Not Just Another Fae (Vegas Fae Stories Book 4)

by Keller, Tom

  If I'd been just another human, they might make a difference; but come on... This is the desert. Those things did best near water. What were they going to do? Drown me in the gutter? They probably used them to incapacitate their target; the Wraith frightening the victim and holding him fast while they did whatever they planned to do. Overconfident. While they didn't frighten me, they were still potentially dangerous. I was glad to have Charlie at my side. Better too much than too little. I released the strap that secured my seax in the holster and shifted to have access to the gun on my back. Not that those would have any effect on the Wraiths, but I had my sword for that. Then I just waited for them to get close.

  I could sense them as they glided toward me. Floating as a barely perceptual mist; they stopped some 20 feet away, settling into the grass, safely hidden. Or so they thought. When the other two were about the same distance away, staying seated, I turned my head to face them.

  The Fae had a sword. He held it behind his back like he didn’t want me to know it was there; although the hand grasping the hilt, only partially hidden, made it obvious. The Mage had something as well. Something metallic. He held it in his left hand, concealed behind his leg.

  He stopped and stared at me; a smug look on his face.

  "I have a message for you," he said in a Slavic accent.

  "And what would that be?" I asked, acting like I wasn't concerned.

  "That a King without a crown is not a King."

  Before I could respond, he brought his hand up. Damn. He was carrying a Mac.

  I dove to the left and rolled as the machine pistol fired. The Mac-10 was a bullet dumper, firing a lot of rounds in a short period of time. But this guy was showing off. Used properly, it was a formidable weapon. He held the gun one handed, causing the bullets to spray in all directions as it discharged. Even without the accuracy of a proper stance, that was a still lot of bullets in the air; so I kept rolling until I was clear. At the same time, the Fae pulled his sword, and the Wraiths made their move.

  A couple of bullets had grazed me, but they'd done no serious damage. I willed a wall of magic at the Mage as soon as I stopped moving, throwing him off balance. The gun flew out of his hands and tumbled through the air. The Fae was now running toward me, but Charlie was on him in an instant. Down he went on the grass. My sword appeared in my hand as I felt the first Wraith try and clutch my lower body. A quick movement of the blade, already glowing with lightning, removed its grip on my legs and it evaporated into mist. I jumped up to face the second one.

  The appearance of my sword had startled it, and I rushed it before it could retreat. Cleaving it in two, the lightning within the blade sent whatever life-force the Wraith contained back to where it belonged; the mist evaporating as quickly as the first one had. Turning back to my other opponents, I saw that Charlie was finishing off the Fae that had held the sword; his jaws firmly clamped around its neck. The Mage was still trying to recover and I leapt toward him. Before I could reach him, he pulled out a wand and fired a spell toward me. I batted it aside with a thought as the magic within me raged. His skills were simply not powerful enough for what I had become.

  He now held another object and raised it above his head, preparing to throw it at me. Before he could complete the movement, my sword was in his chest and he fell to the ground. Shit! I hadn’t really wanted to kill him. I was actually hoping to get some information. I'd known they probably couldn’t beat me, but I could have been wrong about his skills or weapons. I turned to check on Charlie. His opponent wasn't getting up either.

  "Damn," I said to him. "I was hoping we'd take at least one of them alive."

  "Sword and knife," Charlie said, looking over to at the dead Fae; a double edged knife still clutched in his hand.

  "What of the others?" he asked, his head swiveling as if searching for the other two.

  "Some kind of Wraith," I replied. "No match for my sword." I bent down and picked up the knife, then collected the sword that had fallen by its side. Placing them on a table, I went back to the Mage. His gun was a few feet away, so I gathered that up and grabbed a phone I found in his pocket. There was nothing else. Then I bent down to see what he was going to throw at me.

  It was made of gold, or a mixture of gold and other metals. It was some type of orb and there were ornate engravings on it. One looked like the letter B, with some sort of arrow beside it, but that symbol, unlike the rest of the surface, was so worn it was difficult to tell. It had to be a weapon of some type. Why act like he was going to throw it at me if it was anything else. The craftsmanship was superb; almost too perfect. Except for the worn image, it could have been made yesterday. Not even a seam was visible. Not something I expected to be in the hands of a Mage that acted like a two-bit gangster. Whoever had created this was a master artisan. I wondered where it came from. I called to Charlie to take a look.

