When I finally jog to a stop at the edge of the landing field, it’s a cold relief to see that the Valkyrie is still there, with no sign of Amara or her armored entourage. The field watchman says he hasn’t seen anyone either, so I sit down on the grass, close my eyes, and try to catch my breath.
Even jaguars get tired.
As I sit there I hear footsteps approaching on the grass, and I crack my eyes to see Rajani walking up. She sits down next to me.
After a moment she says, “You know, you just ran out of a meeting with the most powerful woman in the entire world.”
I shrug. “I guess.”
“You also said the word dick in front of her, like, a lot.”
I grin. “Maybe once or twice.”
“So what now? Amara still has the crystals.”
I stand up. “Then we get them back.”
“But how do we find her?”
I scratch my nose. “I have my ways.”
Ten minutes later we’re in the White Jacana, a small theater in a quiet neighborhood, backstage in a dressing room, and I have two young actors shoved up against a wall, and they’re both babbling over each other so loudly that I can’t tell what either one is saying. I wouldn’t have touched them, but they came at me with prop swords when they saw my jaguar spots. Thanks again, Mother.
“Shut up!” I shake them, and they shut up.
Rajani clears her throat. “You know, I kind of thought you were going to use your jaguar senses to sniff out Princess Amara. You know, because of the way you scratched your nose back when I asked how we would find her.”
I look at her with a raised eyebrow. “My nose isn’t that magical. I can’t find one person in a huge city like this.” Turning back to the actors, I say, “Now, let’s try this again. Where can I find Amara and her boyfriend?”
“Probably at his place,” one of them grunts. “He lives a few blocks from here, on the Street of the Giraffe.”
I glance at Rajani. “You know where that is?”
She nods nervously.
“Excellent!” I drop the two actors. “Now, I have very good hearing. So I want you to sit here, very still, and count to a hundred, very loud. And if I don’t hear what I want to hear from this room, I’ll come back and break all of your arms. Off.”
They nod and start counting, slowly and in unison, like schoolchildren.
Back out on the street, as Rajani leads the way toward the Street of the Giraffe, she asks me, “Can you really hear them counting back in the theater?”
I laugh. “Nope. I just wanted them to give us a nice long head start before they tell anyone they saw us.”
The Street of the Giraffe turns out to be a very long street indeed, stretching off to our left and right for block after block, and lined with small houses that all look depressingly identical, aside from their bright pastel paint jobs. And in between those houses are hundreds of pedestrians, mostly parents and children, but also quite a few street vendors trying to get the attention of those parents and their children with carts full of sweets and toys and small clothing.
I wince. It smells like candy-coated dung.
Rajani shrugs. “How do we find them in all this?”
I sigh. “Hang on.” I turn to the lamppost on the street corner and quickly climb the iron pole, which is painted green and yellow, and at the top I balance on the small iron hood of the lamp, high above the crowd, and I start looking. I don’t know what I’m looking for, exactly, but it doesn’t take long to spot the two armored men, one of whom answers to the name Obatunde, and I drop back to the ground before anyone seems too annoyed at my acrobatics. “This way!”
We jog down the street, dodging around playing children and bellowing salesmen, and before Rajani can tell me not to, I walk straight up to the two guards and say, “Hey boys, we need to chat with your boss.”
They reach for their swords.
“Vinesvinesvines!” Rajani waves her hands and her little green friends dash out of her hair and whirl around the two men’s hands, weaving bundles of green vines out of thin air to lash their hands to their swords, and their swords to their belts. The faeries flit back into their refuge, leaving both men grunting and straining to pull their hands free of the awkward knots of plant life on their waists.
“Sorry,” Rajani says. “I’m just really tired of all the fighting. Can we just talk, please? Like reasonable adults?”
“Unless you want more attention.” I gesture to the street full of curious children who fell silent at the appearance of the faeries and are now continuing to stare at us.
Obatunde glares at us, then glances at his partner and says, “You stay out here. I’ll take them inside.”
