by Robyn Bachar
“Right. I don’t suppose the GPS on your phone works?” he asked.
“That’s a negative. I don’t think I can Google Chicago labyrinth and find us a map either. Do you want to go west toward the suburbs or east toward the city?”
“Could go north, toward the house.”
I glanced north, and a bolt of forked lightning flashed in the distance, followed by an angry bellow of thunder. “Screw that, it’s too ominous. I say, if this is the zombie apocalypse, we go east, because Harrison Tower’s probably ground zero.”
“Do I get to kill sim-Harrison if we meet him?”
“Sure, have a ball,” I said, rolling my eyes.
We went east. I was creeped out by the quiet as Lex and I walked along. Cities should have city noises—car engines, low-flying planes, the drone of heating and cooling systems—but there was only the crackling of various things on fire. No sirens or car alarms, not even screams, except… I tilted my head to the side like Bubba straining to hear a squirrel hiding up a tree.
“You hear that?” Lex asked.
“Yeah. Voices?” I guessed. It was hard to tell. Whatever the noise was, it was pretty far.
“Come on.”
Lex bolted, and I hauled ass to keep up. He was in full-on superhero-guardian mode, and he’d homed in on a target. Suddenly I had a whole new appreciation for how hard it was to be a sidekick. Lex might’ve been dying a few hours ago, but now he sprinted like an Olympian. We booked it for two blocks and then turned right onto a side street and discovered a raging inferno. More than half the buildings on the block were ablaze, and the heat and smoke were almost overwhelming. I poured energy into our shields, and the bubble of protection kept the worst of it out. It was like standing in the middle of a camp fire—or being burned at the stake.
“Whatever you’re thinking, you stay within the damn shields, got it?” I warned him, and he nodded.
“There are people in there.” Lex pointed at a small white church. Voices screamed for help, and someone was belting out a hymn. Boy, were they gonna be surprised by their rescuers. The roof and steeple were burning, and I grabbed Lex before he could charge into it.
“Wait!” No way was I letting him run into a burning building until we did something about the fire first. I glanced up and down the block and spotted a nearby fire hydrant. “There. The hydrant. Can your spear break a hole in it?”
“I’ll try.”
We hurried over to the hydrant, and I punched up our shields as he stabbed his weapon into the top of it. Chunks of metal went flying as a column of water exploded upward, but we were safe from the mess as it bounced off the shields. Edging closer, I stuck my right hand into the geyser, and then thrust my left hand toward the church.
“Put your arms around me,” I ordered.
Lex wrapped his arms around my waist, and I drew on his magic to supplement mine. I shoved frost out through the spray, and freezing sleet splattered in every direction. Thunder rolled again, and I prayed for rain. Weather control was a dead magic, having vanished with the last of the tempests a few generations ago, but it sure would’ve come in handy right about now.
I nudged the direction of the sleet farther toward the church, like repositioning an enormous lawn sprinkler, and after a few tense moments the flames started dying with a chorus of angry hissing. I had to admit, with our combined strength, we were doing pretty awesome. Score one for our team.
“Not bad, sugar,” Lex said.
“Hey, that’s downright amazing. No rhyming necessary.”
When the last of the flames were doused, we headed for the front doors of the church. Lex pushed on them, but they didn’t budge. He banged on the doors. “Hey! Can anybody hear me?”
The shouting inside stopped, as though someone hit Mute on the building. Lex braced his shoulder against the door and shoved, and the wood whined in protest. I stepped back and looked for another way in, and I noticed boards over the windows. In fact, most of the burning buildings were boarded up. Something about it struck me funny, because I hadn’t seen that much plywood since after the Bulls championship riot. Weird…maybe the Cubs had finally won the World Series, and it’d started the apocalypse.
“We’re here to help you,” I shouted. “You don’t have much time. This whole neighborhood’s doing a real good impression of the Great Chicago Fire.”
I heard a metallic clanking from the other side of the doors, and they creaked open a sliver. A double-barreled shotgun poked through the opening, and I was very glad that I’d proved my shields were bulletproof.
