Trickster Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 2)

by Cedar Sanderson

  “I know you,” the crow squawked at us. Bella jumped in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting a talking bird.

  “I was with Raven when your last messenger arrived.” I told Daniken, who was possessing the bird. I wasn’t happy with her methods, but preferred the bird to something larger and with more teeth.

  “Yes...” She looked back toward the Kyuden. “And now you are in my enemy’s house. Who are you?”

  I shrugged. “A lowly pixie.” Bella stayed silent.

  “Meet me.” The crow dropped a wingfeather and launched itself off the branch, flapping rapidly away.

  Bella reached for the feather, and I caught at her shoulder. “Wait!”

  But it was too late. She had touched the feather and the spell snapped around both of us. It wasn’t a long trip, and Bella could have burst it, I was sure, but we decided to let it play out, and see what was waiting for us at the other end.

  The first thing I saw, when the bubble popped, was the dragon. It was curled up, tail over its nose, looking miserable. Daniken, seeing what I was looking at, snapped.

  “You hurt my pet!”

  I glanced at her. She was wearing an odd dress, seemingly made up of rags and furs. Her hair was a wild mess, tangled and flying around her head. Her pale face was flushed with anger. “He was trying to kill us.” I pointed out mildly and walked over to the big scaly head. I heard Bella draw in her breath, behind me, in what wasn’t quite a gasp.

  The dragon moved his tail, and opened his dinner-plate sized eyes. “Meep?”

  “People burn.” I told him sternly. “No fire.”

  “Meep.” He whimpered. I reached out and put a hand on his nose. He was burning up. I closed my eyes, remembered the right spell, and sent it into him. He closed his eyes again.

  “Did you kill him?!” Daniken, standing right behind me know, sounded both scared and furious. The dragon flinched slightly.

  “No. I eased his pain. Which you could have done...” I turned around and looked at her. “Start talking. I’m out of patience.”

  She flounced, the long skirts of that very odd dress billowing. They were lighter and fluffier than my first impression. “I summoned Raven. Who are you?”

  Bella broke in, now. “First of all, you don’t summon Raven. Secondly, your methods are vile. Mind your manners, or we will mind them for you.” She came to stand beside me, her wings at full array, and her eyes sparkling with anger. I wondered what had set her off.

  Daniken drew herself up, magic rolling off her like a fog. The dress, I realized, was a collection of charms, bound into the once-living furs and bones she was wearing. She brought up her hands, crackling with the pent-up energy.

  “Stop. You summoned Raven, he sent us as envoys, and to teach you manners. If you want help, you have to settle for us. If he comes, you won’t like it, I can promise you,” Bella warned quietly, her voice cool and calm. She hadn’t even twitched in response to Daniken’s threatening gestures.

  They stared at one another for a long moment. The dragon, behind us, moaned a little. Daniken slumped and released the spells.

  “I have no more time to argue,” she admitted. “The evil is coming.”

  “What, precisely, is the evil? And why did you attack yesterday?” I asked.

  She bit her lip and looked away. “How was I supposed to know who you were? All I knew is that the High Court was sending emissaries. I couldn’t risk them backing the fools against me. I must have the power, to defeat... her.”

  I took a more relaxed posture, my hands clasped behind my back. I had realized she wasn’t going to offer us hospitality and I wasn’t sure I’d take it if she did.

  “Go on.” I prompted. The dragon flicked my hands with his tongue. I blinked, but tried to keep my face still. It was like being licked by a monstrous snake. Dry and... tickly.

  Daniken wrung her hands together and started to pace back and forth in front of us. While she pulled her words together, I saw that we were on a flat, rocky place, overlooking the ocean. I’d had the impression of a tall tower looming off to the right as we landed before I’d focussed on the dragon. Now, Bella was looking around a little, but not taking her eyes too far away from the distraught kami.

  “She bathes in blood, the legends say. She devours the hearts of those she lures in. And she has seen a weakness, here in the East, and pounced. My animals have fallen to her, and their bones litter the dark cold lands. The dry lands didn’t give her pause, her house races with the speed of the wind, and cannot be stopped... her appetite will devour us all. Oh!”

