by P. R. Frost
He accepted my plan for getting WindScribe back with a curt nod. “I want a piece of those demons. A big, lethal piece,” he said.
“Take your pick of weapons,” I told him as we descended to the cellar. Halohan had only taken the German short sword. (I cursed every time I thought of demon blood corroding the metal while it sat in an evidence bin somewhere.) The other weapons had all turned up free of fingerprints and signs of recent usage.
“The Celestial Blade?” he asked hopefully.
“Since I’ll be using the real one, I suppose you could take the replica. That is—if it will let you hold it.” I flashed him a wicked grin. “Oh, and you have to stay ten yards away from me until we actually find the Windago, otherwise Scrap can’t get close enough to me to be of any use. Once we are in the presence of demons, their essence overrides your barriers.”
As I opened the armory door, a jolt of memory surfaced. Donovan making a half-statement when Halohan found the short sword with blood on it.
“If an ordinary blade couldn’t kill Darren, then what did?”
“That was no ordinary blade.” Donovan stood in front of the replica Celestial Blade, hands firmly clasped behind his back.
“Meaning?” Of course it wasn’t ordinary. Real, not replica, seventeenth-century pieces were rare and hard to come by. I knew of only a handful of that particular model designed for dueling, in this country.
“It had an otherworldly aura about it.” Donovan looked pleased that he had information and power that I did not.
“We had specially forged weapons at the Citadel. For when imps got tired or sickened. For novices who hadn’t bonded with imps yet. Forged with magic. Scrap could smell it, but I couldn’t.”
“The short sword was akin to those. Forged with magic.”
“Scrap?” I called into the ether.
As close behind you as I can get, babe. He sounded closer than usual when Donovan stood beside me.
“Did you have anything to do with me buying that particular sword last year?”
Meaning?
“Don’t get evasive and noncommittal. You’ve given me a couple of otherworldly artifacts. The comb and the brooch. And the dragon-skull gargoyle. Did you direct me to that blade in particular?”
Maybe I sensed something down that alley. In that pawnshop, Scrap admitted. It is a pretty sword. I do like pretty things. Shiny.
“Origins?”
Unknown.
“Uses?”
Obviously it can kill a demon. Something special in the forging of the metal.
Good enough explanation for me. In the seventeenth century witch hunts happened in Europe every other year or so. A lot of them in Germany. Witches got blamed for crop failures during the Little Ice Age from the fourteenth century well into the eighteenth century. Maybe someone had a reason for imbuing special qualities in that German blade. Like real witches and demons mucking with the weather.
“Anything else in here that appeals to you?” I asked Donovan. I didn’t think any of the other blades were special in the same way as the short sword. I’d bought or traded for them on the open market, through usual channels.
“Just the Celestial Blade.” Donovan grasped the shaft with a tentative hand. The imp wood glowed red where he grasped it. He kept his hand there.
“Is it burning you?”
“No. It tingles all the way to my feet. I think it’s recognizing me.” His voice shook.
Slowly he placed his other hand on the shaft. The glow expanded to engulf both hands and arms, up into his bunched neck muscles and over the top of his head. His coppery skin pulsed and darkened to a burnished sheen.
For a half a heartbeat I caught an aura of a bat surrounding him. I backed off before the revulsion could shake my resolve to work with him during this fight.
But he had to be human now, or the blade would repulse him or burn him up.
A flash of jealousy heated my face. “The imp wood never did that with me,” I grumbled.
Not that you noticed anyway.
“Were you there, Scrap, even before we bonded?”
I was with you from the moment you contracted the virus, he said softly. I was with you when you lost your way getting to the Citadel. I kept you from driving off the road into the lake at the base of Dry Falls. I directed you to the Citadel. I licked you where Sister Serena cut out the infection, to help you heal. I watched over you in the night so that you would not be alone during your time of trial.
I gulped. Most of that terrible journey was a blur of nightmare images.
You fought your first demons during those nightmares.
“Thanks, buddy. I appreciate you being there.” One of my biggest fears was to die alone, without family or friends nearby. I’d sat vigil with Sister Jenny while she and her imp Tulip died. Tulip had gotten tagged during a battle while I was still in hospital recovering from the imp flu. He could not live. She could not live if he died. They lingered for months, neither one willing to let the other die.
The Sisters left her alone with her misery. It was their way.
But not mine. I held her hand as she died.