So we follow him into the sunny sitting room of a small house where we interrupt a hushed conversation between a lovely young man and a tall young woman wearing too much gold jewelry.
“Howdy, Jingles.” I nod at the princess.
She glares back. “My name is Amara.”
“Bitchy princesses with noisy hair who throw me in prison for no good reason get called Jingles,” I say reasonably. “So, I just had a fascinating chat with your mom. She cried quite a bit. But don’t worry, we don’t want any trouble. We just need a certain something, a bag with some crystals, you know the one. Give it back. Now.”
“Amara?” The youth looks to her with his dark, worried eyes.
“No need to worry. Just go upstairs, darling.” The princess gently pushes him toward the steps.
“No, no. No need for that,” I say, beckoning him back. “He’s a big part of your life and he shouldn’t be shoved off stage when things get interesting. This is his house, after all. What’s your name, fella?”
“Okoro,” the youth says with a nervous smile.
“Hello Okoro. Nice to meet you. You have a lovely home.”
“Thank you,” he says hesitantly.
“Okoro, you might be interested to know that I had a very interesting meeting this morning with your…” I’m going to say something that I think sounds clever and cruel, but I’m running out of steam here. I’m tired of this game. I thought my little chat with the empress had calmed me down, but really it just helped me to focus. I’m done with this. I turn back to the princess. “Screw it. Just give us the damn crystals.”
Amara narrows her eyes. “Or what?”
I blink. “Seriously? You’re a walking skeleton and I’m half-jaguar. Do you actually need to hear me threaten you? Fine. Give us the crystals or I will kill you.”
“No, you won’t,” she says smugly.
“Probably not,” I agree. “But I will break your legs, and then Raj here will heal you, and then I’ll break them again, you bony sack of crap.”
Obatunde lunges at me. I slam my palm into the warrior’s chest and send him flying back against the wall, breathless and shaking. I never take my eyes off the princess. “You know, I hate violence, and this is stacking up to be the most violent day of my life, thanks to you. And that’s saying a lot, seeing as how I got half my face burned off yesterday. So how about those crystals, before I really lose my temper?”
“Obatunde,” Amara never takes her eyes off me either. “Please step outside and await my signal.”
The warrior nods and leaves, one hand still pressed to his aching chest.
“Crystals.” I hold out my empty hand. “Now.”
A high-pitched squeal out in the street makes me flinch, and a moment later I hear the dull thud of a small explosion high above us. I dash to the window and look up to see a thin trail of black smoke from the street up into the sky, and there, hanging motionless, is a blossoming mass of red smoke. “What the… oh hell. Signal flare.”
“You have about two minutes before an entire legion of city watchmen arrive to arrest you,” Amara says. “And this time, I’ll be long gone in that lovely ship of yours before you see the light of day again.”
I squeeze the window sill until the wood cracks and splits against my palms. “Fine. You win.”
/>
“Of course I win.” The princess inspects her nails.
“I agree to your terms,” I tell her with a vicious smile. “It’s a deal!”
She looks up, frowning. “To what deal are you referring?”
“We kidnap you, and you get an all-expenses paid non-stop flight to the long-lost city of the dead.” I grab her by the neck and bend her down toward Okoro. “Say goodbye, kiss kiss, I love you.”
“What?” Amara looks baffled as a frightened Okoro kisses her.
I yank her away, right past a stunned Rajani, and kick the front door open. The two bodyguards already have a handful of red-cloaked watchmen waiting for us in the street, and the watchmen have their alchemic flintlocks raised and ready. I shove Amara out in front of me, keeping a firm grip on her neck, and we march out into the sunlight.
“Classic kidnapping folks, nothing to see here,” I call out. “Standard rules apply. You back off or I break her neck, got it?”
“No, stop, please!” Amara struggles weakly and starts coughing and wheezing. “I assure you, there are far better ways to manage this situation.”
“Gen, what are you doing?” Rajani whispers behind me. She’s clutching Amara’s cane and I see a familiar bag on her shoulder. “Okoro gave me the crystals. Let’s just go!”
