They had gotten a very good look into it as she threw back her head and howled with laughter. She had many tiny teeth, spiraling back into her mouth, and one fell out as she choked on her laughter. She fell to her knees, and Chong readied a spell. When he flicked it at her, she batted it casually aside, and never losing her smile, gibbered at them.
Dorothy thought it might be a language, but it wasn’t even close to one she knew, and Chong looked just as blank. The witch shook her head, still smiling, and made a gesture of her own. Both the young people flinched, but it didn’t hurt... Instead, a lavish table full of food appeared in front of them, with pure white linen tablecloth, and two chairs. The old woman capered a bit, giggling maniacally. Then she saw Ash’s hand, still caught in the door.
“Ah!” she crowed. Opening the door with one hand, she caught the severed limb with the other, and brought it up to her nose. With a look of unutterably horrible bliss, she sniffed the length of it, the hooked protuberance almost touching it. She opened that weird mouth, and they heard her slobber a little. With another laugh, she disappeared.
Dorothy whispered, “I’m going to be sick...”
“The door!” Chong shouted, dodging around the end of the table. But it swung shut with a heavy thud, and they were trapped again. He pulled back a hand, and Dorothy could see the spark of a spell.
“Not fire!” she shouted at him, her nausea forgotten in the urgency of keeping him from burning them both alive.
Chong froze, then closed his hand in a fist, extinguishing the spell. “What,” he rounded on her, his voice loud in the small room, “do you propose we do?”
Dorothy slumped backward against the wall, bumping her wings. “I don’t know. But if the walls are on fire? We’ll die, and it wouldn’t be a good death.”
He boggled a little. “Is there a good death?”
“I don’t know.” She eyed the food and her stomach rumbled. “I’m not sure I dare eat that, if she...” Dorothy couldn’t say what they were both thinking, about the witch and the dead hand.
“I need...” Chong jiggled a little, then went to try opening a window. That didn’t work, as Dorothy suspected. “Hey!”
In the far corner, where a narrow bit of wall was wedged behind the massive stone fireplace, there was now a door. “Should we try it?”
“Duh.” He started for it.
“What if it’s a trap?” Dorothy caught his sleeve. “What if she’s in there?”
“We’re already trapped, might as well try it.” He pulled the door open. “Hey! Look... no, don’t look. I get firsts.” He shut the door in her face.
Dorothy choked back a hysterical giggle. They were prisoners of a mad witch with, evidently, a penchant for eating Fae, and it could all be forgotten with a proper bathroom. Not that she was going to look this gift horse in the mouth.
He emerged with a smile a few minutes later, and she got her turn. A flush toilet, heaven. When Dorothy came out, he was holding a plate.
“Ugh! How can you?”
“Oh, come on. Some of it is pretty easy to tell what it is. Why would she bother poisoning us when she has us locked up like rabbits?” He pointed at the tray of fruits. She had to admit they weren’t, at least, meat of any kind. The bread was probably ok, too. And there was a cake...
They ate as much as they could, and sat on the chairs, feeling much better to be off the floor.
“So, how do we get out of this?” Chong waved his hand at the walls, thrown into contrast by the elegant table. They were roughly made planks, with gaps between them that had been chinked with mud. It looked flimsy, but Dorothy knew from the first hour they had spent beating on them and the door and the windows that none of it was breakable.
“Here.” She handed him a table knife. “Let’s try taking the door off its hinges.”
He brightened and took it, hopping up. “Brilliant!”
They attacked the door with a renewed sense of hope.
Wolf ‘Ware
Bella washed down the jerky and dry fruit with a big swig of... “Is that Gatorade?”
“Sort of.” Lom looked apologetic. “My own mix and I’m still working on it.”
She gasped. “I’m sure it must be good for me...”
“That bad, eh?”
She changed the subject. “How are we going to get to the hut?”
