.”

  He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “And out. But the deal only holds so long as you’re alive. I’m not carrying your body out if they kill you, understand?”

  I nodded.

  Finn extended a hand. “Then take my hand, Horseman, and let’s go rob the Winter Queen.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  We emerged from a shadow in the corner of a muted room. White walls carved of pure ice stood in front of us, illuminated by a pale ball of light above that looked like a miniature sun. A frosty blue runner with gold trim lined the hallway, wrapping around the corner ahead. Voices carried along with heavy footsteps.

  “Dammit,” Finn exclaimed in a whisper. “We should’ve come out in the throne room. Something’s off.” His hand closed around my wrist and he jerked me back the direction we’d come. “Better try again.”

  “I thought you said you knew what you were doing,” I hissed.

  “Magic’s not an exact science, in case you didn’t know.”

  He was wrong. Magic could be very precise if you knew how. Just because he wasn’t good at it didn’t mean it couldn’t be done, but I didn’t have time to argue with him before we slid through another shadow and stepped out into blinding light.

  I shielded my eyes with a hand and squinted. As my eyes adjusted, I realized it wasn’t the light that had blinded me, but the reflection of it off of piles and piles of gold coins encased in ice. I blinked and let out a low whistle before I realized I shouldn’t have and put my hands over my mouth.

  “It’s all right.” Finn waved a hand at me. “There are no guards inside the vault, and the door is soundproof. As long as no one comes looking for any treasure, we’re free to roam around and take whatever we want.”

  “How are you supposed to take anything if it’s all encased in six inches of ice?” I gestured to the blocks of ice all around.

  Finn shrugged. “I don’t know. Use a fireball or something. You’re the wizard.” He stepped in the opposite direction.

  “Wait,” I called, and he stopped. “Where are you going? You promised to get me out of here when we were done. You can’t do that if you leave.”

  “I’m not leaving, but I didn’t come here for you either. That’s just a happy side effect. I broke into this vault the first time for a reason, and I’m not leaving without what I came for. We can meet back here if you like.”

  I nodded in agreement and wandered further into the vault.

  Gold wasn’t the only treasure lying around encased in ice. It wasn’t even the most valuable. Artifacts that looked older than recorded history sat on columns: ancient slingshots, a broken spear, scraps of cloth with strange power emanating from it. Vases and gowns, artwork and ivory statues all adorned the Winter Queen’s vault, all tossed aside as if they were worthless and trapped beneath inches and inches of ice.

  I wandered the aisles between the artifacts for a while, wondering what each was or where it might’ve come from. There was a lot of power in that room without even considering the souls. I hadn’t seen the treasure rooms of the other courts, but if they were equally as decked out, it was a small wonder I’d been lucky enough to kill one of the Faerie queens.

  How powerful was my daughter really? I didn’t fear her because we were allies. She was my kid and the way I saw it she was still just a little girl. But I’d seen her kill people with a sword. She had the power to drain life in one hand, and the power to restore it in the other. That was a frightening power to me, and I was from Earth. I was used to death. I couldn’t imagine how shocking such a power would be to fae who could go thousands of years without ever witnessing a person die.

  I hadn’t even considered she might have power beyond her own magic. What if she had a vault just like this one, filled to the brim with treasures and souls of her own? She hadn’t offered me any souls, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have them. It only meant she wasn’t willing to give any away if she did. Not even to save the human world. That was a little disturbing considering Remy was half-human herself. She should’ve cared about Earth’s problems. Guess she was too busy being a queen to care about monsters wiping New Orleans off the map.

  At the end of a narrow aisle, some floating lights caught my eye. I turned to the right and found the souls, dozens of them, floating freely behind a curtain of clear ice. They pulsed in response to my magic when I placed my palm against the ice. How the hell was I going to get to them? I had no fire magic, and my hand would never melt through that much ice fast enough.

  There must be a way. She gets them in there, so there’s probably a door or something. I walked along the length of the wall, tracing my fingers over it. One glowing green soul broke away from the rest and followed me, pulsing bright. I reached the end of the frozen wall and foun
d a copper flap clipped closed. No lock. Winter must’ve been very proud of their security. They didn’t count on a Horseman and a Shadow fae working together, I supposed. What were the odds of that?

