by Sue Tingey
“She gave up everything for you,” he said, getting to his feet and glaring up at me. “She left her home, she left me and how do you repay that loyalty? With indifference.”
“Now hang fire,” Jamie said, but I’d had it with Kayla’s petulant captain.
I laid my hand on Jamie’s arm. “If you recall, Vaybian, I offered myself up in your place and was almost executed for it. I did that for her. I did that for you.”
“And your servant,” he said with a sneer.
“Yes, and for Shenanigans. I didn’t want either of you to die because of me.”
“You should have stayed in your world.” The spirits began to moan and gather about him.
“I was given little choice,” I said.
“You were given the choice to return to your world and yet you came back to ours.” Some of the spirits plucked at his clothing and tried to shove him, but to no avail.
“I think you’d better leave this conversation until later,” Jinx said.
I glanced his way, and he gestured with his head at the ghostly figures surrounding us. Their expressions of anger were no longer directed at the two dead Sicarii, but at Vaybian. “They can’t harm him,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Jinx said. “They are getting rather het up.”
“Vaybian, come up here and stand close to Jinx,” I said.
The captain glared at me, then Jinx. “And why would I want to do that?”
“Because you have seriously pissed off a cavern full of dead people,” Jinx said.
Vaybian swung around to look across the cavern, and several of the dead took swipes at him that would have knocked him flat had they been alive. As it was, their fists flailed straight through him, which didn’t improve their demeanor any.
Jamie stepped down, took hold of Vaybian’s arm and drew him up the steps to stand between him and Jinx. “Can you see them?” Vaybian asked Jamie.
Jamie shook his head. “No, it isn’t one of my gifts, but I can feel them. I can feel their desperation. It permeates the air like a winter’s chill.”
Shenanigans and Kerfuffle hurried toward us with Pyrites, now the size of a mastiff, padding along between them. A couple of times he paused midstep, wrinkling his snout as he sniffed the air. He too could feel the spirits’ presence.
“Did you kill the Sicarii?” Jinx asked Vaybian.
“No, more’s the pity. They were dead when I got here.”
“There were no others at all?”
He gave a despondent shake of the head. “I searched where I could,” he said, pointing across the cavern to steps carved into the rock, “but the place is empty.”
I glanced around him: I hadn’t noticed the steps, but I soon realized why; they were in the same color as the rest of the rock, and once again cleverly hidden.
“Anything of interest up the stairs?” Jamie asked.
Again he shook his head. “No, but they left in a hurry; I found half-eaten meals on a table up there.”
“Why did they kill two of their own?” I asked, glancing at the dead demons with a shudder.
Jinx looked up at the bodies and walked over to take a closer look. When he turned back to face us his expression was grim. “These are the two from the villa; I’m sure of it.”
“So?”
“They failed in their duty and returned marked for death. I suspect someone was very unhappy with them,” Jinx said.
“’Tis true,” several of the spirits whispered.
I looked down on the mass of gray faces all staring up at me; their expressions imploring, pained and desperate. “Why are you still here? Why don’t you move on?”
“Cursed,” one said.
“Cursed,” said another.
“Cursed,” the word rippled throughout the crowd, growing from a single voice to a chant. “Cursed, cursed, cursed,” until it sounded like the whisper of pebbles caught in a tide as it rolled up and down the shore.
“What do they mean?” I whispered to Jinx.
“I don’t—”
“What do you mean?” I asked them.
One of them glided to the front and held up a hand to silence the others. In life he had been about seven feet tall, muscular, and from the look of the simple jerkin and pants he was wearing, probably a farmer or tradesman. His hair was long and tied back in a tail exposing pointed ears. Two small horns jutted out from just inside his hairline, and sharp pointed claws sprouted from his fingers and toes.
“It is all part of the ritual,” he said. The others all whispered “yes” and “ritual.” “When we are right at the point of death, seconds away from freedom, knowing the pain will be over, they curse us. They curse us to remain in this world for all eternity so that they may feed on our pain. Our suffering.”
