“Then I’ll just tell you what to do, Breaker. You must disrupt the Winter Queen’s seat of power enough to balance the great scales of Fairy.”
“And how do I do that?” Kishi asked.
“A Queen’s power is in her subjects.” The Queen grinned, running her hands over the gilded bars of our prison. There was a flash of light and heat that reminded me of a solar flare. The bars blew outward in a spray of molten metal that cracked the marble floors and shattered the otherwise silent corridor.
Kishi swallowed visibly and glanced at me, her eyes wide. I gave her my best smile of support, but I’m fairly sure it wasn’t all that comforting. Kishi sighed and looked back at the Queen who was grinning like a cat with cream.
“So what do we need to do with her subjects?” Kishi asked tentatively.
“Kill them all and let God sort them out?” The Queen shrugged.
“But not too many or we’ll just unbalance in the opposite direction, right?” I asked, and they both looked at me like I was a very small child interrupting the grown up talk.
“The Breaker will know when balance is achieved. Even now she can feel the unbalance in Fairy. The farther we shift toward Winter control, the more powerful she will become. Fairy will continue to feed energy into her until she tips the scales back. It is the only chance we will have to defeat Winter.”
“And there is no way to do that without slaughtering innocent people?” I asked.
“They aren’t people, Lillim,” Kishi spat. “They’re soulless monsters.”
“Who haven’t done anything to us,” I said.
“Hello. We’re in their prison.” Kishi gestured at the room.
“Which could be a misunderstanding,” I replied.
“It’s not,” the Queen said, narrowing her eyes at me before turning to face Kishi. “Go forth and break them.” Her voice filled the room with heat and Kishi staggered backward. I barely caught her as her legs gave out. She was so hot that it was like being next to a vat of magma. Just holding her made the sweat beading on my forehead evaporate.
I glanced back toward the Queen of the Hot and Bright, but she was already gone. All that remained behind was a blackened pool of molten marble.
“Well isn’t that just peachy,” I said as footsteps thudded in the hallway. Two Sidhe with shoulder-length white hair in ankle-length blue parkas stopped just in front of our cell. They were out of breath and one of them put his hands on his knees, leaned forward, and gasped for breath.
The other stepped closer, a Nordic axe clutched so tightly in his fist that his knuckles were noticeably white against his pearl-colored skin.
“Don’t try and escape, Dioscuri.” His tone was filled with annoyance as though having to check on us disrupted his normal guarding activities.
Kishi jerked violently in my hands like someone struck her with a live wire. The Sidhe’s eyes got as big as dinner plates as he stumbled backward, reaching out to his partner with his free hand.
The gasping one looked up, a mixture of surprise and confusion on his face. “The Breaker…” he mumbled, voice so low that I barely heard it over Kishi’s struggles.
Kishi’s head snapped toward him, and she growled, a low guttural sound that I pretty much only associated with angry dogs. Her lips peeled back to reveal her teeth as she slipped from my grasp like an eel.
She hit the first guard with outstretched hands that seized him around the throat and slammed his head backward against the wall behind him with a wet thud. The Sidhe’s eyes rolled back in his head as he slid to the floor leaving a trail of scarlet on the marble wall.
Kishi turned as the gasping guard swung his axe down in a cruel arc that should have taken off her head. Instead, she reached out and caught the haft of the weapon on her armored, left forearm. She lashed out with her other hand, slamming it into the Sidhe’s chest in a burst of light and heat that reduced him to a charred corpse in a fraction of a second. The body stood there unmoving for another moment before crumbling to the ground in a flurry of gray-black ash.
Her hand was no longer armored. The metal on her palm was punched outward and melted around the edges, which was surprising because I’ve seen those things ward off a lot of fire on their own. Her skin shone through the opening like a flashlight.
“Well… that’s new,” I said, taking a slow step toward her, palms out and unthreatening.
She turned toward me, green eyes blazing like twin torches, mouth twisted into a half-grin, half-snarl. A shudder ran through her body as the light from her hand faded.