  She stopped and looked at us, her hands clasped in supplication. “You must help me. I beg of you. She will consume my people, and your cousins.”

  “My cousins?” I was confused.

  She waved a hand in dismissal. “The fae, faerie, Yiu Jao and his clan. Whatever you call them.”

  “If I help you defeat this, er, witch from the West,” Bella got a funny look on her face and I caught her hiding a smile. I wondered what that was about. I kept talking. “Will you leave the imperial family alone?”

  Daniken nodded. “I never wanted to rule,” she insisted. “I just wanted to protect my lands, my beautiful animals. Will you kill her?”

  That last was spoken in a very eager voice, and a flicker of something ugly flashed through her eyes. I wondered how innocent she was in this threat from the West moving in on her territory. Nothing I could do about that now, and she was truly afraid of something, that was certain.

  “I want you to promise that,” Bella held up a spell, and I recognized a message bubble. “You will leave the imperial family and the Court alone if we defeat the wicked witch of the West.”

  There was that tickle of humor in her voice again. I definitely needed to ask later. Daniken didn’t catch it, though.

  “I will, I will.”

  “Go ahead then.” Bella flicked the spell on.

  Daniken drew herself up. “I will not pursue my claims on the imperium if the witch Iaga is driven back and defeated. I will return to my former status and will be content.”

  Bella nodded when it was clear that Daniken had said all she was going to. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the spell, to Yiu Jao, would be my guess.

  Daniken snarled at us. “You have spoiled my plans, and my dragon! I hope she eats your hearts, and then I will throw them in Raven’s face!”

  I took Bella’s hand, ready to leave at any second. “What will you do to the dragon?”

  “I will kill it. It is ruined.” She pouted in its direction, looking over my shoulder. I could feel the cool nose bump my hand, and Bella’s, where they were clasped.

  “Release it.” Bella’s voice was clipped and her eyes narrowed. “You squander those in service to you.”

  “What more would you ask of me?” The kami was beginning to emit crackles of blue electricity from her hair and the charms bound into her gown. “Take the dragon, then!

  “Now, go!” She pointed imperiously toward the mainland, distantly visible.

  “No, not yet. Why were you trying to capture one of us?”

  She pouted, crossing her arms and looking away, out to sea. “I wasn’t.”

  “What?” She had spoken softly enough that the crashing waves below had obscured her words.

  “I was trying to kill you all!” Daniken was back to shouting and pointing. “But foolish creature wanted to play with the other dragon!”

  “What other dragon?” Bella asked, surprised. Daniken threw her hands up into the air, but what looked like a gesture of exasperation turned into a torrential downpour.

  “Get us to Kyuden!” I shouted to Bella, clinging to her arm. The winds were likely to knock us off the cliff onto the rocks below, once the rain made the knob of granite slippery.

  Bella nodded, her hair plastered to her face, and snapped a bubble around us, trapping rain along with us, which pooled around our feet. “Wow. She’s not exactly stable, is she?”

  I threw back my head and laughed. “Yo
u have a gift for understatement, my love.”

  She brought us back to the lawn we had first landed on, and we found ourselves in the midst of a gaggle of gardeners, who were working on repairing the damage the dragon had done. I looked for the kids, wondering if they had kept playing with magic after we’d gone. Ash was responsible...

  There they were, by the garden shed at the bottom of the garden, on the brink of the woods. I pointed and Bella saw them too.

  “They are still playing. Look, Ash is showing them how to check a building for enemy without being seen yourself.”

  The threesome, Dorothy, Chong, and Ash, slid along the wall, crouching to pass under the small, high window, and up to the door. Dorothy held up her hand, which made me smile, knowing this had to be one run of several if she had been shown that trick already. She slowly engaged the doorknob and peeked inside once she got a crack, then opened it enough to admit her body.

  Ash saw us coming and gave a little thumbs-up, then said something to Chong, who nodded and followed Dorothy inside. Ash straightened and turned to us, and then grabbed for the wall as the hut moved.