“Walk. If we can’t bubble to it... I was thinking it must need to rest. Which is good, it doesn’t have unlimited resources. So we have a few hours, and it’s only a mile or two upriver.”
Bella nodded and started to pack up. “Shall I scry again?”
“No, I want to get moving.” He zipped his pack and settled it into place with a practiced shrug. “Are you up to this?”
“And if I weren’t?” She kept pace with him, as they picked their way through the saplings and brush growing over the big tree.
“I’d send you home.” He held out a hand to give her a boost.
“I’ll bet I’ve taken a lot more long walks in the woods than you have.” Bella closed her eyes and got her sense of direction to the hut, then pointed. “That way”
Lom laughed. “You probably have, Princess.”
It was starting to get dark, and they both set elf-globes floating around them. Bella thought it was pretty, like having giant fireflies lighting their way. Hiking in the dark was generally a very bad idea, but they both felt a strong sense of urgency. And they didn’t have too far to go.
Then Bella saw eyes. Greenish, they glowed near the ground, and followed her as she walked.
“Lom...”
“They have been following us for a while. Her creatures, not just wolves.” He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. “Keep walking. They aren’t closing in or trying to stop us.”
“How... how do you know?” Bella stumbled, and caught herself on a nearby branch.
“Close one eye and use the Sight for a minute.”
She caught what he meant once she could see the lifeglows of those near them. Brighter than an animal, with the black threads of a force controlling them. And there were none in front of the two Fae, only to the sides and behind them. She kept walking, carefully staying near Lom, and with one hand on her pistol, the other forming a spell. He was doing the same, she realized. Only he had brought a shotgun from the armory, unnoticed in the darkness, and carried that in a way he could fire from the hip in an instant. With his rifle slung over the pack on his back, he looked formidably armed.
Like her ammunition, his was likely all bespelled, although while she favored incendiary rounds, his were more esoteric, aligned to what the creatures he faced were. She’d learn, in time, if there was time.
They kept putting one foot in front of the other, trying to watch the ground for obstacles, and the wolf pack that paced them. Bella found herself reluctant to talk to him, assuming that they were being listened to. The night had grown steadily darker, and she was wishing the moon would rise. It wouldn’t help a lot, in the forest, but it would help.
“They are starting to close in.” Bella spoke softly, not wanting to spook the beasts into a rush.
“Don’t worry.” She could see his smile in the light from the elf globes. “These are Russian wolves, one of them will have to talk first, that’s the rules ‘round here.” She thought she heard him mutter, “blowhards.”
They walked into the thickening brush, knowing it meant a clearing, with the hungry plants competing for sunlight. Bella felt her whole body tightening up as they emerged into the moonlit field.
Dark shapes flickered in the shadows just outside the lights. The hut loomed ahead, a dark hole in the night. Bella stopped.
“What?” Lom moved so they were almost back to back.
“I need to look first.” Bella closed her eyes and took a deep breath, opening out her Sight. She could smell the fresh earth and grass from them walking on it, and a faint, cloying scent of decay underlying that.
In the magical sight, the hut was limned with an eerie green glo
w. She could see the auras of Dorothy and Chong, lying still, but alive. They were faint, as though she were seeing through a veil. The legs of the hut, she saw, were drawn up tight to it, like a bug, crouching and trying to make itself small.
“They are in there.” She opened her eyes, swallowing back the nausea and blinking.
Lom moved toward the hut, his footsteps silent in the grasses. He left his elf-lights with Bella, in an effort to remain stealthy. The wolves had moved into a ring, between them and the forest, having herded him and Bella to the hut.
The door swung open as he got within a few steps of the narrow, flat porch that Ash had been standing on. Lom paused. He could see dimly inside the hut, the forms lying under some sort of white cloth. One stirred and sat up.
Chong rubbed his eyes, then saw Lom through the open door and jumped up. “Dorothy! We’re rescued!”