“I could feel their energy pass into me, pass into Summer.” She swallowed and shut her eyes. “I liked it. I liked it a lot.” She paused to lick her lips. “Maybe too much.”
“Those guys didn’t seem that powerful. If that’s what happens when you kill some redshirts, what happens if you drop something with some real juice?” I asked.
She opened her eyes and they were glassy and swollen. “I’m inclined to find out,” she slurred, reaching a hand out toward me.
“You better step off right now, Kishi, or I am going to shoot you.” I pointed my Beretta at her chest and settled into a two-handed shooting stance.
“You don’t want to hurt me, Lillim, we’re friends aren’t we?” She licked her lips and took another step toward me.
“Friends don’t do what you’re trying to do,” I said, letting the emotion drain from my face, letting everything shutdown and turn cold and empty.
“If you shoot me it will unbalance Fairy even more—”
“I don’t know what it is that makes people think logic is going to make me lay down and submit,” I interrupted her.
“If I wanted to hurt you, Lillim, I don’t think you could stop me.” Her hand fell to her side, and she stopped moving, going so perfectly still that it was unnerving.
“Tell that to Valen and Grollshanks. Tell that to Jiroushou Manaka.” I exhaled slowly. “I’m a lot harder to kill than you’d think, and if you don’t back the hell off this is going to end one of two ways.”
Kishi shook her head, visibly wrenching her gaze from my face as she did so. The air seemed to go out of her, like someone was deflating a balloon, and she sank to the floor. “I don’t know what’s going on…” She glanced up at me and smiled weakly. Her eyes lost that horrific blaze, melting back into emerald pools.
“Are you okay?” I asked, not dropping the gun.
“I think so,” she whispered so softly that I almost leaned closer to hear her better.
“Then get up, I’m not touching you.” I motioned with the Beretta for her to move. “We need to get out of here before something big enough to huff and puff comes to blow our house down.”
A grin broke across her face as she stood and turned her back to me. Well at least one of us was in a trusting mood. I stepped forward, pointing the Beretta at the center of her back as she knelt down by the less crispy guard and pried the axe from his cold, dead hands. She hefted it in one hand before stepping into the corridor, quiet as a church mouse.
She disappeared from view and a shudder ran down my spine as I followed, desperately hoping an axe wasn’t going to come flying in my direction.
Chapter 11
“And you’re sure there’s something bad through this door?” I asked for the umpteenth time.
“It’s annoying how you keep asking me the same questions over and over,” Kishi said, glancing back at me. She held her hand outstretched, fingers trailing lightly against the obsidian surface of the door. “I can feel it. I don’t know how, but I can feel Summer’s power drawing me closer, begging me to take its strength for myself.” She swallowed visibly and shut her eyes for a second as if concentrating. “There’s definitely something strong in there.”
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to confront really strong creatures. Especially, when I don’t know what they are and how to kill them,” I said. I was still holding my gun at the ready, but I’d stopped pointing it at her, which, in my opinion, earn
ed me several bonus points.
“You have a gun. Just shoot whatever it is with your metal bullets, and it will die. It’s a fairy. They don’t really mix with metal,” Kishi said, turning back to the door and putting her other hand against it. She’d long since removed the armored gloves to expose her hands, which, given what happened last time, was fine by me. Then again, I didn’t really care what Kishi did as long as it got us the hell out of here.
“That’s a bad plan,” I said, reaching down to grip the hilt of my wakazashi with my left hand. Just touching the blade made a little surge of confidence run through me.
“This coming from the girl who kicked in Warthor’s door in the nether and confronted him with a weapon she’d never used before?” Kishi’s hand began to glow, casting off white light that reminded me of sunlight filtering through window panes.
“That was a completely different situation,” I grumbled, stepping off to the side and dropping into a two-handed shooting stance. If something came through that door, I was shooting it.
“How so?” she asked, and light pulsed from her hand like a solar flare. I turned my head away, blocking my face with one arm. Even still, spots of color danced in front of my eyes. When I turned back, Kishi was covered in a cloud of debris and rubble lay strewn about the floor.
