by E.J. Stevens
The Piper opened his eyes and I gasped. The faerie’s eyes glowed red—the eyes of a demon. Perhaps the demon flute exacted its own price, opening a conduit to Hell and changing the user into one of Hell’s minions. The force of those eyes bored into my skull and I cried out. I needed to recite the prayer from Father Michael’s text message, but I felt the phone slip from my hand.
I slid down to my knees beside the phone. I panted and shook my head, trying to fight the faerie’s compulsion. But the combination of demon and faerie magic was too overpowering. I looked up into the face of The Piper and for one moment, the red eyes and youthful face was a thing of beauty.
“Poison Ivy, duck!” Marvin yelled.
When did Marvin get here? My magic-addled brain couldn’t process the unexpected information.
Something large and spherical flew over my head and hit The Piper squarely in the chest. Still on my knees, my jaw dropped as a cloud of pixies enveloped The Piper’s head and torso. As The Piper fought off the pixies, my head began to clear.
Marvin had thrown an entire pixie nest at The Piper. The kid had told me once before that the evil little critters didn’t bother his thick troll hide, but it took guts to carry an entire nest of hibernating pixies across the city.
Pixies not only cause an itchy rash when they lick their victims, they are also equipped with a hypodermic sized stinger. Each stinger is filled with a toxin strong enough to paralyze an elephant. An entire hive of pixies was swarming The Piper, using their stingers to show their anger for the person who destroyed their nest.
Marvin had just hit The Piper with a paralyzing pixie grenade. The kid was a genius.
The Piper was playing the demon flute one-handed as he fought off the pixies, but his motions were sluggish. The faerie was quickly becoming incapacitated, but the Dance Macabre continued. The conduit to Hell was too strong.
It was time to recite the prayer.
“Saint Michael the Archangel defend us in battle!” I yelled. “Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio, contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium. Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur, tuque, Princeps militiae coelestis, satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute, in infernum detrude. Amen.”
A bright, ivory light poured down from the sky illuminating the flute in The Piper’s hand. As the light struck The Piper’s hand, the demon flute glowed red and fell from his grasp. I could immediately feel the power of the spell dissipating.
I struggled to pull myself to my feet, but kept my distance from The Piper who was still surrounded by a swarm of angry pixies. The pixies flew in a flurry of beautiful wings, jabbing at him with their stingers. The red glow went out of The Piper’s eyes and he fell to the ground paralyzed.
The beam of white light panned over the circle of children and the risen dead, continuing to break The Piper’s spell. Depending on their states of decay the dead either collapsed where they stood or returned to the earth, clawing their way into nearby graves.
The children stopped dancing, halting mid-step. Jinx was immediately there to offer comfort and pull each child away from the dead and back toward the cemetery gates. I smiled. I could trust my friend to get the children safely home.
I nodded and turned back to The Piper. I had to find a way to keep the faerie incapacitated and secure the demon flute, but a long-lived murderer and a Hell-forged instrument were two things I really didn’t want to come into contact with. I pocketed my phone and raked a hand through my hair. The angry pixies that continued to swarm over The Piper’s body added to my unease.
I was still trying to find a solution when a corpse lumbered over to the faerie’s immobile form. The zombie turned to face me and let out a hissing moan. I took a step back and bent low, retrieving the dagger from my boot. When facing an angry zombie, two knives are better than one. I held the dagger in my left hand and the throwing knife in my right.
I relaxed my stance and shifted my weight to the balls of my feet, ready to spring forward. The Piper may not be my favorite guy at the moment, but I wasn’t about to let him become zombie food. If the corpse looked like he was in the mood for brains, I’d have to send him back to his grave with an empty stomach. I wasn’t about to let the monster feed on someone with a bloodstream full of pixie toxin. That just wasn’t a fair fight.
The zombie lunged forward, grabbing at The Piper and the pixies flew up into the air. I sighed, so much for playing nice. I sprung forward, trying to reach The Piper, but lost my footing.
The ground beneath my feet shook and I went down to my knees. I winced as rocks dug into my jeans. The ground rolled and heaved like it was in the throes of an earthquake. I dug my gloved fingers into grass and soil and held on for the ride.
