Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)

by Hartoin, A. W.

  “Don’t say that,” said Iris. “She was trying to help.”

  I wasn’t interested in a lecture defending pain-in-the-neck dragons, so I ran out of the room and out of the tomb. Percy and Penelope were hovering above the entrance, so I was looking up. I should’ve been looking down, because the next thing I knew I’d stepped on something squishy and was flying through the air, not under my own power. I landed on something equally squishy and purple. Something that didn’t stay still and instantly piled on top of me. Iris came out and screamed, “Trolls!”

  Yes, that’s right. I was covered in klitzeklein trolls and they were sticky. I tried to pluck them off, but they were super tacky.

  “You should let me wash them,” said Iris. “Dragon spit is like glue when it starts to dry out.”

  “Now is not the time, Iris,” I said. “Our water supply is contaminated. How do I get them off?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s ask the Home Depot fairies.”

  “I haven’t seen them yet. They’re probably drunk, rolling around at their new job site.”

  Gerald tugged a troll stuck to the side of my face. “No, they’re not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Cause they’re right there.” He pointed past me and sure enough, the Home Depot fairies were marching along the edge of the tomb in their beloved line. They stopped and D looked at me with unblinking brown eyes.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Are you going to do something?”

  K handed him a toolbox and he took out something that looked like a caulking gun and sprayed me with a noxious liquid that smelled like a combo of rotting olives and rose petals. While I was gagging, the trolls started popping off, just like that. They rolled off the edge of the tomb and bounced around the floor. A tour group of humans walked up and stepped right on them, but their shoes seemed to bounce off and the trolls rolled away, unharmed. Of all the creatures in the fae they had to be the weirdest. What was the point of klitzeklein trolls anyway? As far as I could tell they did nothing except poop and bother me.

  Through coughs, I asked, “What was that stuff?

  “Anti-adhesive,” said D. I think there was a hint of amusement in his face, but it might’ve been my imagination. He was pretty flat.

  “Is it bad for me?”

  “Not as bad as trolls.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take that and the Home Depot fairies didn’t wait around for my reaction. D packed up his weird gun and they marched off.

  “Wait,” I said, going after them. “How come you’re not drugged up like everyone else?”

  “Didn’t drink the water.”

  “Why not?”

  “Tainted.”

  I threw up my hands. “You knew and you didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Who would we tell?”

  I was about to yell, but then I stopped. Who indeed? Who was conscious and wouldn’t get me in trouble. “Never mind.”

  They marched off leaving me suddenly exhausted. I had to fix this. Me. This was when having parents around would’ve come in handy. Not my parents, but maybe somebody else’s parents. The kind that got things done and weren’t worried about everything all the time.

  Iris walked up to me. “I wish Mom and Dad were here.”

  “So they wouldn’t be in prison?” I asked.

  “So you wouldn’t have that look on your face.”

  I sighed and leaned on the tomb. “And what look is that?”

  “Like you’re unhappy.”

  I looked like I was unhappy. Really. Absolutely shocking. This was the day from hell and there was a good possibility that it would get worse. Why? Because that’s the way things worked.

  “I’m not unhappy. I’m smelly. We’re going to have to fill up Bentha’s tub for me.”

  She waved her hand in front of her nose. “It’s not good.”

  “Thanks for backing me up on that.” I snapped out my wings. “I’m going to the font. Keep giving everyone tea. I’m sure I haven’t found everyone yet. Can you and Gerald start searching?”

  Gerald fluttered over. “We’ll do a grid search.”

  “No, we won’t. Nobody asked you,” said Iris.

  “I’m obviously in charge.”

  “I’m in charge. She told me.”

  I hovered over them. “Just get it done.”

  “What about Victory?” asked Gerald. “The tea didn’t wake him.”

  “Give him a bath in it,” I said, mostly because I had no other ideas and then I flew off, gliding into the nave past humans that were wondering why their shoes were now so bouncy as trolls rolled around the cathedral floor.

  The font looked innocent enough. A placid pool of water in a skull, what harm could it do. I squatted and took a sniff. Yes, there it was, a hint of porkiness that if I hadn’t been looking for it, I might not have noticed. That was just great. The whole cathedral stoned out because of me and now I had to fix it. But the basin was huge. It would take five thousand of my buckets to empty it out. I didn’t have that kind of time, even if I had the energy, which I didn’t.