“Oh my God,” I said, and felt like crying.
“What?” Jamie asked.
Jinx’s lips twisted into a grimace of disgust. “When we find them, they die,” was all he said.
I paced back and forth in agitation. “How do I release them from the curse?” I asked. “I promised to help them and I don’t know how.”
“It’s a shame we didn’t get here a little sooner,” Jamie said, “before these two had died. Then we could have asked them.”
“Like they would have told us,” Kerfuffle said.
“They would’ve told us,” Jinx said, glaring at the two dead bodies. “I would’ve made sure of it.”
“Well, we didn’t and you couldn’t,” Kerfuffle said, “so get over it.”
Jinx turned on the diminutive demon. “What did you say?”
“Jinx,” I laid a hand on his arm, “you’re not the only one who’s angry.”
He glowered at Kerfuffle, who put his hands on his hips and glowered back.
“When did you get so brave?” Jamie asked Kerfuffle.
“When I realized he was no different to the rest of us.”
“He’s the Deathbringer,” Shenanigans said, his lips turned down in worry. He gave Jinx a sheepish look.
“I can bring death, you can bring death, even Mistress Lucky can bring death, just not in such large quantities,” Kerfuffle argued.
Even Mistress Lucky? I was about to say something, but thought better of it. The tension between my demon guards was running high enough without me throwing in my two pennies worth. Instead, I said, “Boys, this isn’t helping.”
Jinx abruptly turned his back on Kerfuffle and went back to studying the dead Sicarii as though he was willing them into telling us their secrets.
“Maybe you can break the curse by opening the door to the world of the dead so they can pass through,” Jamie suggested, “like you did for Diargo.”
“I could, except that was a total fluke,” I said, my voice low so the others and, more importantly, the spirits couldn’t hear. “It’s never happened before, and I’m not sure I can do it again.”
“Well you managed it somehow.”
“Yes, I guess I did.” I thought for a moment, then walked to the front of the platform to look down on the waiting spirits. “I’m going to try and help you, but you will have to be patient. It may be that this won’t work, and we’ll have to find the Sicarii to discover how to lift the curse.”
The spirits let out low moans. “Help us, pleeease.”
“You,” I said, pointing to the spirit who had told us about the curse, “what’s your name?”
“Dreyphus,” he told me.
“Okay Dreyphus, we’re going to try something. Are you willing?”
He pulled himself up straight. “If it will help us to leave this place.”
I walked down the steps to stand beside him with Jamie following. “Dreyphus, I want you to think of those you loved who moved on before you. Parents, grandparents, anyone you would love to see again in the afterlife.”
“My wife,” he told me.
“Think of your wife, picture her face and remember what it was like to hold her in your arms.”
He stood there, head b
owed. We waited and I inwardly prayed this would work. Nothing happened. Then it occurred to me that last time, I had asked for help, or at least wished I could. I did the same again and this time I closed my eyes and concentrated on opening a doorway to the other side.
For a few moments there was nothing, and then the warm glow I’d felt before spread out from my center and a low moan from the spirits made me open my eyes. I glanced around and there, a few yards to Dreyphus’ right, a pinprick of bright golden light appeared and a split began to open, tearing downward and allowing a swathe of gold to spill out. It grew longer and wider. Almost instantaneously I felt the pull of the gateway and my feet began to move.
Dreyphus looked up and saw the light. His eyes moved to mine and I forced myself to smile. I wondered what would happen if I got to the tear first. I gestured for him to go to it and he took one tentative step and another until he stepped into its glow, which turned him from gray to gold. He took another step and reached out, his fingers slipping into the split—and the light snapped off like someone had flicked a switch. The split slapped shut and was gone, leaving Dreyphus standing there staring at nothing, his hand still extended.
He slowly turned my way, his face crumpling into an expression of distraught disappointment and the other spirits wailed, joining him in his anguish.
