by Peter McLean
“Yeah, I did,” I confessed. “I just… Look, you weren’t really yourself right then, Trixie. I thought it might be best if, well, I mean, in the state of mind you were in…”
She was so angry the black threads in her aura were moving, twisting and growing before my eyes. She wasn’t really herself now either, that was for fucking sure. She caught me looking at her and her aura flared blinding white as she slammed down the shutters and went back to hiding it.
“How dare you judge me!” she screamed.
She lashed out and backhanded me across the face hard enough to fling me to the floor and halfway across the room. I hit the side of my desk with a crunch and slowly raised a hand to my bloody mouth.
I hate to admit it, but I remembered this. Not quite like this of course, not this way around anyway, but the memories of a childhood I didn’t tend to dwell on suddenly came flooding back. I remembered my dad coming home on a payday Friday night, drunk as a lord with one grievance or another on his mind and just me and my mum to take it out on. I was only a little lad then, of course – he did us both a favour and died of a heart attack when I was ten – but I still remember my poor mum putting herself between him and me, time and time again. And more often than not she ended up like this, on the floor with a bloody mouth.
Oh, fucking hell.
“Now look what you made me do,” Trixie said.
Look what you made me do. Dad always used to say that to Mum, afterwards. Like it somehow wasn’t his fault.
Cunt.
“I’m sorry, Trixie,” I said, and I meant it.
I know, I know, but… no actually I don’t know. She frightened the life out of me sometimes but I loved her, you know what I mean? For a moment there I actually felt like it was my fault, for upsetting her. Stupid of me I know, but there we are. I couldn’t help wondering if my mum had felt the same way all those years ago.
“Oh Don,” she gasped suddenly. “Oh Thrones, I’m so sorry!”
She knelt at my side and reached out towards me. I couldn’t help flinching just a little bit.
Bloody hell…
“Oh don’t,” she said. “Oh Don, please don’t be afraid of me. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’ll never happen again, you have to believe me. Here, let me get that for you.”
She lightly touched my split lips and I felt a warm tingle as the wound healed.
“There,” she said, “all better now.”
My mouth was, but… really? All better now? I wasn’t so sure of that. I may have mentioned it before but when I was a student I wasn’t really a big drinker, and the memory of my dad was most of the reason why not. Of course, Professor Davidson and the Burned Man had soon changed that between them, but there you are. Shit happens and life goes on, I suppose. Just like it would now.
Trixie’s aura blazed a brilliant white lie that mocked her soothing words. I thought about that aura, and again I wondered what her Dominion’s own aura looked like by now. There was some sort of bond between them, I knew that much. Some connection beyond just a soldier and her commander. If Trixie’s Dominion was slipping, would that affect her too? I had a nasty feeling that it might.
“Thank you,” I muttered.
She hugged me, and for a moment there it really was all better. She had never done that before, and I liked it. I liked it a lot, and it was enough to make me stop thinking about auras. All the same, I didn’t like being hit one little bit.
She helped me to my feet and I bent cautiously to pick up the dagger. She gave it a hard stare and I wanted to flinch again but I forced myself not to.
“We need this, Trixie,” I said. “I know you don’t like it, and I’m sorry that I lied to you, but this is what I had to use for the talisman. It’s the only thing I had that was strong enough to contain the Burned Man.”
Yeah, I do know that I was still lying to her now. Sometimes a little lie is better than a painful explanation, you know what I mean? And when I say “better” of course I mean “easier”, but there you are.
“I understand,” she said. “I’m going to bed now.”
She lingered in the doorway for a moment and I half let myself wonder if that was some sort of a question, possibly even an invitation. Idiot. Of course it wasn’t.
“Right,” I said. “Night then.”
“Yes,” she said, “it is.”
She closed the door behind her.
I sat down behind my desk with a weary sigh and put the dagger down in front of me. I looked at it, and I thought about my mum, and I started to cry.
I took the whisky out of the drawer.