I kept my eyes on the zombie, ready to launch myself forward as soon as I could stand without falling on my butt. He continued to hold The Piper by his shirt like a rag doll. With a great crack, a chasm opened between us.
My stomach twisted. I had a bad feeling about where that chasm led.
The zombie slung The Piper into a fireman’s carry and jumped into the fissure. A red glow lit the faerie’s face. The Piper looked at me in supplication, but in a flash of light he was gone. I crawled forward, but in a puff of brimstone the chasm closed, the earth swallowing the two men whole.
I coughed and sat back on my heels. Well, that was one problem solved. I was pretty sure The Piper wouldn’t be stealing any more children. It seemed poetic that the man who made a deal with a demon to collect and condemn the souls of children to an eternity in Hell should now join those souls.
But The Piper’s trip to Hell didn’t mean the end of the devilry. I had to make sure the demon flute didn’t fall into the wrong hands. I crawled back and forth searching the ground for the demon flute, but to no avail. It was gone. All that was left was a patch of scorched earth where I’d last seen The Piper and his flute. Perhaps the instrument had also been carried to Hell, returned to the forge where it had been wrought.
I pulled myself to my feet, brushing clumps of grave dirt off my jeans, and gave myself a moment to catch my breath. I let my head fall back to look at the night sky, a slow smile forming on my lips. We’d done it. The Piper and his evil Danse Macabre had been stopped. The children were safe.
I turned an ecstatic smile to Marvin. His sudden appearance and ingenious use of a pixie nest had made The Piper’s defeat possible. If the kid was standing closer, I’d give him a high-five. Coming from me, that was high praise.
Marvin began to smile and wave, but his large hand halted in mid-motion. His eyes widened and the skin at my neck prickled.
“Ivy, look out!” Marvin screamed.
I spun in time to see the fight between Melusine and Ceff steamrollering toward me. I dove aside, out of their path. I continued rolling to my right, narrowly avoiding the lamia’s lashing tail. The two were locked in heated battle, and Ceff was losing.
I gasped and came up into a fighting crouch. Heart racing, I looked for an opportunity to join the fight. But Melusine and Ceff’s bodies were pressed close together and moving fast. If I threw my knife, I’d risk hitting Ceff.
Melusine lunged toward Ceff’s head and he struggled to take a step back and duck out of reach. Melusine didn’t even appear winded, but even over the earplugs I could hear Ceff’s breath coming hard and ragged. His clothes were torn and bloodied, the shirt he wore mere tattered scraps of fabric. Ceff was obviously still suffering from the effects of iron poisoning, which put him at a disadvantage. At the last moment it became apparent that the lunge toward Ceff’s head was just a feint, but it was too late.
Ceff’s reflexes were fast, but Melusine was faster. Melusine halted the forward motion of her lunge with a jerk and swung her tail out in a foot sweep. The move took Ceff off his feet, using his momentum against him. Ceff tumbled painfully onto his back, hitting his head and knocking the air from his lungs. I tensed, still looking for an opening.
Melusine slithered a
top Ceff, arms astride his shoulders. She sniffed along his body, venomous fangs inches from his skin. Her lips formed a cruel smile and she lifted one of her arms to retrieve a knife from behind her head. Her hair tumbled down to brush Ceff’s face and neck. The bitch had kept the knife hidden in her hair.
Ceff’s trident had fallen from his hand and he didn’t move a muscle to defend himself. I studied Ceff’s face, but his eyelids remained shut. His chest rose and fell slightly—he was alive—but the blow to his head must have knocked him unconscious.
“If you will not love me, then you shall pay,” she said. “Goodbye, husband.”
Melusine held the blade above Ceff’s chest and licked her lips. Carving her ex-husband’s still-beating heart from his chest was evidently Melusine’s twisted version of justice—a heart for a heart. No way was I going to let that happen.
I sprinted forward, dagger in one hand, throwing knife in the other, and launched myself onto Melusine’s back. She reared up, arching her back, trying to reach me with her blade. I wrapped an arm around her neck and slipped my throwing knife back into its forearm sheath in an effort to keep my hold on the thrashing lamia. I dug my left hand into her hair and held on tight.