“Well, either we use Princess Hostage to cover our escape back to the ship, or we get arrested again and hope the empress isn’t too annoyed that I just threatened to kill her daughter in the street.”
“This is getting way, way out of hand!” She shakes her head. “I vote we take our chances with the empress.”
One of the watchmen fires. The glowing green round whistles just past my ear and hits the house, where its acid hisses as it consumes the paint and wood.
“Overruled,” I growl.
The chase back to the ship is pretty crazy. Half the time I’m carrying Amara because her spindly legs aren’t fast enough to keep up with us, and the other half of the time I’m carrying both of them so we can jump over a fence or an inconveniently overturned cart of fruit in the middle of a road. Men and women in red cloaks lunge out of alleys and fire from rooftops, and the small army chasing behind us grows by the second, but we’re faster. Or at least, I’m faster. And when they get too close I hold up the princess in my spotted hands and threaten to break her in half.
I wish I really could just break her in half.
So there’s running and shooting, and I have to throw a few unripe avocados at a few faces, but we reach the landing field a few steps ahead of them, and Rajani fumbles the crystals back into the console, and just as three dozen soldiers unleash a barrage of acidic gunfire at us, we fly away.
A quarter league, straight up.
I drop Amara on the deck and slump down onto a bench seat to catch my breath. “Rajani? You okay?”
She nods and gives me a shaky thumbs-up.
“What about you, Jingles? You still alive?”
Amara pulls herself up to the railing and looks down at the tiny white city, muttering, “We’re away… we’re really away… we got away from them…”
“Yes, we did.” I heave one last sigh. “Well, now that that’s all over, Rajani, take us down somewhere outside the city so our hostage can get thrown out on her ass.”
“What?! No! You can’t!” Amara spins to stare at me, her eyes wide with genuine shock. “What of the terms of our deal? You agreed to take me to Yas Yagaroth!”
“I lied.” I stare at her. “Seriously. Arresting us. Robbing us. Attacking us. Any of this ringing any bells? Yeah? I’m not making any deals with you. You’re going straight back home.”
Her hand whisks into and out of her heavy blue robe and now there is long golden pistol in her long bony fingers. She thumbs the ornate hammer, and I can see the dark bullet sitting in the hand-sculpted barrel as she aims at my face.
I shake my head. “You stupid son of a…”
She reverses the gun in a deft gesture, offering the grip to me and pointing the barrel at the deck.
“Genesee Marev, if you take me to the city of Yas Yagaroth, then I will be your truest ally for every moment of our venture,” she says. “I will safeguard your lives, and follow your every order. My knowledge will be at your command, and my wealth will be yours to spend as you desire. As long as you swear to help me find the ancient Yagari healing device, then I will help you in any and every task you wish. You have my word.”
“Oh, I have your word?” I roll my eyes.
“I, Princess Amara Zarinde, do hereby solemnly swear upon the sacred life of my beloved unborn child,” she pronounces in a very official voice. The golden gun trembles in her hand. “I will… I will serve you, Genesee Marev, with my very life.”
I look at Rajani. She shrugs at me, saying, “She may be a selfish jerk, but I don’t think she’s a liar. Plus, it’s not like she’s very tough. I mean, heck, I could probably take her in a fair fight myself, and I’m about as dangerous as a bag full of kittens.”
I look at Amara. I am low on money, and she apparently knows a lot about this Yagaroth place, and it’s not like she has any more armed guards hidden up her ass, so… shit. I know I’m going to regret this, but I’m just so damn tired. “All right, listen up. You so much as twitch the wrong way, you step one little toe out of line, and I will make you wish we’d dropped you in the desert. Do I make myself clear?”
She lowers her weapon. “Crystal.”
“Fine.” I rub my eyes and sit back down.
“But just to be super clear, I won’t let you hurt anyone here,” Rajani says as she pulls out her twin-bladed dragon bone knife and points it at Amara.
