Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  She followed without question, unusual for her. But as we sprinted for the kitchen door, I felt exhausted.

  I glanced back. My glamour still hung in the air. Maybe I didn’t have as much as I thought. Summer had pulled magic from me, enough to take a toll.

  I looked down. My armor of glamour was barely blue. It was hugged up close on me, not pulsing out in a shield. I was barely protected.

  This hadn’t happened since the Crusades. That was a bad campaign. I hoped this one of my lives wouldn’t be like that.

  The Reverend yanked me through the door, into the house.

  I stopped her and stood there, catching my breath.

  “We can’t stay here. They’re coming,” she said.

  “Stop. My armor, gone.” I was panting.

  And then I saw the kitchen counter with trays of syringes. Syringes full of chunks of rainbow light. I knew what they were for.

  Pulling on the last hints of cat, I leaped. I grabbed a syringe and jammed the sharp into my thigh. Pushing the plunger on that one, I took another and jammed its needle into the Reverend’s behind.

  One of the workers glared at me, but couldn’t speak, her mouth stopped by a demon.

  “They’re for the guests,” I said and smiled.

  It was magic, all right, and I was high. Opium was nothing compared to this.

  The first effect was like the time I drank Baudelaire’s absinthe from a saucer. Everything was happening some distance away from me, yet I was the center of it all.

  And then I felt the power. My glamour multiplied by the second. I wanted to use it on someone, I wanted to bend physics and reality and time.

  I looked at the Reverend. Her glamour was a beautiful shade of lavender with layers growing to cover her again and again.

  But we were magic folk. We were part of the old order, the ones who had refined our inherited powers. If Lira’s hits of magic affected us like this, what was it doing to ordinary mortals?

  The Reverend snatched up a handful of syringes. The worker tried to grab her wrist, and I karate chopped the worker’s arm. I heard a crack, but I felt no regret. The magic was too strong in me, taking over.

  I felt sadistic and careless, and in that moment with my sober consciousness slipping away, I glimpsed a world where magic was feral, cruel. A world where everyone was like Lira.

  The Reverend took off for the front of the house. I followed her. I knew that together, with those syringes, we could do anything.

  With Lira putting magic into the veins of mortal people, we had to do something.

  Come down from this incredible high.

  Arm the Reverend’s magic.

  Get the forces of light together to fight Lira.

  End him.

  Audra Spicer writes urban fantasy as H.L. Beatty. Writing fiction is her first love and second career. She lives with her husband and Jack Russell.

  Find out more at hlbeatty.com.

  The Smollest Assassin

  by Gage Lee (Shadow Alley Press)

  Centuries after his family is denied their rightful place on the Empyreal Zodiac, Kai di journeys far to avenge his ancestors. He's hellbent on vengeance, but this tiny assassin is in for a big surprise.

  Kai di’s steady hand guided his boat onto the sandy beaches near his foe’s palatial estate. The sound of the ship’s belly scraping against the sand as currents of jinsei pushed it out of the sea filled his heart with gratitude. For one hundred days and nights, he had manned the spirit tiller of his family’s prized artifact. He purred with gratitude at the ship’s faithful service. He hoped it would bear him back to his homeland, the coastal kingdom of Wan Chi, but he knew there was little hope he would ever find his way back home.

  The warrior had traveled a very long way to face an enemy that had long eluded his family. The wretched creature had left a stain on their honor since the time of the first Emperor.

  And now, as the last of his line, Kai di would have his vengeance.

  Or he would perish in the attempt.

  The sand here is different from home, he thought. It squished between his toes and clogged the sheaths of his deadly blades with its coarse, gritty granules. It was, like everything outside of his homeland, too crude and annoying by far. The warrior endured this irritation as he passed beneath the lacquered red torii and ascended the path to the enormous building that squatted above the beach.

  The building loomed out of the narrow fringe of forest that surrounded it. Kai di frowned at the building’s pagoda-like towers jutting from the tops of half-timbered lower floors. He was even more disturbed by the ornate stained-glass windows set into the gaps between rough-hewn logs some barbarian had stuck together with globs of wattle. He had heard that this place was eccentric, but he had never imagined it to be such an affront to his senses.

  Kai di’s purr of satisfaction at his safe arrival died in his chest, and his hand fell to his sword’s hilt. “This grotesque place has no connection to the traditions that whelped it. What a perfect home for the traitor I seek.”

  Kai di stepped off the path and hid amongst the trees to survey his enemy’s territory and offer a brief prayer to his ancestors. He hoped they would approve of his mission and the necessity for stealth. In a different time, Kai di would have presented himself to the leader of this place and openly challenged his family’s great enemy. But the warrior had no allies to support him, and he did not trust that any fortress shielding such a treacherous beast would obey the rules of honor.

  No, to succeed Kai di would have to employ stealth, trickery, and deadly precision.

  “I will avenge the treachery that denied our clan its place on the Empyreal Zodiac, greatest ancestors,” Kai di promised. He bowed low to the east, then hurried through the bushes toward the far side of the hideous structure.