Ever afterward, I wondered if Scrap had held Tulip’s paw in those moments. Or if he’d delivered a coup de grace to free them both.
I had to shake off those paralyzing memories and get back to the task at hand. Still, my body chilled and my innards began to shake in fear. And in grief.
All of it triggered by Dill’s death. Would I ever be free of that?
“I hope not,” he said from the corner of the cellar. “When you stop grieving, I go back to . . . whatever. But while you keep me alive in your heart, I’m stuck here and we have a chance to be together again.”
“I can’t, Dill. I just can’t,” I whispered in my mind.
“Can’t or won’t? Is Donovan a better lover than me? If you think you’ve found someone else, forget it, Tess. You and I are bound together forever, in life and in death. You are mine, and I’ll never let him have you.”
My blood ran cold at his words. What if he followed through with his threats out there, with the Windago, when I had my hands full and needed all of my wits?
“Will the blade glow like this with anyone?” I asked instead of dwelling on useless emotions.
I don’t know. Scrap sounded chagrined.
“If you two don’t get a move on, you’re going to lose the moon,” Gollum called from the top of the stairs. “I removed the padlock from the cellar door. No one saw me do it.”
So Gollum had some covert skills. Why was I not surprised?
“This way.” I led Donovan over to the shallow steps cut through the dirt and only recently made of cement. “I’ll need some help.”
Donovan put his back to the slanting cellar doors that lifted upward onto a shadowy corner of the yard. A tall and ancient oak sheltered us from view of any but the most probing of observers.
“Nice hidey-hole,” Donovan whispered, as aware as I of potential watchers.
I shrugged. My house had a lot of history. I hoped I didn’t have to add hiding place from demons on the hunt to the long list.
As an added safety precaution, I jammed the magic comb into my hair. Instantly, the shadows came alive. I probed the depths of each of them and found them empty.
Silvery moonlight dappled the lawn. Nearly twilight. Who needed flashlights on a night like this? A night made for lovers. Or hunting demons.
My blood ran hot with anticipation. And fear.
We separated as we headed for the woods. Scrap settled comfortably on my shoulder. A friend. And a weapon. My fears abated. A little.
I took the right-hand path, Donovan the left. Scrap and the magic in the comb kept my feet on the path. I barely needed the glimmers of moonlight through the canopy of new leaves popping out to guide me. The dark took on layers and shades. Nothing hid from me.
We made our way slowly around Miller’s Pond. On the far side, the forest was deeper and darker. I hadn’t explored this area much as a k
id because it was scarier, more prone to ghostly imaginings. Now this area was beyond my property line. I had no idea who owned it.
I smelled the dank pond and the fresh green in the ground cover. And then I caught a new smell, something old and rotten and swirling around me.
Yeep! Scrap yelped and instantly glowed red. He elongated and thinned from one eye blink to the next.
I braced my feet and clasped Scrap in the middle. With a flick of my wrists I set the Celestial Blade to twirling.
Donovan leaped out of the low shrubs, his own blade twisting and turning, biting into the suddenly freezing wind.
Burning cold surrounded me and lifted my hair. Sparks flashed near the ground. My hands went numb, and I dropped the Celestial Blade. A dozen Windago reached for me with their freezing hands and souls of ice.
Chapter 39
"AT LAST, I WILL have my revenge and a new mate,” Lilia snarled at me. She almost took human form within the black swirling mass of wind and smelly fur.
Each rotation of air seemed to suck more and more warmth and strength from my body. My willpower faded equally fast.
Where the hell was Scrap? I really needed him here, in my hands to give me a boost out of this mess.
"Take Donovan, for all I care. Return WindScribe to me,” I said with as much strength and conviction as I could muster.
"WindScribe will be my new mate,” a second form whispered from behind me. That must be the husband to the one Donovan killed in the motel.
“Isn’t that shredding some cosmic law?” I asked. My knees wanted to give out. All I had left to fight with was my brains. And they wanted to melt out of my ears. "You have orders to return WindScribe to the Orculli.”
“We take orders only from ourselves,” Lilia hissed.
“Don’t tell that to the Powers That Be.”
“Fight it, Tess,” Donovan called to me. Dimly, I knew that he swung the replica blade in efficient circles, keeping the Windago at bay, yet never quite connecting with them.
Lilia tangled her paw/hand in my hair and yanked. The comb flew free. My scalp burned.