  I broke into a run, and I was looking straight at Ash, who had a puzzled look on his face as the hut suddenly elevated several feet into the air. Then the confusion turned to alarm as the hut wobbled to one side. He almost lost his footing, turned, and grabbed the doorjamb, just as the door slammed shut on his arm.

  With a hoarse scream, Ash sank to his knees. I could see from the way he was fighting and dangling from the arm that he was pinned, and I leapt to try and grab the edge of the porch he’d been standing on, was kneeling on. The hut accelerated, and I fell, tucking and rolling, straight into a large tree. I saw stars.

  Hut on Chicken Legs

  Bella had been distracted by the gardeners, so didn’t see the by-play of the young adventurers playing at clearing the hut. It was only when Lom broke into a run that she realized something was wrong, and she was too far away to help. She had gathered a spell to throw, but let it dissipate, afraid she would hurt Ash, as the hut stood up and started to run.

  She knew what it was as soon as it had extruded the massive, feathered legs with their scaly, taloned feet. Now, the name Iaga triggered the memories of children’s stories and a book of fairy tales she’d pored over as a girl.

  Lom took a flying leap, and his fingers grazed the rough wooden planks of the narrow porch, but the hut bounded into the woods and out of sight almost immediately, while her husband tumbled into a tree.

  “Are you hurt?” She stumbled and dropped to her knees, assessing him for damage.

  “No, ow... Not a lot.” He sat up and rubbed at his forehead. “What the hell?”

  “Baba Yaga’s hut on chicken legs.” Bella pulled up the library, mentally running through the stacks toward the mythology and folklore section. That wasn’t fast enough, so she changed her mental picture to flying. Better.

  “Lom, she eats people!” The information in the books was conflicting, some had her as a benevolent, if cranky, grandmother, others were full of bloodcurdling details of how she treated intruders into her hut, which she evidently used as bait to lure in the unwary.

  “You use your wings and feed magic to add more speed to them...” Lom stood up and grabbed her hand.

  Bella remembered what she had done before, and jumped upwards, his wings erupting as they cleared the ground and aimed for the sky. She was a bit embarrassed not to have remembered that sooner, but wings were still new to her.

  “There!” She pointed at a flock of birds spiraling into the sky, disturbed by a large movement in the forest. “I can’t keep this up for long.” Bella could feel the drain of energy already, even with the wind augmenting her. There was a reason this method of travel wasn’t in common use.

  They passed beyond the forest to large, open fields, and the hut, lurching oddly, was racing across them. Bella almost over shot it, and came down hard, aiming for the roof. The hut paused, quivered, and Bella dropped both of them into a wet rice paddy, almost at arm’s length in front of it. The knees bent slightly, and then it lurched toward them. Bella covered her face, and it was gone, leaving a splatter of mud, and Ash, in its wake as it blurred into speed so fast they couldn’t even see it any longer.

  Lom got to Ash, who was moaning and lying all too still, and snapped back to Bella.

  “Call Jao, call Melcar, tell them where we are and that we need them now!”

  Bella waded through the soupy mud, shivering already, and spun messages off her fingertips. The mud around Lom and Ash was stained vividly red, and she swallowed.

  “Let me see him.” The emergency medical technician she had been trained to be came to the fore, and Lom eased back a little.

  “I stopped the bleeding,” he said, swiping at his brow and leaving a hideous trail of red mud on his skin. “But he’s battered. There’s more damage...”

  Bella checked the unconscious Ash. “He’s breathing, but shocky. Can we get him out of the mud? And warm him?”

  She used a variant of the flying spell to hover the limp wood-elf above the surface, feeling the strain, but knowing it had to be done or he would die on the spot. Lom took off his damp shirt and tucked it around his friend, then, face stern, created four globes of glowing energy that gave off a good deal of heat. Bella knew that couldn’t have been easy, but they would help immensely.

  The initial flurry of activity over, they looked around. The big field was bounded by other fields, no houses in sight.