“Who are you? What do you want?” a man’s voice demanded.
Lex held his hands up, though it was hard to look nonthreatening carrying a giant silver spear. “I’m Lex, and this is my wife Catherine. We’re here to help you.”
“Are they gone?”
We glanced at each other in confusion. “Who?” Lex asked.
“The demons,” hissed the shotgun-wielder.
Huh. I’d guessed the wrong apocalypse—demons, not zombies. Why demons? Were the faeries playing off my fight with the hunters? I’d handled that pretty well and banished the bastard…banished. My stomach plummeted and my knees buckled. I sat down hard as I remembered the demon’s words—What summoners? They’re all dead. Lord and Lady, I’d forgotten. I was so wrapped up in hating the summoners for selling their services that I’d forgotten what one of those services was—banishing demons.
“Lord and Lady,” I wheezed.
“Cat! What’s wrong?” Lex knelt beside me and looked for injuries.
“No summoners. There’s no one to keep them out,” I blurted.
“What?”
“That’s why the demons are working with the hunters. If they kill all the magicians, there’s no one to keep the demons out. They started with the summoners on purpose.”
Horror dawned across Lex’s face, and then he grabbed me and hugged me for dear life. My heart raced, and I stared at the approaching inferno. Humanity wasn’t equipped to fight demons. If they wiped us out, they’d make themselves sitting ducks for all the truly evil things that went bump in the night. Idiots. I had some choice words for the Prometheans next time we encountered them. They were going to “just following orders” us straight into Armageddon.
“I love you,” I said. I took comfort in his embrace, because Lex was the only real, solid thing in this faerie-induced madness. I loved him, and somehow he and I would figure out how to fix everything before the real world got this bad.
“I love you too. Come on, we need out of this test.” Lex helped me to my feet, and then he shouted into the building. “You want to live, come with us. We can protect you. If you stay here, you’ll all die.”
The double-barrel disappeared, and the doors lurched open. An elderly man wearing a priest’s collar stood holding the gun, and he called out to the people inside the church, telling them it was time to leave. The group spilled out into the street like ducklings following their mother. There were twenty, maybe thirty, people in all, ranging from a screaming baby to an old woman who had to be somebody’s grandma. I couldn’t smell much over the smoke, but I was pretty sure there wasn’t any magic coming off them. What were they? Illusions? Faeries playing a part for the test? I doubted that the council had snatched up real humans and put them through this.
“Now what?” I asked Lex.
“We take them with us,” he replied.
“Where?”
“What are you?” a woman near the front of the group asked. She bore a striking resemblance to Lovely Laura—platinum-blonde hair, pale eyes filled with disgust for me. Not good.
A number of snarky answers flew through my head—I’m Catwoman and this is my husband Batman; I’m a democrat; I’m an angry pregnant woman—but instead I went with, “I’m your rescuer. You’re welcome.”
“You’re one of them. A witch! The devil’s spawn,” she snarled. Ignorant hatred doesn’t do much for the complexion.
“What gave me away? Was it the h
at?” I asked dryly.
Lex shot me an unamused glance. “Please calm down, ma’am. Now if y’all will follow us—”
The angry woman cut him off, ranting something or other about demons and hell and evil. I rolled my eyes and turned to Lex. “Do we have to save her?”
“We’re saving everyone,” he replied, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Guardians. Sigh. “Fine.”
The rest of the group looked on in stunned embarrassment as the woman continued to screech what I assumed were Old Testament verses at us. I drew my rapier, coated the blade with ice, and pointed it at her. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll turn you into a newt,” I threatened. She shut up, and we enjoyed blessed silence.
“I’ll take point. You bring up the rear. Yell if you see anything,” Lex said, and I nodded.