Chapter 12
The next morning I called Wormwood to set up the meet with the gnomes, and again it was set for the evening. Janice obviously didn’t like to come out during the day, which I suppose wasn’t surprising really. I spent the day getting over my hangover and catching up on the laundry and doing some grocery shopping and all the other shit it’s too easy to forget about when life gets hectic. Basically I was staying as far out of Trixie’s way as I could get, if I’m honest about it. The atmosphere between us was a little strained, to put it fucking mildly.
All the same, that evening Trixie and I met Janice on the platform at Bank. I was wearing the thickest boots I owned and an old coat I didn’t mind having to burn later. Trixie had dressed down in jeans and low-heeled boots with a sweater and leather jacket, but she still shone like a star. I had been half-expecting her to turn up in the same sort of combat armour she had worn to face Wellington Phoenix’s devourers, but apparently not this time. She was certainly confident, I had to give her that. Maybe a bit too confident, considering what we were on our way to face. Janice looked up at her from the shadows of her hood and wuffled her pointed little nose.
“Who’s this?” she asked me.
“This is Trixie,” I said. “Trixie, this is Janice.”
“Honour be to the gnomes of the deep Earth,” Trixie said. “Honour be to the guardians of the watchtowers of the north.”
Gnomes are Earth elementals, and the watchtowers of the north represent the cardinal point of the compass governing Earth in the traditional four-element system. I knew that of course, but I must admit I was a bit surprised that Trixie did. Janice looked pleased though, and more than a little bit flushed and embarrassed. There really was something about our Trixie that appealed to everyone.
“Thank you,” she said, shuffling her feet. “You’re with the hero, then?”
“Janice,” I said, “she is the hero. The real one, I mean.”
“Oh,” said Janice. “Good. Well, we ought to get below.”
I nodded and let her lead us both the way she and I had gone before. I was prepared this time and had brought a bloody great big torch of my own, one of those police issue Maglites that take six D cells and could double up as a warhammer in a pinch. I had the dagger thrust through my belt, under my coat. Trixie hadn’t brought anything and didn’t seem to need it. All the same I was still scared crossing the ledge by the ruined catwalk, while Trixie didn’t appear to be remotely bothered by either the drop or the darkness. If anything it was even worse than last time, and the concrete was now spongy and wet under my boots. It smelled absolutely vile down there.
Janice led us all the way down through the Victorian levels and into the warrens of the gnomes, and still I hadn’t asked. The warren was still glowing with its own light, so I turned my torch off to save the batteries and stuffed it awkwardly into the biggest pocket in my coat. We were all the way down to the first round chamber by the time I plucked up the courage to speak.
“Um, how’s Alice?” I asked.
Janice seemed to hunch into her hoodie, and for a moment she didn’t say anything. I heard a choked sniffle and almost wished I hadn’t asked.
“She’s gone,” she said at last. “But thank you for asking. I appreciate it. I’m… glad you didn’t forget her.”
I nodded. I supposed there was that, if nothing else. I reached out and squee
zed Janice’s shoulder. Poor Alice. Trixie gave me a quizzical look but I ignored her. She obviously hadn’t remembered her, and that pissed me off far more than it should have done. Trixie hadn’t even met her, after all, so why would she remember a name from a brief conversation we’d had several days ago?
Am I being reasonable, or am I making excuses for her? I touched my lip and winced. It didn’t hurt of course, but only because she had healed me afterwards. If she hadn’t, it would have been a throbbing purple mess today, I knew that much.
Mum had always made excuses for Dad, afterwards, but then Dad had been a violent bully. Trixie wasn’t that. She was strong and powerful and yet so fragile it was like she was made of spun glass, so brittle one crack could destroy her. Again I found myself wondering exactly which of us was looking after the other one.
“Come on,” Janice said. “This way.”
“Are we going to see the matriarch again?” I asked, but Janice shook her head.
“Her Highness is barricaded in the nest with all my sisters,” she said. “It’s too dangerous to be out in the warrens now.”