  Stupid dragon. I told her to take Victory to Iris, but no. I rubbed my eyes and tried to come up with an idea. Nothing would come. I was fresh out of ideas. I dropped my hands and got an unpleasant surprise. The feral gargoyles were creeping down the wall. Of course they would be the only things in the cathedral the goo hadn’t knocked out. They climbed down the wall, hissing and slashing their tails. I hadn’t dreamt it. They were different. Only the blind wouldn’t see it. Their scaly bodies now gave off a soft lovely glow in purple and green. They looked much more like Fidelé, more dragon and less dog. Could this really be a result of the spell? Everybody else got drunk when they ingested the pink stuff. They didn’t change color and grow big ears. Thank goodness for that. I had no cures for big ears.

  “Go away,” I said.

  They reached the wings on the skull and climbed on. Their eyes were fixed on me. I suppose they would’ve been frightening to anyone else, but I didn’t feel afraid. Then they stopped. Just stopped. All of them frozen, then their snouts went up and sniffed. They all looked to the right of me and I looked down. A hand went over the edge of the font and slapped down. Then a pair of malevolent eyes looked up at me. Rickard. And he’d clearly gotten a good dose of the tainted water. He managed to drag himself over the edge and staggered to his feet. He stood, wavering back and forth.

  “You did it,” he said and then hiccuped.

  I put my nose in the air. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You,” hiccup, “did this to me.”

  “Got you drunk? I don’t think so.”

  He staggered to the right and nearly tipped over into the water, but managed to correct at the last second. “There’s something wrong with you.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I said.

  “You can’t talk to me like that.” He came toward me, dragging his feet. His usually well-pressed suit was torn and missing two buttons. His hair stood up in clumps and he was missing a shoe.

  If he hadn’t been looking at me like he was seriously considering killing me, I would’ve felt sorry for him. Since he had his hands out in strangling position, I was feeling less kindly.

  “Look, Aoife made a tea to fix whatever this is. She’s at the pulpit.” I sniffed. “You smell like vomit.

  “Because I vomited. Because of you.”

  “Why do you think it was me? I wasn’t even here.”

  “It was quiet before you came. Nothing ever happened. Now,” he gestured to himself, “everything happens.”

  “You can’t blame me.”

  “I do blame you and I’m going to prove you did it.” He craned his neck out. “I’ll get you fired, kicked out into the street. The cardinal will have you arrested. They’ll hang you by your fingernails in the Stephansplatz.”

  “I don’t think they do that anymore,” I said with a yawn.

  “Shut up. You, you weirdo and your w
eird family. You think I haven’t noticed. You’re not related. You’re not eighteen. You’re a terrible maid and,” he raised a finger in triumph, “you have a dead body in your room.”

  I gasped. “What were you doing in my room?”

  “I saw it. A dead dryad, covered in pink goo. Wait until the cardinal hears about that. What are you going to do then?” He let out a huge burp and took a couple of steps backwards and pointed at the skull wing. “Look at that. Gargoyles. They’re purple and green, just like your wings. And they glow! How are you going to hide that?”

  I had no idea. My chest tightened and it was hard to breathe. He’d seen Bentha. He’d made the connection between me and gargoyles.

  “I’ll have you out by tonight. In the cold. In the wet. You’ll be miserable. You’ll be dead.”

  I opened my mouth to deny it, but the gargoyles were faster. They leapt from the wing to Rickard. One second he was standing there wearing his ruined suit and the next he was wearing a gargoyle suit. They covered him completely, not a hair was visible. Rickard was all glowing gargoyle. He was probably screaming. I would’ve been. He staggered around and tipped over into the font head first.

  I stared as he thrashed around in the water. The gargoyles let go of him and doggy-paddled to the side, while Rickard sunk to the bottom. I’m not proud of it, but I hesitated. It was tempting to just let him stay sunk, him and all his nastiness, but I thought of Mom and I couldn’t do it. I jumped in and swam to the bottom. I dragged him to the side, where the gargoyles took swipes at him with their claws.

  “Stop it,” I said. “You’re not helping.”

  A couple of them jumped back into the water and latched onto Rickard’s suit, dragging him under again. I flapped my wings to hoist him back up. Rickard coughed and sputtered, but he didn’t fight them. More jumped in and got their claws into him. They looked at me as they did it. Eyes bright and hard on me. They were trying to kill him. For me. His head went under. My feet slipped on the stone. I couldn’t get him back up. I coughed as I got a mouthful of water.

  “Percy!” I yelled and more gargoyles latched on. “Penelope!”

  We went under together. I could’ve let him go. I don’t know why I didn’t. We slipped down the curve of the basin. I was still fighting, harder actually. My wings burned, but I couldn’t get our heads above the surface. A claw burst through the water and snatched us up.

  Rickard and I dangled in the claw above the water. Percy curved his neck down under his belly and eyed us as he flapped, making the water rise in great waves and roll over the edge of the font.