  “Can we head towards the break, there?” Lom pointed at the humped up terrace that broke the fields up into flood-able areas. It would at least be dry ground, and Bella noted he was shivering already. Between Daniken’s rainstorm, and the pursuit of the hut, they hadn’t had time to dry. Now, he was bare-chested.

  She discovered that she could move the spell, and Ash, slowly, and they headed for the levee. She crawled up the steep side, more concerned with keeping the injured man level and dry than with her own dignity.

  “Let me take him.” Lom offered, once he was at the top. Bella nodded, too tired to stand up. The release when Lom took the energy draw away was enormous. She slumped down gasping. Looking up into the air, she could see something coming, a tiny dot, but fast growing.

  “Lom, what is?” She pointed.

  Hot Pursuit

  He turned to look, and a bubble with Jao and several others arrived next to them. Distracted, Bella looked at the arrivals, then back to Ash.

  “What happened?” Jao ran to Lom, who brushed him off.

  “Not my blood...”

  One of the others, a healer, was already assessing Ash.

  “We must transport him immediately!” he commanded, his voice ringing.

  Bella screamed. In the babble of voices and motion, the incoming dragon was just too much for her to handle alone, no one else was looking this way now, and screaming seemed like a good way to get their attention. She tried to gather enough energy together to throw the excavation spell that had wreaked so much destruction in the past.

  The dragon, all sixty feet of shining scales and glittering eyes, close enough she could see the whites of his eyes, was swooping in overhead, close enough she felt like she could have touched him. Everyone still on the top of the levee dropped flat to the ground, and the dragon doubled back on himself to land on the side of it with a lot of scrabbling from his claws.

  Ash and the men attending to him were gone. They must have fled for the Kyuden as soon as she gave the warning. Jao, Lom, Bella, a couple of others... She lifted her head, and stared into those huge, hypnotic eyes. He snuffled at her, and she sat very still as she was sniffed thoroughly.

  “Mrrr?”

  Lom was standing, wavering a little and still shivering, she noted. Jao and his men were prudently lying flat, although Jao had his head up and was watching what was happening.

  Bella carefully sat up and offered her hand to the beast. He flicked it with his long forked tongue, and his eyes nictated, then the out
er lids dropped a bit in what looked like a pleased smile to her. He burbled, low in his throat, and licked her hand again.

  Lom walked over, and the dragon licked his face.

  “Urgh... Gah. Dragon breath.”

  Bella giggled. Then she couldn’t stop laughing. Ash... the dragon, acting like a lost puppy or kitten, and she was so tired. Lom knelt in the gravel and hugged her.

  “Shh... Shh. It’s ok.”

  Bella gulped and tried to stifle the hysterics. How embarrassing, again, to lose it when the danger was past. The dragon, looking over Lom’s shoulder, whimpered. She reached out to pat it on the nose.

  “It’s ok...” Why was she reassuring a dragon?

  Jao stood up, and the dragon turned his head to look at him. Lom let go over her and walked up beside him. “He’s a friend. Leave him alone. No burn people, remember?”

  Bella could have sworn the dragon nodded, and she chalked it up to being dangerously overexerted.

  “We need to eat, and rest, and get warm. Then we must find the children.”

  “The children?” Jao frowned at her.

  “Oh, you don’t know yet. The hut on chicken legs kidnapped Chong and Dorothy. I don’t know why, but Baba Yaga eats people.” Bella felt sick.

  Jao looked at Lom. “What is she talking about?”

  Lom swayed on his feet. Jao shook himself, visibly. “Tell me later.”

  He bubbled the three of them, and they landed in the big hall of the Kyuden. Lom stumbled, and Bella was glad she was still sitting down. Lom looked at Jao.

  “Better warn your staff that a dragon is coming to visit.”

  Jao paled. “Sit at the table... I will call my people.”

  He hurried out of the room, and Lom sat as told. With a wave of his hand, the food appeared.

  “Eat this.” He carried a sandwich to Bella. She didn’t argue, her energy level was dropping and the edges of her vision were graying out. Food after all that magic use. She ate it, and got up to move to the table, shivering, now.