I maintained my grip on the dagger, but it wasn’t easy. Something cold and scaly brushed against my skin where the sleeve of my jacket had pulled away from my glove, leaving my wrist exposed. A vision of a mouse being dangled from Melusine’s fingertips as a tasty treat intruded into my mind, but I kept my arm bent in a choke hold and held onto the dagger at her throat.
Melusine’s pet snake had joined my arm around her neck. The good news was that snake brains don’t make for very intense visions. I’d managed to maintain my choke hold through the minor vision. The bad news? Melusine’s pet was a venomous pit viper.
“You are nothing but a half-breed, a rodent to crush and bleed,” Melusine shrieked. “I will kill you and my unfaithful husband both!”
Melusine swung forward, throwing me off balance. I was slung over her shoulder to come face to face with her pet. The pit viper glared at me with slit eyes and sunk its fangs into my wrist. Indescribable pain burst through my arm as venom shot into my bloodstream. I lost my grip on my dagger and my arm fell from Melusine’s neck.
I swung further forward, barely managing to hold onto Melusine’s hair with one hand. I tried a spinning kick to her ribs, but didn’t have enough leverage. Instead, I left my flank open to attack. Melusine struck, whipping her head down as I swung in a lazy arc. Flesh and leather tore as the lamia’s fangs punctured my side.
Now I could add lamia venom to the killing cocktail in my veins.
Melusine shook her head, tearing her fangs free. Bloody spittle sprayed across my jeans with the movement. Sparks of light flashed in my peripheral vision; a likely precursor to blacking out. I noticed all of this as I fell in slow motion to hit the ground.
Strangely, I didn’t feel the impact as I hit. Cold crept through my limbs as life poured from my body to soak the grass where Ceff still lay unconscious. I clamped my hand onto the wound in my side and tried to staunch the bleeding with fingers gone stiff and clumsy. I dug my boot into the turf and tried to push myself up, but something wet tore inside my gut and I gagged. This must be what it feels like to die.
I was so weak I could barely lift my head—and Melusine damn well knew it. With a mad gleam in her eye, Melusine spit my blood at Ceff and raised her blade a foot above his chest. The bitch was going to kill us both, but first she’d make me watch as she cut out my boyfriend’s still-beating heart.
No way was I going to let that happen. I gathered my anger to me like an old friend. I wasn’t going down without a fight.
My skin flashed warm, then molten hot and began to glow. The cold slush in my veins was replaced by liquid fire. The sparks of light that I’d mistaken for the beginning signs of unconsciousness gathered around me in a burning cloud of light—and power.
Fire rushed through my body to burn away the venom’s deadly chill. Energy poured into me as I drew power from the wisps that had come to heed my call. With renewed strength, I pushed myself up into a sitting position. I slid my last throwing knife from its sheath and pinched the blade between the fingers of blood-slick gloves. I held my arm straight and raised it above my head. In one lightening fast move, I flung my arm forward and released the blade.
The knife struck Melusine between the eyes.
I gasped. The blade shouldn’t have flown true. I hadn’t been standing in a proper throwing stance and my gloves were slippery with blood and other fluids.
Melusine dropped the blade from her hand and toppled over, a surprised look on her face. Part of her large body fell atop Ceff and I tried to rush forward. I had to make sure that Ceff was all right. A seven foot tall lamia was no lightweight. I staggered toward Ceff, but the strength that had filled me seconds before was gone.
I fell to the ground beside Melusine’s discarded blade, vision fading. As I began my descent into the oblivion of unconsciousness, or possibly death, I sent up one last prayer that Ceff had survived.
The last thing I saw as sleep pulled me under was my own reflection in Melusine’s blade—my eyes glowing like the sun.
Chapter 24
Nightmares tore at my mind—rats drawing blood, children dancing hand-in-hand with the dead, Marvin’s cry of warning, the whip-fast lash of a serpent’s tail, and fangs dripping deadly venom. The images burned like the fever raging through my body. I was caught in a typhoon of fear and fire, not sure if I’d ever find my way home.