“You are,” Trixie pointed out.
Janice shrugged. “Someone had to guide you,” she said. “I volunteered.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.
She was a brave little thing, I had to give her that. Janice led us deeper into the warren, into curving tunnels that dripped with rotten corruption. We went deeper and deeper, through more tunnels dug through the bedrock far beneath the city. They were rotten to the core, the rock itself turning to putrid slime. Hideous fungal growths sprouted like cancer from the walls and the ceiling, and the floor was awash with something horribly reminiscent of bile. It was getting gradually darker, too, as though even the glow of the walls was starting to fail the deeper we went.
It suddenly occurred to me that Janice probably wasn’t expecting to survive this trip.
“Stay close to me,” I said to her. “I’ve got something with me, some magic. It will stop the taint reaching us but you have to stay close, OK?”
“Oh,” she said. “I understand. Thank you.”
Bless her, poor little thing. She almost clung to me after that, and I realised just how scared she must have been.
“I can feel something,” Trixie said suddenly. “I think we’re close.”
She reached out and twisted her right hand through a figure-of-eight movement, and the air shimmered as her sword appeared. Damn, but I had to learn how she did that. She lifted the gleaming steel blade in her hands and it burst into flames.
“Angelus Mortis!” Janice gasped.
“Yeah,” I said, and lowered my voice to a whisper I was confident only she could hear. “Sort of, anyway, but not exactly. Just stay close to me, Janice, and whatever you do don’t get in her way.”
We advanced slowly, keeping behind Trixie as she led the way with her blazing sword held before her. It was the only light we had now that the bioluminescence of the warrens seemed to have been killed by the all-pervading decay. I heard something growl in the darkness ahead, a distant rumble of sheer malice.
Janice grabbed my arm and pulled me up short.
“Wait,” she begged. “We can’t get any nearer!”
“We have to,” I said. “I have to keep Trixie close as well, I’m afraid. We all have to go.”
Janice nodded miserably and cowered against me as I followed Trixie. She was terrified, bless her, and who wouldn’t have been, but she did it anyway. Brave little thing, as I said.
I dug the torch out of my pocket and flicked it on. The light washed over Trixie, standing in her guard position with the burning sword held motionless in front of her. Beyond her the cavern stretched out and up, looking half natural and half dug like the warrens. However it had originated, it was now a seeping horror of corruption, dripping and reeking. In the shadows at the far edge of the torch’s beam something was moving.
It approached slowly, a monstrous figure with the misshapen body of a man and the head of a gigantic wild boar. It was easily nine feet tall, even stooped as it was, and the hump on its muscular back bristled with stiff hair. It was carrying a great hammer on a shaft six feet long, the head a lump of solid iron the size of a breezeblock. It growled again, poison dripping from its foot-long razor sharp tusks as it put its head down and glowered at Trixie with burning red eyes.
This was Bianakith, I knew. This was the Rotman.
Bianakith is plague walking, I remembered the Burned Man telling me. Anything this fucker comes near will die horribly.
I could only pray that this was going to work.
I could feel the dagger quivering against my stomach as the Burned Man’s aura battled with Bianakith’s. I knew the Burned Man would win that one. In its true form the Burned Man was appallingly powerful, and now I had given it the opportunity to demonstrate that power directly, rather than through the limitations of summoning. I knew it wouldn’t let me down, if only because it wanted to show off. I knew Trixie could feel it too. She took a confident step forwards, her sword never wavering from its strict guard position.
“Come on, you filthy thing,” she said. “Come and dance.”
Bianakith roared and charged, its hammer raised. Trixie met it in a blaze of fire, her sword leaving burning streaks in the air as she cut high then low, her blade clanging from the hammer’s shaft. Bianakith took a swing that would have broken her in half if it had connected, but Trixie pivoted gracefully out of the hammer’s descending arc and struck back. Bianakith had an enormous advantage in reach with its much bigger weapon, and it must have been four times her weight at least, but she danced around it like a steel ballerina. Fuck me, but she was truly a master swordswoman, even I could see that.