“I am so sorry,” I said, reaching out a hand to him.
“The curse, it is the curse.”
I glanced over my shoulder to Jinx. “I’m afraid he may be right,” he said.
The spirits of the dead slowly drifted away, knowing there was no help to be had from us. Not yet at least.
“We need to find the Sicarii,” I said.
“We’ll find out how to break the curse before I send them all to oblivion,” Jinx said.
“Easier said than done,” Jamie said, sitting down beside us on the steps. “We have no idea where they’ve gone.”
“I can’t believe they’d abandon this place,” Shenanigans said joining us. “It’s been their temple for millennia.”
“And they’ll probably return in another millennia,” Kerfuffle said, “but for now they’ll just make a temple somewhere else—if they haven’t already got one.”
Jinx began to smile. “Of course: they’ll have another temple!”
“They have? Where?” Vaybian asked, his interest renewed.
“I have no idea, but it’s just as Kerfuffle said: they will have one; a bolt hole for times like this.”
“It would make sense,” Jamie agreed. “A sect like the Sicarii has a lot of enemies.”
“It could be anywhere,” Vaybian moaned.
“And we’ll find it,” Jinx said.
“I wish I could be sure they had Kayla,” I said. “I really want to make sure she’s safe.”
“So now you care,” Vaybian muttered.
I ignored him. Jamie was right: Vaybian was a rude and arrogant arse. He was also petulant. But there must have been something about him that made Kayla want to keep him around.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Jinx said, “we won’t find Kayla or the Sicarii sitting here all day.”
“I hate leaving them like this,” I said, glancing at the few spirits that remained in the cavern.
He reached out and brushed the hair back from my face. “It’s the only way.”
“I know, it’s just so—awful.”
He put his arm around me and gave me a hug. “You have a huge heart Lucinda de Salle.”
I gave him a weak smile. Maybe I had, I just hoped it wasn’t going to end up broken.
Before we left I promised the spirits we would be back to release them. I’m not sure they believed me as they watched us go in a heavy silence.
“Where to now?” I asked.
“Jinx and I think we should go back to court,” Jamie said.
“What will that do, other than perhaps get me arrested?” Vaybian asked.
“One”—Jinx said, counting off on his fingers—“if we tell Baltheza his daughter has been kidnapped and her guard left for dead, you will no longer be a suspect. He won’t be happy someone has attacked a member of his family without his say so and may be more inclined to help us; he has spies everywhere and their knowledge could become our knowledge. Two: where better to pick up information than court and the Drakon’s Rest?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Shenanigans said, and Kerfuffle nodded in agreement.
“Three: Shenanigans and Kerfuffle will get to see their ladyloves,” Jinx added with a grin in their direction. Kerfuffle’s cheeks turned a funny shade and Shenanigans went all bashful. “And four: Lucky will get a chance to check how little Angela is fitting in with her new family.”
“What about Philip?” I asked. Last time I had seen Angela’s father he had looked half dead.
“What about him?” Jamie asked. Neither he nor Jinx were particularly sympathetic toward his plight. I couldn’t blame them; Philip had betrayed me. Had things gone the way he’d planned, I would be on the end of a leash and the plaything of a demon whose brain was located mainly between his legs. Still, I had to try and get Philip back to the Overlands if I possibly could. If I didn’t, I’d be almost as bad as he.
If anyone was truly reluctant to go back to court it was me. Baltheza, the demon who claimed he was my father, was a sadistic monster and I wanted nothing to do with him. But Jinx was right: he had a huge network of spies who could help us.
To everyone’s surprise, Vaybian got up on Bob behind Jinx without any argument, although I suppose it was better than walking all the way.