  "Have you ever seen one of these?" I asked, still kneeling over the body.

  "No," he said, sniffing it as I held it out. "Perhaps the Dwarves."

  "Dwarves?" I asked. That's all I needed. A connection between Sergei and the Dwarves could spell real problems. Not only for me, but for all the Fae in the valley. "Are you certain?"

  "No," he replied. "But it smells of danger. A weapon, I think."

  "But what does it do?" I asked aloud as I examined it. Obviously, it was meant to be thrown, and the arrow image was telling. I was just about to throw it and see what happened when something in my brain tickled. Then Sendy appeared.

  "My Lord," she said. "Something approaches from the north. Something dark. I cannot yet tell what it is."

  "It is Fae," Charlie said. He shifted and held his head high, sniffing the air.

  "Is it evil?" I asked, now sensing the being as well. There was a hint of darkness present.

  "No threat," he replied, lowering his snout. "Not to us."

  Somewhat relieved, I quickly checked the Fae's body. He hadn't been carrying anything else, so I stood up to see what was approaching. I'd check the car later.

  "Ah," Sendy said, a moment later, when it got closer. "It is of the Keres. I did not know that any of them dwelled in this place."

  As Sendy spoke, I saw the creature come into view over the houses north of the park. It floated like a dark cloud travelling on the wind toward us. Keres? As in descended from Nyx, Goddess of the Night? They may be Fae, all right, but they were Death-Spirits. Not exactly the kind of gals you invited over to the weekly barbecue. I'd never heard of them being here either. I wondered where this one had come from.

  She rode on a cloud that looked like gossamer wisps of black, slowly moving around her body, offering glimpses of flesh, here and there. As she settled down in front of me, the cloud tightened; now a black gown of slowly moving dark mist. At first, she looked beautiful, with firm breasts, and a body more... curvy than most Fae. Like a Goddess in an old portrait. But every now and then, as her face turned, a glimpse of something terrible would come to the surface. That being was not lovely. Her fierce eyes, pointed teeth, and claw like hands, were disturbing to look upon, to say the least.

  She glanced over at Charlie and Sendy. Something about him made her pause. She ignored Sendy, but stopped and bowed to him. I waited to see what she would do next. She walked toward me; cautiously sizing me up, her head and body twisting and turning like a bird, as if sampling my aura as she approached.

  "Why does a Fae Lord send me these gifts?" she finally asked, bowing to me. She drew out each word as she spoke. Then she opened a claw like hand to reveal two black, shiny lumps of what looked like obsidian.

  "Did I?" I asked. I suppressed a shudder as I somehow recognized what she held. They were the hardened souls of the Wraiths I had killed."

  "And the others?" she asked, closing her hand and pointing to the Mage and Fae that lay on the grass.

  I turned to Sendy, as if to ask what she meant.

  "Their fate is sealed," she said. "Nothing she will do to them will change that."

  Now I
'm not one to wish ill upon a dead enemy; even ones as vile as those two had been. But she was Fae, and if their fates were sealed, it really didn’t matter what I thought, or did.

  "What do you offer?" I asked, figuring there may be more I could learn from this being.

  "I will deliver them to the dark realms. Thus freeing you from having to deal with them."

  "You would have done that anyway," I replied. She was smarter than she appeared to be. Ghoulish or not, offering nothing was the first step in any hard negotiation.

  "My Lord is wise," she said, a smile coming onto her face before the image changed. Her teeth gnashed as she tried to decide what to say next.

  "I am Robert of the Dryad," I said, before she could counter. "And this Karalos and Sendy. Take them as my gift. But first, tell me your name."

  "My name, my Lord?" she asked, surprised.