  Kai di was no thief, but he had mastered the art of climbing when he was but a babe. His claws dug into the structure’s wooden flank, and the deep, gray stain he’d dusted himself with helped him blend into the shadows as he made his way ever upward.

  With each window he passed, the determined warrior peered inside with the hope of finding his foe. Kai di expected fearsome warriors wearing traditional demon-face masks and ornate armor. He’d even expected an army of monstrous creatures with scaly tails lashing the floorboards behind them as they scurried about their evil business. What he did not expect, though, were the number of children moving through the building’s halls. They squealed and shouted at one another, their voices like piglets crammed into a pen.

  But while Kai di ascended to the rooftop of the main building, he caught no sight of his enemy or its monstrous allies. Frustrated, the warrior searched his new perch until he found a small hatch that allowed entry into the building’s attic. It would be a tight squeeze, but Kai di was determined to fit.

  The interior of the structure was no more pleasant than its outside had been. Kai di was confused and disoriented by the building’s shifting hallways and the maze of rooms that filled each of its floors. His search for Hahen was complicated by the many children he had to avoid. Being discovered by one of the squealing brats would fatally complicate his attempt to end his horrible enemy’s life.

  Though it pained his honor, Kai di skulked around corners and called upon all the skills of his ancestors to hide his wiry, lithe frame in the meager shadows he found. It felt as if hours had passed since he’d first dropped into the enemy’s fortress, and Kai di had begun to fear he would never find his target. The place was too big, its design expertly crafted to confuse and dismay intruders. A pang of guilt pricked Kai di’s conscience. He’d thought his plan had taken every variable into account. But none of his strategies had anticipated being thwarted by the building itself.

  But Kai di was resolute. He would not leave until there was no strength left in his body. If this is where he would lay down and breathe his last, then so be it. There would be no retreat, no surrender from this most sacred quest.

  But the warrior was weary from hi
s months at sea, and he needed rest. He scouted out a location that seemed unused and crept into its deepest shadowed recess. He curled into a circle, and sleep overtook him.

  The warrior woke from his slumber with a start. His enemy was close. Kai di had smelled him.

  After looking around to make sure he hadn’t been discovered, Kai di stretched himself tall onto his tiptoes. He was exhausted, but there was no denying that scent. It was as foul as his ancestors had told, and their memories urged him to hunt Hahen down and take his life.

  It was only just.

  Kai di slipped from his hiding space and skulked into a nearby corner. He lowered himself near to the ground to hide from his foes and took a deep breath. His nose twitched as he caught the scent again.

  The nimble warrior didn’t have to go far before he spotted his foe. The hateful creature walked alongside one of the children, lecturing the unfortunate whelp in an annoying, squeaky voice. The sound grated on Kai di’s nerves, and he yearned to lash out at the unwholesome creature.

  But his instincts told him that the whelp next to his foe was very powerful. Kai di would not survive an encounter with such a creature. And so, he fell back on the stalking skills that his family had honed over countless generations.

  Kai di listened to his nemesis and the child talking as he prowled after him. He hoped they would reveal some secret he could use to defeat them. But the longer they talked, the more obvious it was that they were both dull, uninteresting creatures.

  “You did not learn the Sleepless technique?” Hahen asked.

  The young man, his black robes sleek and bristling with jinsei, shook his head in exasperation. “The trip wasn’t a total loss. I learned the Weaver of Fate technique.”

  “And what is that?” Hahen asked in a voice that grated the warrior’s nerves. “It sounds like something that mad spirit would use to trap you.”

  Kai di wrinkled his nose as the two continued their bickering. He couldn’t puzzle out what they were talking about and soon decided he no longer cared.

  He would follow them, and when he’d cornered his prey alone, the warrior would reap justice for his family.

  The opportunity to assassinate his enemy came sooner than Kai di had expected. His enemy parted ways with the young student to wander the halls. Kai di stalked the creature until he was certain they were utterly alone. Then, and only then, he slipped from the shadows and drew the slender, superbly weighted throwing knife he’d brought for just this moment. Its tip and cutting edges were coated with a dose of a deadly paralytic. A single scratch from the blade and Hahen would fall helpless to the ground.

  The warrior looked forward to that moment as he silently approached his enemy’s back. A single stab from this poisoned claw was all that stood between him and victory. He’d imagined this moment for so long, the way he’d stand over his opponent and explain to him just how he’d wronged Kai di’s family.

  But the hunter’s natural wariness tempered his excitement. This creature had been alive for far longer than Kai di. It must have possessed deadly powers to survive for so many years. Best not approach it too closely. Striking from a distance was just as effective, and far safer.

  Kai di put his whole body into hurling the deadly weapon. The blade tumbled, end over end, as it whipped through the air. The venom on its edges glinted with shimmering green in the light from the jinsei lanterns that lined the hallway.

  Kai di’s aim had been true. His weapon couldn’t miss.

  And then the impossible happened.

  Kai di ran from his target as if all the hounds of the thousand hells were on his tail. He couldn’t fathom what he’d seen. His heart raced with terror at the thought of just how powerful his enemy must be.

  Because his blade had struck his enemy square between the shoulders.

  The blade struck the enemy’s robes.