We reached the fortress by early afternoon and it was decided, despite the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, that we should present ourselves at court immediately. We didn’t want Baltheza to find out we were back via another source and risk him misconstruing our intentions. Similarly, we decided to go in through the front gate in full royal glory instead of through the tradesmen’s entrance we normally used. This way we wouldn’t look like we were trying to sneak in. I wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion in jeans, shirt, biker boots and black leather jacket, but I was astride a Jeweled Drakon, with a full complement of guards including the Deathbringer on his infernal steed, the Guardian, Shenanigans, Kerfuffle and one extra: Vaybian.
The royal palace—home to Lord Baltheza—was at the center of a small walled city, surrounded by homes, shops, an inn and everything else that one would expect to find, apart from perhaps a church, which was to be expected; demons didn’t have much truck with religion.
We flew in above the city streets and cobblestone alleyways, making directly for the palace proper. The streets below us were busy, and as we passed over the Drakon’s Rest I caught a glimpse of smoke spiraling up from the main chimney and a whiff of cooking meat. They would be getting ready for the evening trade and roasting several different joints on the huge fire at the heart of the inn. I wished fervently I could be there; anywhere but heading toward an audience with Baltheza.
All too soon we were dropping down to the palace entrance. From the outside it looked like a castle from a children’s fairytale, or bearing in mind the occupants, an old Hammer House of Horror movie. Its heavily fortified walls with high battlements of roughly hewn gray stone, turrets, a moat, drawbridge and even a portcullis, towered above the city.
The soldiers on duty cleared out of our path upon seeing us, some with ill-disguised shudders as Jinx passed them by, and nobody dared approach to arrest Vaybian. We dismounted outside the main building. Jinx caressed Bob’s snout and murmured a few words into his ear before sending him on his way, while Pyrites shrunk to the size of a pit pony and trotted along beside me, his claws clicking against the cobblestones.
I entered through the huge wooden outer doors with some trepidation. Once inside the castle, it wouldn’t be so easy to leave.
Jamie beckoned one of the Royal Guard over and asked him to inform Lord Baltheza of our arrival, and our request for an urgent audience.
The guard looked from
Jamie to Jinx, then to me, and decided that arguing would be a mistake. With a nervous tic making his right lower eyelid judder, he gave a small bow and requested that we wait in a small antechamber inside the castle, then disappeared in the direction of Baltheza’s chamber. I would have preferred to wait in the great hall, as it was there I would be able to see and question the spirits that haunted the rafters: I wanted to know why so many were still tied to the fortress. I knew they had been executed, so it should have come as no surprise to them that they were dead—and therefore they should have been able to move on. The violence of their deaths may have counted for some of them being unable to let go, but I felt that there was something I was missing. I had never liked mysteries.
“I want to take a look in the great hall,” I said.
“Yes,” Jinx said, “I too would be most interested to learn what the spirits that loiter there have to tell you.”
“I think we should try and get through the audience with Baltheza without any mishap before worrying about the long dead,” Jamie said.
“Surely Baltheza isn’t foolish enough to risk the displeasure of the Deathbringer or Guardian?” Shenanigans said.
“It didn’t stop him trying to execute Mistress Lucky before, did it?” Kerfuffle muttered.
“In case you hadn’t noticed brother,” Jinx said to Shenanigans, “he’s barmier than a scorpion trapped in a glass jar that’s been left out in the midday sun. Who knows what he might do?”
“Thanks, boys. You’re making me feel so warm and safe and cozy.”
“Just telling it as it is,” Jinx said.
Baltheza was apparently in no real hurry to hear what we had to say. He kept us waiting for so long that Kerfuffle nodded off and even Pyrites curled up at my feet, snoring. I was getting fidgety, and just wondering whether I should take the risk of slipping out to the great hall when the door to the anteroom swung open.
Two guards, both the size of hefty gorillas, stood in the doorway; one of them even looked like a large primate with a dark chocolate hairy coat and overlarge nostrils. It was he who stepped into the room and looked at us one by one, not bothering to hide his disdain. He wasn’t one tiny bit in awe of Jamie or Jinx; though I think the words brawn and brains came into it somewhere …