  "Yes," I said. "Your name. So that I may call upon you." Shit, that didn’t come out right. "Just to talk," I added quickly

  "Kyras, my Lord," she said a moment later, in an almost dreamy voice. Her eyes fluttering as her cloud of black lifted her up from the ground. "I am Kyras," she repeated, and floated closer, a curious look in her eyes as she hovered for a moment in front of me. I almost thought that she was going to try and kiss me. Then, without another word, she was up and over my head, swooping down behind me onto the bodies. Her cloud of dark mist encompassed them, and before I could register what she was doing, they were gone. She was but a smoky mist, heading back the way she had come from.

  "See where she goes," I said to Sendy. "If you can, follow her without being seen."

  She just nodded, then disappeared.

  Charlie was giving me that look. The one reserved for times when I threw the ball over the wall when we were playing.

  "What?" I asked.

  "Her name?"

  "Hey," I said. "How do I know what to say to a Death Spirit? Besides, she might prove useful later."

  It was just her name. But he obviously thought I'd done something inappropriate. This from the dog that tries to set me up with every pretty Fae I meet. Ok, she was a Death Spirit, and probably not my type. I wasn't hitting on her; but that wasn't the point. Screw it. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the golden orb I'd taken from the Mage.

  "Can we move on now?" I asked.

  There was no reply, but he did relax a bit.

  "Good," I said. "Now let's see what this thing does."

  Chapter 13

  "Flirting with a Death Spirit?" Michael asked as he lifted his cup. "I wish I could have been there to see that."

  "I was not flirting," I said, blushing at the thought.

  "Ok, ok, if you say so," Michael said, laughing. "But you have to admit, it's still funny."

  We were sitting in his office at the Neptune, sipping coffee as we waited for Siegfried to show up. It was late, and he had been off property when I called to set up this meeting.

  "You've got me there," I admitted. "But how was I supposed to know that asking her name was flirting? Anyway. Back to the point. What was she doing there in the first place? I've been in quite a few battles, and she's never appeared before now. Where did she come from? Could this be related to the Demons escaping, or was she already here?"

  "She's a Fae," Michael said. "A descendant of Nyx. Not the kind we generally deal with. But I do know that the Keres have been seen here before. I hear they were quite common during the Civil War. So I doubt it's related to the appearance of the Demons."

  "But where did she come from?" I asked as Siegfried came into the room.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee before taking a seat on the couch behind me. "What are we discussing?"

  I hadn’t had a chance to tell him about what happened. He'd been busy when I set up the meeting and I had only spoken with Michael.

  "Robert's been flirting with a Death Spirit," Michael said before I could reply.

  "A Death Spirit?" Siegfried repeated. "What type?"

  "A Keres," I replied. "And I wasn't flirting..."

  "Oh," Siegfried said. "I was hoping you were going to tell me it was a Valkyrie. It's a shame, but none have been seen since The Fall. Where did you find her at?"

  "Wait... Wait... You're going to love this part," Michael said with a laugh. "He traded bodies for her name!"

  "Bodies? What bodies?" Siegfried blurted out, almost spilling his coffee. "Excuse me? He asked for her name?"

  "Can we start over please?" I asked.

  "Yes. Please do," Siegfried said, glancing at Michael who was still chuckling. "From the beginning."

  I repeated what had happened at the park, including the fact that the Mage had carried the orb. When I was finished, I took it out of my pocket and set it on Michael's desk, along with the registration I had taken from their car. The phone I kept for myself, having already decided to have Mal take a look at it.

  "What in the ...?" Siegfried said as he got up to take a closer look.

  "Do you know what it is?" Michael asked.

  "It's a weapon," I said, picking it up. "Quite effective. If you like to dismember your enemies one at a time, anyway."

  "What does it do?" Siegfried asked.

  "I tested it on a park bench last night," I said. "On impact, a shitload of thin, gold metal filaments, chainlike, with barbs, shot out and encircled it, then coiled up and retracted, slicing it to pieces. The metal legs didn’t even faze it. It just cut right through them."

  "Ouch," Michael said.

  "My thoughts exactly," I replied. "But it gets better. It comes back to the thrower, like a boomerang, so you can use it again."