  And then it fell to the ground.

  Hahen had stopped, then turned and bent down to retrieve the warrior’s deadly weapon.

  That’s when Kai di had run. That blade should have killed Hahen. But the horrible creature had shrugged it off as if it were nothing more than an annoying fly to be swatted away.

  The warrior was disappointed and terrified but still resolute. He would not turn away from his mission, and he would not disappoint his ancestors.

  A new scheme was already bubbling up through his thoughts like a deadly gas.

  When he was sure Hahen could not see him and was not chasing him, Kai di returned to his hiding place and prepared a new plot.

  It took him many days to find his next assassination opportunity. In the meantime, Kai di survived on the dried fish rations he’d brought with him on the boat, and when those ran out, he scavenged food from the kitchens and waste bins of his enemies. The warrior hated to admit it, but he was impressed with the quality and quantity of the food his enemies enjoyed. Their scraps kept his belly full.

  But he would not be swayed by such simple pleasures. When he wasn’t looking for food or sleeping, Kai di traced the trail of his enemy. He learned to navigate this strange place, and over the course of many days, he uncovered Hahen’s early morning routine.

  So it was that Kai di came to be perched on the edge of a steeply sloped roof overlooking a narrow courtyard. His enemy came here every day, precisely at sunrise. Today was no different.

  Hahen walked out of a narrow wooden door, paused to take in the first rays of sunlight peeking over the rooftops, and then knelt down to pray to some loathsome gods.

  “This is good,” Kai di whispered to himself. “Let this vile creature go to his end while pledging loyalty to his twisted deities. Perhaps they will have the mercy on his soul that I will not.”

  The warrior adjusted the great weight he’d dragged up to the rooftop. His makeshift missile was small but dense, its weight almost more than his muscles could manage.

  “Goodbye, enemy of my people,” Kai di whispered and unleashed his deadly attack.

  The weight rolled down the sloped roof, pitched over the edge, and plummeted toward the earth. Kai di had timed the attack perfectly. Hahen was still kneeling, his head bowed. The tumbling weight would smash his spine and leave him paralyzed.

  And then the warrior would clamber down from the roof and recite every crime that Hahen and his ancestors had committed. He would remind his family’s enemy of why he had to die.

  Only then would the mighty hunter claim his life.

  “What in the world?” Hahen barked, his hand slapping at the back of his neck.

  Kai di’s heart leapt into his throat, and he watched in horror as Hahen reached down to the grass and lifted the deadly weight as if it were no heavier than a feather.

  “No,” Kai di said, his voice tight with fear. “That’s impossible.”

  Hahen suddenly stood and turned his eyes toward the rooftop. “Come down here,” the creature commanded, holding the weight between his thumb and forefinger. “Why would you drop such a thing on me?”

  Kai di fled, his honor stinging, and scrambled over the rooftop. The warrior didn’t stop running until he’d found another bolthole to hide in. His heart continued pounding for a long time after.

  The determined warrior spent a very long time planning his next move. He dredged his memories for any clues he could find, any weaknesses he could exploit. But none of the stories his ancestors had told Kai di shone a light on how to defeat the treacherous Hahen. The creature seemed far too powerful, far too devious, for a mere mortal, even one as well trained and determined as Kai di, to defeat.

  With a heavy heart, Kai di had to admit that the task might be too difficult for even his skills. He vowed to try once more. If his third and final attempt failed, then he would die of shame under the eyes of his ancestors.

  And so, Kai di plotted.

  He planned.

  He watched.

  He waited.

  And when the time was right, he struck.

  If Hahen could not be stabbed or crushed, Kai di reasoned, t
hen perhaps he was made of denser stuff than mere flesh and bone. And if that were true, then the terrible creature’s weakness might be simpler than the warrior had imagined.

  In the days that followed this revelation, Kai di followed Hahen everywhere. He dodged students, hid in bushes, and even crawled across the ground on his belly like a worm to avoid attracting any attention. Often, his enemy was accompanied by one or more of the students. Several times, Kai di had even seen a dragon, a tiny one, accompanying the traitor. It pained Kai di to hear the two of them talking like old friends. How had Hahen corrupted such a noble creature?

  But Kai di did not lose faith. Fortune would smile upon him, if he were patient, careful, and cautious.

  And then, one day, in the uncertain light of creeping dusk, he saw his chance.

  Hahen crouched down next to a clear pool of water surrounded by smooth river rocks. The calm pool was not wide, but Kai di’s nose told him it was quite deep. It had the smell not of a stream, or even a river, but a mountain lake.

  Kai di waited until Hahen had knelt and begun to bend forward as if bowing to the water. Maybe his evil god’s avatar lurked in the pool’s depths.

  “Your time is at an end!” Kai di shouted and hurled himself at Hahen’s exposed back. His words rang through the courtyard, and the startled creature turned to face him.

  But it was too late.

  Kai di had shouted when he was but a hair’s breadth from his target. In the next split second, the warrior would crash into his target and knock him into the pool. Then Kai di would spring back and land safely on the pool’s edge. From his stable perch, he would deliver his ancestors’ condemnation to his drowning enemy.