  The curious soul floated just above the flap, dancing back and forth. I placed my hand on the ice over it. “I’m not here to free you. I need a soul to fuel a spell to save my people on Earth. It’s not something you’re going to come back from, but if you’re willing, I would appreciate the help.”

  I wasn’t sure the soul understood anything I said. I’d communicated with Hades before, but maybe that was only because he was a god. There had to be limits to what regular souls could and couldn’t do.

  But this one flashed brighter, bobbing up and down like a nod. If it understood, I took that to be permission. I lifted the flap and carefully stuck my hand up a narrow chute. The soul floated gingerly down to land in my palm. I pulled my hand out, grasping the glowing green soul.

  My staff felt heavier in my hand as I leaned it against the tank full of souls. “Thank you,” I said and held the soul flesh against one of the metal bands, chanting the incantation Josiah had passed along to me. It flashed a brilliant light, one I had to shield my eyes from, and sank into the silver band.

  My staff practically vibrated with power now. I could feel it as sure as I’d feel the energy coming off an electric fence, the power immense and raw. And I still didn’t have an angel’s soul in there yet. With that much power, I could do some serious damage if I didn’t hurt myself in the process.

  I let out a breath I didn’t realized I’d been holding and shifted my grip on the staff. “Now to find Finn and get the hell out of here.”

  An alarm suddenly blared to life.

  “Dammit, Finn,” I snarled and stormed away from the souls. “What the hell did you do?”

  I raced back through columns of frozen treasure as the lights dimmed to nothing and came back up red. The alarm screamed, making my ears throb. When I reached the rendezvous point, there was no sign of Finn. I turned a full circle to make sure I was in the right spot before muttering another curse. Where the hell was he?

  Footsteps slapped against the icy vault floor, quick and panicked. Finn rounded the corner to my right, a cloth-covered object the size of a football tucked under one arm. He was moving full speed and panting. “Hurry! Find a shadow!”

  “What’s that?”

  “No time!” He grabbed me on his way through and dragged me down the opposite hall. There were no shadows there, despite the flashing red light. All the walls stood at ninety-degree angles and the light came straight down, leaving the only shadows to be found in small pools at our feet, and even those weren’t very deep.

  Finn turned down another corridor and slid to a stop. Four heavily armed guards stood at the end of the corridor, headed our way.

  The one in front stopped, sneered and pointed a sword at us. “Get them!”

  “Back the other way!” Finn scrambled to push me in reverse.

  We turned and ran the other way.

  “Got any combat experience?” I huffed as we ran. “In case we can’t shake these guys?”

  A guard ran into the intersection ahead and spun to face us. Finn slid to a stop and dropped to the ground. I would’ve tripped over him if I hadn’t dug my heels in to halt. Finn pressed his hand into the small pool of shadows on the floor while the guard rushed at us, sword drawn.

  “Uh, Finn?”

  He stood up, grasping what I could only describe as a living strand of shadow. It wriggled in his hand, twisting and changing as if it were alive, forming into a long whip. I ducked as Finn swung it overhead and snapped it forward. The end wrapped around the guard’s neck. He dropped his sword, hand going instinctually to the thing choking him, but he couldn’t grasp a shadow. The guard sank first to his knees and then fell face first to the floor. Finn released his hold on the shadow, and it dissipated to nothingness. He didn’t even pause. He ran on past.

  I knelt next to the guard, tugging his helmet up. His neck was covered in dark welts as if something had been biting him.

  Finn stopped and turned around. “He’s not dead,” he said, exasperated. “Just unconscious. Now can we please escape with our loot?”

  I pushed myself up and ran after him. While we fled, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen him do. In my dealings with the Faerie courts, I’d had more than a few with people from Shadow. I’d killed Nyx, the former Shadow Queen, and then took out her would-be successor, Kellas, and about a dozen Shadow fae on the battlefield when they attacked Summer. Not once had I seen them do anything like what Finn had just done.

  Maybe was because he was a Spellweaver. I glanced over at him. Despite running full speed through the narrow vault corridors, the bastard was smiling. Either he was really pleased with the loot he’d collected, or he was enjoying running for his life way too much.