Dorothy scrambled to her feet, tangling in the white fabric they had been using as a blanket. Chong bent to help her, and as Lom started toward the door again, the heavy slab of wood that made up the door slammed shut and the hut lurched to its feet. Bella threw a spell.
She wasn’t aiming at the hut itself, not wanting to risk the young people. She hurled the spell at the nearest chicken leg, trying to damage it. The spell hit, exploded, and the hut screamed, the leg buckling underneath it. Lom jumped onto the porch when it hit the ground and ran up it to the door. He stuck a knife deeply into the wood for a handle, and readied a spell of his own. The hut shook violently, like a dog coming out of water, and Lom’s hand slipped off as the hut shook him clear.
Bella threw a second spell at the further leg on the side where she had injured it, and it seared off feathers in a choking cloud of smoke and stink. The hut screamed again, and started to run. Lom, having rolled as he hit the ground, staggered to his feet and started after it.
Bella saw the wolves tighten their ring as the hut passed them and vanished into the darkness. With the four globes of light hovering over them, she stood with Lom, who was panting and holding one wrist with the other hand.
“Is it broken?” She asked him, spinning up a spell with one hand and drawing her pistol with the other. “Can you handle the shotgun? I think they’re too close for the rifle...”
“I don’t know... look later. Yes, I can fire with it. Have too...” He fired, punctuating that statement with proof, and a muffled groan as the weapon kicked. A wolf that had been belly-crawling closer yelped and lay still.
Bella shot the next one, sending it ki-yi-yi-ing out into the darkness. The others hesitated, as though their bargain with the witch didn’t include victims heavily armed and willing to fight back.
“They aren’t talking.” Bella pointed out, taking another shot. This time she missed as the wolf hurled itself sideways in a desperate lunge.
“I might have pissed them off with calling them blowhards.” Lom quipped. The report of the shotgun was deafening, but he didn’t miss.
“You think we can leave now?” Bella eyed the remaining wolves as they grew bolder, driven by an unnatural compulsion, coming into the light from the elf-globes.
“Worth a try. This is getting old, fast, and I would like you to look at my wrist.”
Bella bubbled them, and to her relief, they were not stopped. The interdiction spell must have moved away with the hut. She went back to the floodplain. She’d left the elf-globes behind, probably giving the wolves some light, but by now the moon was up fully, and there was enough light for her to see as she summoned the tent from Lom’s armory. It didn’t take them long to get it up and make camp.
Inside, with wards set, she splinted his wrist. “Magic is nice, you know. I can make this very light and tight but not bulky.”
“We eat, sleep, and go after them again, right?” He sounded groggy. It had been a very long day.
“Yes...” Food wasn’t anything special, with no time for a fire and cooking. They curled up together to sleep on the folding bed, another benefit of magic, since they didn’t have to carry the thing. It wasn’t very wide, but Bella didn’t mind. Holding onto Lom made her feel a fraction better, although she hated that they didn’t know what was happening with the hut and the young people.
Plan B
I wakened sore and stiff, with one side of me warm, and the other freezing. Bella murmured and twitched in her sleep. Bad dreams, I was going to guess, about the lost ones. I slid out of bed and summoned a heavier coat. Starting a fire in the frosty grass was easy enough, and I got coffee started before I awakened Bella. The dawn was just starting to pinken the sky when she joined me at the campfire.
“I think it’s time to go to plan B.” I told her as she sipped the very hot liquid. The steam framed her face, along with the very messy hair. She was beautiful.
“What is Plan B? I need to scry for them...” She looked into her cup as though she expected to see their faces.
“Yes, do that in a minute. Plan B is to get ahead of them, and in order to do that, we need more information. I have a friend who owes me a favor, and...”
The early morning fog swirled over us, coming off the river. I stopped, sensing something in the mist, lurking... the wall of fog bulged, and I had the shotgun in my hands without half thinking.
Beaker walked into camp, and huffed a sulfur-tainted sigh. “Mrrowp?” he inquired, nosing Bella.