Sparks flew from my heels where they dragged on the ground.
I clawed and kicked, tried to dig in my heels.
No, babe. Don’t fight, Scrap countered from off in the bushes. The barest hint of moonlight glinted off his blade ends. Windago draw energy from your struggle. The moon nears its zenith. Wait a moment.
I held my breath. A lessening in the cold. A moment of cessation of movement.
Another heartbeat, dahling. That’s my babe, Scrap coaxed.
Sure enough the edge of the moon cleared the tree-tops.
Then, before I could think twice about a plan, Scrap hopped to my hand, all red and stretching, and became my blade once more.
I swung blindly behind me. The blade bit into something. A grunt.
Tension released from my scalp. Lilia screamed in pain.
I dropped to the ground. Instantly, I caught my balance, rolled to my knees, and swung the blade again— right left, up down, fore and aft.
With each swing I pushed myself back onto my feet.
Twisting right and left, whirling my head to keep everyone within sight.
Each blow caught . . . resistance.
“Yeehaw!” Donovan chortled behind me. “Finally got one.”
A long, mournful moan followed his glee. I hoped he got the lonely male.
A heavier contingent of freezing shadows pressed me closer.
I flipped the blade into reverse and used the tines on the outside of the blade to pierce and rake ahead of me. One, two. They went down.
A third got under my guard and raked my left forearm with a frigid talon.
I suppressed a moan and clung tighter to the shaft though my left arm felt numb and heavy at the same time. I’d have a scar from that one.
Not on my watch, babe, Scrap growled. For three heartbeats he took control of the blade. I could only follow his motions, keeping a fierce grip on the weapon and on my pain.
A cold shadow shifted to my side. Scrap and I followed it. Lilia. Her eyes glowed red. She reached for me with a new desperation. Part of her fur sloughed free. Her grief and aloneness twisted her face into a grotesque mask worthy of a gargoyle.
Feeling returned to my arm in sharp pinpricks that burned all the way to my spine. I used the pain to propel the blade into a wild twist and thrust.
Lilia’s head tumbled to the ground. Dark blood spurted upward. Then all turned to dust, falling back to Earth in a frozen black shower.
Four down, at least eight to go. They paired off, coming at me in twos. My arms grew listless again. Sweat dripped down my back and into my eyes. My heavy sweatshirt dragged at each movement, became too warm. But the air around me dropped below freezing. My blade lost some of its luster in the moonlight. It felt dull and heavy. The balance was off.
And they kept coming at me. I lost sight of them. Freezing tendrils of air reached for me. Every place they touched, bare skin burned with frostbite. Blood dripped from the wound on my left arm.
A few inches to the left of my foot I saw the comb, moonlight giving it an amazing luster. If I could only get my hands on it, I could see the enemy. Fight them better.
They gave me no time, not a single millimeter of space to catch up my treasure.
Exhaustion and defeat dragged me down, made me clumsy.
A Windago chortled with glee and lunged for me. In the distance a raw hum cranked louder. Gollum or MoonFeather had turned my stereo up full blast. Bright blessings on them both.
Throbbing drums, rousing pipes, a husky voice.
I didn’t need to hear the words clearly. At this distance I couldn’t. But I knew them.
“Axes flash, broadsword swing.
Shining armor’s piercing ring
Horses run with polished shield
Fight those Bastards till they yield
Midnight mare and blood-red roan,
Fight to keep this land your own
Sound the horn and call the cry . . .”
“How many of them can we make die!” I screamed and swung the blade with renewed vigor. I lashed out. The blade brightened and sharpened.
Then I saw her. WindScribe lay huddled in a fetal ball at the base of a tree about two meters from me. She whimpered. I saw her naked back move as she breathed.
She was alive!
New desperation to save my charge flooded me with adrenaline.
Donovan crowed again as he felled a demon. I took out two more.
The enemy faded into the wilderness. The wind died. The temperature rose a few degrees. Scrap shrank back to his normal body and collapsed facedown in the leaf litter.
I dropped to my knees, nearly sick with exhaustion and blood loss. The warming air sent a heavy languor through me. All I wanted to do was fall over and sleep.
Not yet, dahling, Scrap urged. We’ve work to do still. He tugged at my aching scalp to keep me awake. His tongue stroked the bleeding wound on my arm. The burn dissipated. Some. Not much. Enough.