“Because Warthor didn’t really want to kill me,” I whispered almost to myself. I don’t think I’ve ever voiced the thought to anyone before. Everyone just kept going on and on about how I almost beat Warthor Ein, and the truth was, it wasn’t a fair fight.
Not in the classical sense of how fair fights worked. It wasn’t fair because I would have killed him given the chance, and he… well… he wouldn’t have killed me back. I knew that going in, knew he would hesitate at the last second and that I could use that hesitation to kill him.
This was not like that. This was confronting some big, bad dark fairy and trying to kill it for no real reason. This was backing a Doberman into the corner and trying to beat it with a stick. This was… this was stupid.
A screeching howl tore through the air. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and a tremor went down my spine. I exhaled through my teeth and barely got the gun back up in front of me when a dark form burst through the swirling cloud of debris and tackled Kishi to the floor.
The giant black hound was the size of a horse. It snapped at her face as she tried to hold its snarling jaws back, arms straining from the effort. Her tiny hands were lost in the dark, shaggy fur around its neck. Its red eyes gleamed in the pale torchlight of the room as it lunged again, spraying Kishi with saliva as its maw bit through the air millimeters from her nose.
I fired two quick shots that painted the doorway with crimson goo. The bullets hit the thing in the side as close to its head as I could risk without hitting Kishi. The creature turned its head toward me, glowing red eyes narrowed in contempt. Its haunches tightened, preparing for a leap. I fired again. The bullet caught the creature in the center of the forehead, blowing out the back of its head in a spray of brains and blood.
The hound collapsed on top of Kishi, completely pinning her beneath its massive bulk. Another howl exploded from the room as I ran forward and tried to push the fallen creature off of Kishi. She rolled toward me as I pushed with all my might and just managed to squirm out from under it.
“You killed one of my dire wolves.” The voice thrummed across my skin like an electric shock. “You shall take its place in my pack.”
“Yeah. That’s not happening,” I muttered, trying to peer into the gloomy room. I could just barely make out a shape within.
“Come out here, Keeper,” Kishi said, and I shot her a glance. She shrugged as if saying, “I have no idea how I knew who it was in there.”
“Ah, Summer Breaker, you wish to join my pack as well? What a marvelous gift you will be to set before the Queen.” He stepped out of the door and four more hounds flanked him. He was huge, standing so tall that his head nearly touched the ceiling some five feet above my head. Giant antlers sprouted from his head, spiraling outward in front of his face, and long ebony hair fell about his ankles in a wave.
He was wearing black leather pants that reminded me more of a cowboy with chaps than a rock star musician. His skin was the color of granite. The muscles in his bare-chest and arms rippled as he dropped one football-sized hand down to scratch one of the dire wolves behind the ears. It nuzzled its head upward against his fingers though its eyes never stopped watching me.
Kishi wiped blood and goop from her eyes and flung it outward disdainfully before reaching down and unclasping her axe. The Keeper’s large, red eyes followed her movement, and his mouth twisted into an amused smirk. “I wouldn’t—” was all he managed to say before Kishi lunged at him.
Sunlight trailed off her skin as she swung the axe upward to cut him from crotch to shoulder. With an almost casual effort, the Keeper reached out and caught the weapon with his free hand, his big fingers clamping down on the silver edge before it could touch his skin. He jerked it to the side, and the weapon ripped out of Kishi’s double-handed grip. His foot lashed out, catching her in the chest and flinging her backward against the wall.
Her head whipped back, smacking against the stone with a wet-sounding thunk. She dropped to her knees, sliding forward and falling onto her hands. Blood dripped down her chin and splattered against the marble floor, though at least some of it had to have come from the slain dire wolf. Her armor was dented inward in the shape of the Keeper’s huge foot, and I wondered if she’d be able to get it off without cutting it apart.
The Keeper took a step toward her, his huge feet thudding on the floor like someone bouncing a medicine ball. He reached one giant hand out toward her, presumably to hoist her into the air.