We herded the ducklings away from the burning buildings and back toward the street claiming to be Roosevelt Road. Lex led the group east, and I eyed our surroundings with suspicion. Demons, huh? My demon knowledge was pretty poor. I’d learned more in the past few weeks than I had in my entire life as a witch. I wondered if we could tap Simon and Michael for demon information when we got back. I’d rather talk to them than to Patience.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flicker of movement, and I stopped and peered down a dark alley. It was pitch-black, and a cold knot twisted in my stomach as the shadows roiled in our direction.
“Lex! Incoming!” I yelled.
My sword raised, I started in the direction of the darkness as half a dozen inky blobs broke from the alley. Several of the humans screamed, and I put myself between them and the demons. Lex appeared at my side—damn, he could run—with his weapon at the ready.
“Get them to cover. I can handle this,” Lex said.
My first instinct was to argue with him and inform him that there was no way I’d leave his side, but I knew he was right. Lex could handle a few demons, because he’d whupped worse stuff as a guardian.
“Got it. Be careful.” I backed away from the fight and turned my focus back to the group. “Stay together!” I ordered. “This way, with me.”
I herded them away from the dark alley and looked for somewhere safe to hide them. I paused at the next intersection, and each way was cut off by either fire, overturned vehicles, or both. Cursing loud and long, I looked for other options. A streetlight offered a bright circle of light at the mouth of an alley halfway down the street to my left, with a burning CTA bus overturned just past it.
“This way,” I said. I waved the group toward the streetlight and then led them down the alley. It was bright and not on fire, but it was a dead end. Now what? I stomped my foot in annoyance and realized I was standing atop a storm-sewer grate. Why not, it worked for the ninja turtles… I sheathed my sword, grabbed hold of the grate, and pulled. The rusty edges scraped against the sides of the hole, but it opened.
“Everybody in!”
The preacher looked at me skeptically. “Are you crazy?”
“Yes. This ain’t Florida, there aren’t gators. So get in,” I replied. He hesitated, and I put my hands on my hips. “Contrary to popular belief, demons don’t like the sewers, so we’ll be safe there.”
Which was a statement I completely pulled out of my ass, but I sounded convincing enough to get the group moving again. One by one, they climbed down the ladder into the sewer, and I prayed that there weren’t inky shadow demons on the bottom, gobbling them up as they disappeared out of my sight.
When the last of my charges started down the ladder, I hesitated. I didn’t want to follow until I knew Lex was with us. My hand hovered over the hilt of my rapier as I stared down the alley, and much to my relief Lex barreled around the corner.
“Go,” he shouted.
I hurried down into the storm sewer and frowned in confusion when I reached the bottom of the ladder. This wasn’t right. There was way too much room. The tunnel was spacious, meant for staging fight scenes instead of draining excess rain. Faerie meddling—I hoped that meant we were going the right way. It was damn dark though, and I didn’t have a lighter to cast a fire spell.
“Anybody here a smoker?” I asked. “I need a lighter. Or matches.”
“I have matches,” a voice offered. A middle-aged woman stepped forward, rummaging through her enormous mom purse.
“You okay?” Lex asked as he joined me at the bottom of the ladder.
I hugged him and checked for injuries. No blood, no gaping wounds.
“Yeah. You?”
“Few scratches, nothing big.”
The woman handed me a book of matches, and I had a moment of pause when I recognized the logo of the Three Willows Café, my former place of employment. I peered at her, wondering if she’d been one of my customers… Nah, couldn’t be. More faerie meddling. I struck a match and held it aloft.
“Light that warms and nurtures life,
Pierce the darkness like a knife.
Drive back the black so all can see,
As I will, so mote it be.”
A ball of fire appeared in front of me, lighting the way, and a chorus of gasps whispered through the crowd.
“You see! Witchcraft!” the angry Laura-look-alike snapped.
“No shit, Sherlock. You get a gold star,” I said.
Lex took a step in front of me. “I’m only gonna say this once. We’re the good guys.”
I wanted to hug him for saying that, so I did, just for good measure. “I need to be in front so I can direct the light.”
“All right. You see anything, you wait for me. You go, I go,” he said, and I nodded.
“Just make sure Lovely Laura doesn’t stab me in the back. She’s beginning to damage my calm, and I don’t want to have to kill her again.”