In the distance, a man held a lantern aloft to guide my footsteps. If only I could find solid ground beneath my feet. My boots made a sucking sound with each step. The bog was pulling me under, trying to swallow me whole.
I took a step forward and plunged into cold water. I held my breath and struggled to find my way out. When my boots hit something solid, I kicked and thrashed. My head broke the surface and I coughed up foul tasting water, gasping for air.
I spun in a circle, blinking water and mud from my eyes as I searched for the man and his lantern. There. I swam toward the man, but the lantern flame flickered with an eerie light and I hesitated. The kind face I’d expected looked frightening in the spectral glow. This man wasn’t my savior, he was a monster.
I thrashed my arms and legs, struggling to escape. Water weighted down my clothes and mud sucked at my limbs. I lost sight of the lantern light as my world was consumed by darkness and the nightmares that linger there.
Chanting and incense joined the images of my dreams and I floated, helpless, like a leaf on the surface of a raging river. I was caught by the currents of my fevered mind, condemned to smash against the rocks of my fears and memories.
Was I dying? If this was death, I wished it would get on with it already. I always thought that death would bring an end to the nightmares, but this world in between the dead and the living was even more frightening than my life had been.
If there was a chance at living, I would grab it and hold on tight. But there was no life preserver here, not even a piece of driftwood. There were only monsters hissing and growling in the dark. My heart raced and I reached for my knives, but they were gone. I had no weapons here. All I had was fear and pain and the certainty that I was in this alone.
The monsters drew closer scenting my fear like sharks drawn to a single drop of blood. My body shook as I tread water. I was without both weapons and armor. My leather jacket was gone and, in the way of nightmares, I was wearing only a camisole and panties. My skin was naked, exposed.
I tried to be quiet, but failed to hold my breath and calm the shaking. The monsters would find me soon and when they did I wasn’t sure what I was afraid of most—their killing teeth and claws or the simple brush of their touch.
I slipped beneath the waves and deeper into the abyss.
*****
I emerged from the depths of my nightmares to a new series of fears. I awoke in my body, but found that I couldn’t move my arms
or legs or open my eyes. There was nothing except darkness and pain and the staccato beat of my heart.
My body, and the pain, seemed real. I didn’t think I was still trapped in that in-between realm of fever dreams, but that didn’t mean I was safe from monsters. I needed to move, to hide, and grab my weapons. I focused on trying to move my right arm and red hot needles stabbed my nerve endings. I sucked in a gasping breath and stilled, catching a familiar scent.
I sniffed at the air and my racing heart slowed. I smelled salt brine, cool skin, and sea breezes—Ceff’s individual scent. I didn’t like being defenseless, but at least Ceff was here, wherever here was. If someone threatened, he would protect me.
I tried to recall my last memory before I blacked out. I’d been battling Melusine in the city cemetery, but the details were blurred. I had a feeling that the fight hadn’t gone well.
I needed information, and that meant opening my eyes and getting back on my feet. Maybe I could succeed if I started small—baby steps. I ignored the pain and focused on my feet. I hoped that my lower extremities hadn’t been injured as badly as my arms. I tried to wiggle just my toes, but the attempt brought on a wave of nausea. I couldn’t move a muscle.
Melusine and her pet snake had done a number on me. I suppose under the circumstances I was lucky to be here at all. If I was conscious, then I must have survived the fight—unless this was one of the circles of Hell.
I was a survivor; I preferred to think on the bright side. I’d fought a psycho crazed lamia and lived. Not bad for someone who’d only had a couple years of self defense classes and a few intensive months of weapons training under her belt.
I’d begun training with Jenna back in December in the hopes that I could add the knowledge to what I knew of self defense and use the new skills in the protection of those I cared about. After the each uisge invasion of my city, I’d worked hard to stay fit, but when I faced a redcap ambush over the holidays, I realized that basic self-defense wasn’t enough. If I truly wanted to defend myself and my colleagues, then I needed to take Jenna up on her offer to train me in the use of weapons. The Hunter didn’t come cheap, but business had been good lately—and now I’d faced a jealous lamia and lived.