Bianakith roared and swung again and she spun, her footwork dazzlingly perfect as she swept her blade up and across the monster’s humped back in what should have been a killing stroke.
Should being the operative word. Bianakith shrugged her off and turned again, bellowing. I edged closer, almost dragging Janice along with me. I had to keep Trixie inside the Burned Man’s protective aura, and I had no idea how big that was. It might have been a good fucking idea to have asked it beforehand, thinking about it. You’ve got to love hindsight.
Trixie’s sword looped and cut again, droplets of molten flame spattering across the rotten ground in its wake. Bianakith turned the blade on the shaft of its hammer and brought the head round to smack Trixie in the chest. It was only a short blow, without the monster’s full weight behind it, but still Trixie grunted and staggered back a couple of steps, obviously hurt. The hammer arced up and over and smashed down towards her head.
I gasped, but she threw herself aside just in time, tucking and rolling on one shoulder with the sword still in her hands. The hammer crashed into the ground and threw up a great gout of foul liquid from the putrid rock underfoot. Trixie sprang to her feet and spun, always attacking, her flaming sword already cutting savagely for Bianakith’s head. It ducked and twisted away, but still the blade slashed its shoulder open almost to the bone. Again though it shrugged off the hurt, the wounds only seeming to make it angrier. It spun the huge hammer as though it weighed nothing and rammed the end of the shaft into Trixie’s stomach like a spear, taking her off her feet.
“Trixie!” I yelled.
“Be quiet,” she shouted at me as she regained her feet. “I’m working!”
She leapt clean over Bianakith’s next swing and cut for its head but somehow Bianakith parried with the hammer, catching her blade right under the huge block of iron. It moved a lot faster than it looked like it had any right to be able to. It forced her blade downwards then suddenly closed on her, roaring. Trixie kicked its forward knee hard enough to take a car door off its hinges. It staggered and she wrenched her sword up and around with incredible strength, tearing the hammer from its hands. The huge weapon spun away into the darkness and landed somewhere with a clang, but Bianakith grabbed at her and caught her sword against one
of its tusks. The blade was trapped between them now, flames blazing up into the air as the monstrosity got its hugely muscular arms around her. I gasped. It dragged Trixie into its foul embrace, bristles standing up on its wounded back as it strained to break her against its body. One tusk was holding her sword locked tight and now it was slowly turning its head, forcing the sword away and the other tusk closer to her throat with every moment.
Oh fuck me no, it’s not supposed to be happening like this!
Janice grabbed at me but I was already striding forwards, the torch outstretched in front of me.
“Oi!” I yelled at it. “Come and have a go at me, you pigheaded cunt!”
So it did.
It’s thick as shit, the Burned Man had told me, and thank God it had been right about that.
It threw Trixie aside – that was something – but now it was charging full tilt at me. I hurled myself out of the way and dragged Janice down after me with one flailing hand, making it go crashing past with a roar of fury. The light swung crazily as I clung onto the torch for dear life. Bianakith wheeled and charged back, its eyes glowing red in the darkness. I rolled again, splashing through the horrific bile on the ground and pulling poor Janice with me again, both of us turning over and over in a tangle of arms and legs. It missed us again but Trixie was up now, her sword blazing with heavenly fury.
“Die!” she shrieked, and plunged the sword through Bianakith’s chest to the hilt.
The blade burst out of its hump and stuck fast, still burning. Bianakith threw its head back and roared.
Then it punched Trixie full in the face.
She flew through the air and crashed into one of the oozing walls, and lay still. Bianakith turned on me with a snarl of hatred. Trixie’s flaming sword was still stuck through its body, but it barely even seemed to notice.
Get me to it and it’s dead. I can take that thing, Trixie had said, like it was a foregone conclusion. I guess that’s where pride gets you in the end.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Janice whimpered.