  We rounded another corner. Colossal statues lined either side of the corridor ahead, and they were at just the right angle that they cast shallow shadows on the ground when the red light flashed at its brightest. Unfortunately, there were also four Winter guards at the other end. They spied us and started forward.

  I glanced behind us only to find that path cut off too. Some of the guards must’ve circled around. We were trapped, the only way out a hell of a gamble.

  Finn barely seemed to notice. He sprinted into the corridor, shifting the bundle under his arm so he could pull me along with him. We slid into the shadow when the guards were practically on top of us. I lifted my staff and cringed when the icy blue blade of a sword struck it...and shattered into a thousand useless pieces.

  The next thing I knew, I was stumbling out of a shadow in the alley we’d left behind, the scent of rotting garbage burning my nostrils. I caught myself on the graffiti-covered brick wall in front of me and stopped to choke on my next breath.

  Finn circled around, hand raised behind as if he were about to cast another spell, but the Winter Fae hadn’t followed us. When he realized we’d gotten away with it, he grinned ear to ear before throwing his head back and cackling like a madman and dancing with his prize. “Finally! Take that, icy bitch! Hell yeah!”

  I finally caught my breath and stood back up. “You enjoyed that way too much.”

  “Of course I enjoyed it. Name something else that makes your heart pound like that. There’s nothing as exciting in all the world as a successful heist, especially when the target bested you once before.” He held up his cloth-covered bundle and wiggled it back and forth, beaming.

  “What the hell did you steal that was worth all that trouble anyway?” I reached for the cloth item in his hands.

  Finn pulled it away. “For me to know and you to forever wonder, my friend.”

  “I just destroyed my alliance with Winter so you could get that thing. I think I deserve to know what it was all for.” I grabbed it.

  He tugged it away. “No, you didn’t. You broke your alliance so you could get your soul.”

  “Yeah, but taking the soul didn’t set off the alarm. That was you.”

  “How do you know?” He tried to pull it away, but this time I was prepared. My fingers pinched the cloth covering so that when he jerked his treasure to one side, it came away revealing a slab of red sandstone.

  “A rock?” I growled and tossed the cloth aside. “You did all this for a big, red rock? We could’ve grabbed one of those from the side of the road!”

  “It’s not just any rock.” Finn retrieved the cloth and wrapped the stone carefully back up. “It’s a speaking stone, one of three in all of Faerie. Put them together and they have near limitless power, or so the legend goes. Can’t say I particularly care about that aspect.”

  “If you don’t want it for the magic, then why steal it?”

  He waved his hand around it and shadow swirled, enveloping the stone. When the shadow lifted it was gone, transported to wherever Finn had sent it. “You ask a lot of questions. One might say too many, especially considering the nature of
such questions might be unhealthy for you.”

  “That a threat?” I gripped my staff, ready to defend in case he attacked me. If I was dead, he wouldn’t have to uphold his end of the bargain.

  Finn smirked. “I don’t have time for threats. If I want you dead, you’ll be dead, and you won’t see it coming.” He made a sweeping bow, throwing one hand up behind him. “I believe this concludes our current business then. Unless you want me to remove the spell from your lady friend now? Or shall we schedule it for a future date?”

  Car tires screeched and Foxglove’s Kia skidded to a halt at the end of the alley. The rear passenger door opened and Emma stepped out, fuming so much the raindrops practically turned to steam when they hit her.

  I considered telling Finn we should take care of it now, but I was worried Loki would hurt her if we did, and I still needed to secure an angel’s soul. Until I was sure I had everything I needed, I couldn’t risk it. “When the weather clears,” I said to Finn. “The minute it does, I want you to meet me at this address.” I tugged a scrap of paper from my pocket, scribbled my address on it—not easy, considering the drizzle—and handed it to him.

  Finn glanced at the address, smiled, and saluted me. “In case I don’t see you again, may you find your way to Heaven before the Devil knows you’re dead.” He stepped backward, fading into the shadow of a dumpster, and was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  To say Emma wasn’t happy about the stunt I pulled was an understatement. She rode all the way across town in the back of Foxglove’s car with a scowl on her face and her arms crossed, even after I explained why I let Finn go.

  “What matters is that we got the soul we needed,” I said, wiggling my staff in my hand. “Now all we need is the angel.”