“Don’t feed him, he’ll never go away.” I dropped the gun back to a sling position, feeling my heart rate start to slow again. I thumped his side as he curled his body loosely around tent, campfire, and formed a sort of defensive wall for us.
“I wonder if he was trained to do that,” Bella observed, looking at the way Beaker had positioned himself.
“It’s possible. Legends... Well, if so, he’s ancient.”
“I know nothing about dragons.” She fed him a slice of ham. She’d summoned it to fry for breakfast, and brought a skillet she was getting ready to heat.
“I’ll cook, you scry. And what did I say about feeding him?” I teased her, bringing another flat rock for the pan to balance on.
She poured water into the pan and dropped the hair she was hoarding on the surface. I let her lean over it and bring her image into focus.
“It’s moving...” Bella was keeping her voice soft, I assumed, to not ruffle the water. “But not as fast as it was. I did hit it!”
She looked up, smiling. I pointed at her pan. “Can you get an approximate location?”
Bella nodded and looked down again, going back into her working trance. Breakfast was starting to smell pretty good. I wandered away a little and leaned against Beaker’s side, speaking softly into my cupped hands and a message spell. I needed a location and a meeting time, and a measure of luck. David was elusive at best, in any of his forms.
“I don’t know what the name is...” She called to me. “Mountains, and it’s moving rather slowly.”
“Well, until he gets back to me we can’t go anywhere, shall we eat?” I suggested, dragging a camp table with chairs out of nowhere. It felt good to have magic at my disposal. It would not cure everything, or we’d have the kids back already, but it made a round-the-world chase much more tolerable.
We ate quickly, waiting for a return of his message spell, and Bella kept glancing at her pan of water, left ready to scry again. I suggested she keep an eye on them while I cleared up.
“I’ve figured out something,” She informed me, bent over the pan. “There was a table full of food for them. And there’s a bathroom where there wasn’t one before. Baba Yaga is taking care of them, at least.”
“That’s promising.” I sent the equipment carefully back to the armory. We had laid it out in specific tagged places in order to take it back and forth, but it required precision.
“Unless...” Bella pulled the hair out and tucked it away, breaking her spell. She flicked the water into the grass. The fog was gone, burned off by the sun, and it was a beautiful day. She stretched, working kinks out of her back from bending over the scrying water.
“What?” I pulled my attention away from her body with regret, knowing we hadn’t time for that.
“She’s like... the witch with the gingerbread house?” She walked up to me and I put an arm around her. She leaned into me, wanting comfort. “Did you ever read fairy tales?”
I chuckled, “well, they are a bit like research for my job, at times. But not terribly accurate, most of the time these days. Some of the very old versions are spot on, though. There wasn’t any gingerbread in the original stories.”
“So she’s not fattening them up?”
A message spell zinged by my ear, and I held out a hand, letting it settle there. It was from David, easy to tell, as the feather-shaped spell, as long as my palm to my fingers, burst into flames. It was all illusion, no heat at all, but Bella sucked in her breath.
“I will meet you in the orchard at sun-down.” His musical voice sang out. The feather blazed up, and went out, with no ashes.
“Was that your friend?” Bella asked.
“Yes, and now we really do have a long trip.” I looked around. All we would leave was the little fire-ring of rocks and trampled grass. Not even that if I could convince Beaker to take a roll over it all. Which presumed I could convince him to do anything at all. I realized I had never answered Bella’s first question, and called over my shoulder as I walked to Beaker.
“Yes, she probably is fattening them up. Which gives us a little time...”
I tapped on his side, and he opened his eyes and swung his head closer. “We’re going.” I told him. His eyes, deep and dark, blinked slowly and he licked at my face. Somehow, the expression in his eyes told me he was listening. “Stay here. We will come back soon.”
He flexed his whiskers, bristling fiercely. I tapped him on the nose. “Be good.”
Trickster Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 2) Page 26