Lex snorted. “Right. Lead on.”
I wasn’t sure what the faeries modeled these storm sewers on, but they had a serious dungeony, catacomb feel to them. My arms crawled with goose pimples, and I shivered in spite of the damp heat. I had no idea where to go, but I soldiered on. A maze should have a center, right? I’d learned to hate mazes, thanks to a corn maze I’d gotten stuck in during college, because Illinois cornfields could go on forever. I assumed there was an end point the faeries meant us to reach, but this wasn’t like any maze I’d heard of before. It was more like a computer game. Oh man, if Cecelia of the Silver Crescent had been playing Resident Evil we were in serious trouble.
I rounded a corner and the ground crumbled beneath my feet. Cursing, I threw my arms out and stumbled backward until I fell on my butt. The group ground to a halt, and my friendly ball of sunlight was almost doused by clouds of dust as the concrete continued to fall away in front of us. When it finally stopped, it revealed a pit filled with long, sharpened wooden spikes, like an old-school tiger trap in a black-and-white movie.
“Tiger trap,” I repeated out loud. Shit, the weretigers were out there somewhere. “Lex?”
“Right here.” He helped me to my feet, and I clung to his arm.
“I don’t think this was meant for us. What do we do?”
“I climb down, help everyone else down, we walk across.”
I shook my head. “Too simple. There’s gotta be a catch.”
I eyed the stakes for a few moments, and then I slipped my hat off and tossed it into the pit. The stakes leapt to life, whipping in the direction of my innocent hat in a cacophony of groaning, popping wood, until one of the stakes speared it. Ouch. Guess it was time for a new trademark accessory.
“We’ll need to find a way over it.”
“Not necessarily.” I pulled my glasses off and cleaned the lenses on the hem of my shirt. “I mean, they’re roots, right?” I popped the glasses back on and stared at the base of the nearest stake. It looked as though it was growing out of dirt, not buried in concrete.
“Looks like it. You want to burn them up?”
“Not in this enclosed space. We’d be safe in our shields, but the straights would die of smoke inhalation.” I rubbed
my hands together and took a centering breath. “You’re forgetting the other thing that kills plants dead.”
“A weed-whacker?” he teased.
“Winter.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I knelt and placed the palms of my hands on the edge of the drop off, and I called on the frost in my blood again. My special faerie heritage was going the extra mile today, and I made a note to hug Portia when we got home. The temperature around me dropped, and cold air whooshed in and out of my lungs. My fingers numbed, and I opened my eyes to see a white wave of killing frost spreading from my hands, down the wall, and into the pit. It crept forward, inch by inch. The wooden stakes seemed to whine in protest as the cold enveloped them. I wondered if they were intelligent, and I had a moment of guilt, but it was the council’s fault for putting them in my way. Better frosty stakes than impaled people.
“How is she doing that?” someone asked. I thought I recognized it as the priest’s voice.
“She’s part faerie,” Lex replied, and I heard a childish gasp from farther back in the crowd.
“Like Tinkerbell?” a little girl asked.
“Yup, like Tinkerbell,” Lex confirmed.
Great. That’s me. Catherine Duquesne. Part witch, part sorcerer, part Tinkerbell.
When the frost reached the other side I let the magic go, and Lex helped me to my feet. “You’re freezing,” he said, briskly rubbing my hands.
“Frost faerie,” I replied matter-of-factly. “Let’s go before it melts.”
“Right. Father, can you help people up on the other side?”
“Yes, of course,” the priest replied.
Lex jumped, and then helped the priest down. I watched as the man wove a path through the stakes, and he made it to the other side in one piece. We helped the group down—the baby was a tense moment, and it continued to wail in anger the whole way, not that I blamed the poor kid. The frost was beginning to fade on the stakes by the time we hustled the last straight across the pit. Ominous creaking followed us as we headed to the other side. Lex boosted me up and I scrambled up and over the edge. I turned around and held my hand out to him, and damn was he heavy.