  "A weapon of terror then," Siegfried said. "And magical. Which begs the question, where did it come from?"

  "Charlie thinks it might have come from the Dwarves," I replied. "But he isn’t sure."

  "Let me see that for a moment," Siegfried said, examining it after I handed it to him. "The arrow could be the old rune for Tyr, a Norse God of glory and law. But that is just a guess. It could mean anything; and I have never seen the symbol that precedes it before. Strange that it is only worn in that one place. But many races use symbols, and even the Dwarves do not have a common language."

  "Well, if it did come from the Dwarves," I said as Siegfried handed it back, "then Sergei's dumber than I thought."

  "But no less dangerous," Michael said, before holding up the car's registration. "I'll follow up on this. Meredith will want to know what is going on. She should be here shortly."

  I'd taken it after rifling through the car. It'd been empty except for that, but maybe the documentation would lead us somewhere.

  "She actually warned me about him," I said. "Just the other day."

  "Still," Siegfried said. "It is odd that such a device would be in the hands of... What did you call him? An amateur gangster? Sergei is no fool. He may use such Mages as tools, but I find it hard to believe he would trust one with something like this. If it did indeed come from him."

  "Which is the only reason I didn't have Sendy take me to his office and use the damn thing on him myself," I replied. "I can’t prove anything. He's not a Vodianoi Lord, nor was it the Fae that carried it. It could mean anything, or nothing."

  "And we have heard no news of attacks with weapons such as this," Siegfried said. "As for the symbol, if it is Tyr's, then it would not be unusual for the owner to engrave it on his weapon as a dedication, to strengthen his chances in battle. But your description of the Mage does not make that likely."

  "That doesn’t leave us with very much to go on," Michael said.

  "No it does not," said Siegfried. "And the engraving could have been made by anyone; the maker or the owner. What do you plan to do with it?"

  "Give it to Jay when I'm done with it, I guess," I replied. "Maybe they can figure it out. But first I want to run it by a few other folks. Perhaps one of the other Fae can identify the maker."

  "Which brings us to the Death Spirit," Siegfried said as the door opened a
nd Meredith came in.

  "A Death Spirit?" she said, closing the door behind her. "What have I missed?"

  I repeated the story of tonight's events. When I was done, Meredith examined the golden orb before replying.

  "A disgusting weapon," she said, handing it back. "But I think you may be correct. Such a thing would not be given lightly, and Sergei has little faith in those not of the Fae. I have no doubt that he was behind the attack, but I do not believe that even he would give such a device to an outsider, especially a Mage of such low caliber. This is disturbing. First the Demons, and now this Mage. We have had conflicts here before, but never have I seen a weapon like this. Gaea's words to your daughter are becoming even more ominous. Then there is the matter of the Death Spirit."

  "What's the deal with her, anyway?" I asked. "Forget the name part for a moment. Why is she here?"

  "They are not unheard of," Meredith said. "They are often heralds of doom, since they are seldom seen unless many deaths have occurred; such as in war. But you say Sendy followed her to a cemetery?"

  "Yeah," I replied. "There's one not too far from my house."

  "Strange," she said. "Yet not unprecedented. There must be a doorway there. Siegfried, have we had any contact with such Fae that I am not aware of?"

  "No," Siegfried said. "Not since I came to the valley."

  "You said doorway," I asked, looking at Meredith. "What kind of doorway?"

  "One to their lands in the Underworld," Siegfried replied for her. "It is said they feed upon the dead, and send their souls to Hades for judgement."

  "I hope it's not as messed up down there as the rest of the place is," I replied. I thought back to my trip to the gates of Hades with Meredith, to bathe in the waters of the Mnemosyne, the river of memory. Once the home of the Titan by the same name; we retrieved water from there, as well as the river Lethe, to create a potion to allow us entrance to a hidden stronghold of Marissa's followers. I also bathed there, letting the waters help me control the magic I was gifted with. On our way there, we'd found the entrance to Hades in disarray. Peopled by mindless creatures that had been unable to complete the journey across the river Acheron to reach the gates themselves. It had not been a fun experience.