“Stop,” I said as calmly as I could, though my voice still shook a little.
He turned toward me, face half-covered with ebony hair, and I saw the edge of a grin poke out. “No.”
I fired, squeezing the trigger of my Beretta as quickly as the weapon would allow. The Keeper raised his hand toward me, and the bullets, quite simply, fell from the air. They clattered lifelessly on the floor in front of me. Not good.
The Keeper grabbed Kishi by her hair and pulled her to her feet. She coughed and blood spurted from her lips. That was bad because it probably meant broken ribs and internal injuries.
“Like I was saying,” he said, leaning down so that his face was inches from Kishi’s which was a feat because there was nearly a five-foot height difference between them. “I wouldn’t bother trying to fight me, Breaker. I am not your enemy.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.” She coughed and bits of blood and saliva spattered across the Keeper’s face. A long black tongue snaked out of his mouth, licking up the mess before slipping back between his lips.
“Mmm… you taste like power.” He flung her sideways, and her body arced toward me like a sack of potatoes. I had a moment to contemplate catching her before she slammed into me like a bag of wet cement. I stumbled backward, barely maintaining my balance before she slipped from my arms and hit the ground.
“I can taste your mission in the air, Dioscuri. I even came here to watch your little hunt, but you cannot expect to add me to the scales of power in Fairy.” He threw back his head and cackled, a loud booming sound that made shivers run down my spine like a cascade of icicles.
“And why is that?” I asked, pointing my gun at him again. It hadn’t done any good last time, but that didn’t make me want to lower it. Kishi groaned at my feet, and I took a step away from her, dropping my left hand and gripping Set, my wakazashi, once more.
“Because I am not of Fairy in the classical sense. I am balance. I am the middle road that no one ever takes. I am fall and springtime, the sunrise and the sunset. I am all the days between birth and death.” He grinned, facing me fully and clapping his hands together. The sound was like thunder in the hallway, and it echoed off the walls.
“So you’re trying to do what we
’re doing?” I asked, and for the first time, a small thread of relief tickled the back of my mind.
“Yes.” He bent down and touched the fallen hound. Its body melted away, leaving the form of a tiny pixie no bigger than a can of beans. He picked it up, and with a shrug, tossed it over his shoulder. One of the dire wolves snapped it out of the air, swallowing its tiny body in one gulp. “Though I am one hound short. I should take you now, but I am inclined to allow you to finish your hunt.”
He was next to me in an instant, reaching out and stroking my cheek with fingers the size of rolling pins. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. I stood there transfixed, unable to move as his fingers trailed along my face, rough and coarse like sandpaper. My hands dropped to my sides as he leaned in close, and the rough musk of wolf filled my nose.
The Keeper’s face loomed over mine, his huge lips clamping down over my mouth and nose in a movement that jerked my entire body backward. I would have fallen if he hadn’t wrapped his arm around me, not quite pulling me close but not letting me fall either. He breathed outward and his breath filled my lungs, expanding my chest to nearly the bursting point.
Stars flashed across my eyes, and a reddish haze filled my vision. My knees shook underneath me, rattling so hard that the metal armor on my legs clanked together. He stood back, releasing me so suddenly that I collapsed to the floor, my pistol slipping from my hand and clattering next to me on the ground.
“You have been marked, Lillim Callina. I will allow you to finish this hunt, but afterward, you are to join your brothers and sisters in my pack. Is that clear?” the Keeper asked.
“Like crystal,” I said shakily. My head was swimming as visions of leaping wolves and starlight jumbled my thoughts.
“Good. I look forward to you joining me.” He grinned, and the wolves behind him threw their heads back and howled. Without thinking, I did the same and my cry echoed theirs. Blood rushed in my ears and a surge of adrenaline exploded through me. “Now go bring balance to Fairy, young one. Know that if you must you may call on me in this effort. I am at your disposal,” he added.
Fairy Tale: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 3) Page 8