The princess frowns at her. “Somehow, I doubt it’s in your nature to stab a pregnant woman.”
“It’s not.” The knife clicks twice and a small crack of lightning shoots out of the gap between its two blades and strikes Amara’s hand, making her drop the golden pistol and recoil in shock.
For a moment, neither one moves. Then Amara says, “Point taken.”
“Super.” Rajani sheathes the knife with a smile.
Amara bends down slowly to retrieve her gun, and then sits down as she says to me, “You’ll forgive me for observing, Miss Marev, that you don’t look particularly well.”
“I’m just tired,” I mutter, closing my eyes, trying to sink into oblivion. “And dying.”
“Dying?” The princess sounds almost sincerely concerned. Almost.
“Yeah, dying.” I sigh. “What, you thought you were the only one? News flash. Other people have problems too.”
“Are you… contagious?”
I crack my eyes and see her cradling her belly in a protective fashion. I shake my head. “No. Not contagious. Cursed.”
“I see,” she says softly.
“Take a nap, honey.” Rajani pulls a blanket out from one of her many bags under the seats. “You’ll feel better.”
“No, I’m not sleepy.” I wrap the blanket around my shoulders. The air up here is freezing. I close my eyes anyway and try not to replay any of the day’s events in my head, and instead I’m treated to a montage of angry faces and fists and swords, and the sounds of things breaking, and people screaming. “I’m just so damn tired of… her. Tired of chasing her. Tired of… being her.”
“You’re not your mom,” Rajani says quickly.
“Maybe not yet.” I look at her through my narrowed lashes. “But soon. Before I left home, I’d never so much as slapped a horny boy. And now look at me, look at my life. Stomping kareens, breaking dragon jaws, and beating on soldiers… chasing, screaming, fighting… killing probably isn’t far off now.” I swallow and cover my eyes with my hand. Sitting here, sitting still, flying safely above the world and all its people, I feel the snakes wrapped around my heart go slack, letting me breathe, letting me rest. Letting me think, and feel.
And it feels terrible.
I want to go home, but back home there is a sad woman preparing to give birth to a little girl with spotted hands
and terrible strength. A little girl who will have so many questions, so many fears…
I exhale slowly. “Raj, are you up for a few hours of flying?”
“As long as there’s no more running or shooting or iron cages, that sounds just fine.”
“Great.” I reach out and tap the crystal globe, pointing out the next closest glowing dot. “Let’s find my mother. Let’s finish this, before it gets any worse. Before I get any worse.”
Episode 3
“Welcome to the island of Moa Taka.” Rajani swings the Valkyrie in a wide arc above the small island so we can get a good look at it. Once upon a time, a volcano pushed up out of the sea to form this tiny dot in the middle of nowhere, but I guess the volcano died because the south half of the island is gone, just gone, like a huge sea dragon rose up and swallowed it, leaving a sheer cliff and a few jagged rocks in the shadow of the broken mountain. “According to the map, there’s another crystal ship down there somewhere.”
“That’s a lot of boats.” I count more than two dozen sailing ships anchored off the north shore with dozens more long boats tied up on the beaches, and a hundred campfires burning around a small shanty town at the edge of the jungle. The firelight dances on the dark waves as the stars blaze overhead with a cold, clear light.
“Indeed.” Princess Amara shivers under her coats and blankets. “But I see no sign of Lozen’s crystal ship. Surely we would see it shining in the darkness if it were down there.”
“It’s down there,” I mutter. “And so is she. I can feel it.”
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t feel anything. My fingers have been entirely numb for quite some time now, trapped in this accursed little boat, exposed to the elements.” Amara pulls her blanket tighter around her thin shoulders. “I insist that we land immediately and make camp for the night.”
“You insist?” I raise an eyebrow at her.
“I… suggest,” she says icily. “From great fatigue, and with great sincerity.”
“And great chilliness.” Rajani rubs her arm vigorously. “You poor thing, you’re freezing.”
Elf Saga: Bloodlines (Part 1: Curse of the Jaguar) Page 8