  Rickard opened his eyes and grimaced at me. “You!” He reached for me, clawing at my sleeve.

  “Are you crazy?” I yelled. “I just saved your life.”

  “It’s your fault I was in peril in the first place!”

  Probably, but I’d never admit it.

  “You’re an ungrateful sot. You know that!” I yelled back. “Now I’m all wet.”

  “I hate you, you stupid maid.”

  “I can see that and so can everyone else!”

  He sucked in a breath and stopped struggling. His eyes were hard on me and though he was still super woozy, I could see that he was thinking hard. Then Percy set us gently on the edge of the font at the farthest point from the gargoyles, who immediately spotted him and started over.

  Rickard stared at them and then me. Percy had stayed above us, stirring up a wind that lashed my wet hair in my face and chilled my wet body to the bone. The two of us stood there on the edge of the skull and I had the strangest feeling that I’d been there before. That we’d been there before, he and I, hating each other. It felt like the beginning of something and the end at the same time.

  Rickard took a step back and his knees buckled. He stood up again, just barely, looked at me with the most curious expression as if he’d made a decision, and then climbed over the edge of the font and disappeared.

  “Okay,” I said. “That was weird, even for him.”

  Percy’s wings were still going hard and a wave hit me, nearly knocking me off the font.

  “That’s it,” I said to myself. “Percy!”

  The dragon glided away from the font, circled around and came eye level with me.

  “I need to use your wings to blow the water out of the font. All of it. Every single drop.”

  I spread my wings and used what little energy I had left to take off and hover a foot away. Percy got into position. I was going to tell the gargoyles to get off, but they figured it out on their own. They ran hissing for the wall and climbed it with their long curved claws.

  It only took a minute for Percy to work up a good strong wind. The holy water blew in great waves over the edge of the skull and splattered on the tile floor. An elderly human came hobbling over, exclaiming with her hands in the air. I’d seen her before, but I’d never figured out if she worked at the cathedral or just hung out there all the time. If anyone was going to see, it ought to have been her. Percy and Penelope were always trying to steal stuff out of her purse. When she was praying, they took naps on her head. Of course she didn’t see the dragon that was causing all the mess. She crossed herself and went to get a mop.

  Once the font was dry, I landed on the edge, none too gracefully, and took a sniff. The porky smell was all on the floor. Problem solved. Well, one problem solved anyway. Percy landed next to me and stroked my back with the tip of his tail. I went over and he lifted his wing. I pressed myself against his leathery hide and watched the old woman muttering as she cleaned up my mess. She finished and refilled the font with freshly blessed water. Good. No more spell and no more evidence. But there was still Rickard. He knew or at least he thought he knew. Something about the way he left chilled me like the thought of a horen on the loose in Vienna. What would he do and what was I going to do about it?

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I CLUTCHED MY cloak tightly around my body, concealing the teapot I held. The stable door was three feet away and I glanced back to see if anyone was watching. By anyone, I meant Rickard. But no one was there and I landed on the ledge and put my hand on the cardinal’s seal. It wasn’t a real door with hinges and a handle. It was more like a barrier. One that hadn’t been there two weeks ago. After the riot at the palace, extra security had been put in place and all entrances were now tightly controlled. That included the entrance to the stable where the damumoto lived. I had to make my deliveries with as much secrecy as possible, so I’d taken to leaving the cathedral by the North tower and flying around the outside to the stable’s entrance at the Singer gate. The entrance was fairly well-concealed behind the Christmas tree the humans had erected there and Rickard hadn’t left the cathedral since the day of the riot. No one had. No one except the damumoto and me. I had special permission.

  “Pax vobiscom,” I whispered and the cardinal’s seal, crossed keys with a dove, glowed red for a second and then a portion of the wall disappeared. I stepped through and the wall reappeared. There was a tiny pat on my neck.

  “Not yet,” I whispered as I walked into the damumoto’s domain. Until the day of the riot, I hadn’t known it existed. The cardinal didn’t use his carriage much and the damumoto didn’t like the interior of the cathedral, which was something I didn’t understand until I saw the stables. Damumoto were like me. They liked wood and lots of it.

  I walked through the tack room past racks of velvet harness, saddles, and bridles. That room was supposed to be storage, but even it was beautiful. The walls, ceiling, and floor were covered in teak, polished to a high shine. I took a deep breath, sucking in the smell and the feeling of being surrounded by wood. I hadn’t felt that way since we left our mantel and that seemed like years ago.

  The big arched doors to the main section of the stable were open wide and inviting. I passed through and smiled at the stalls, all in teak and carved with images of damumoto running and flying. There was only one thing missing from the carvings. Fire. Nothing depicted their fire. I’d come to understand that no
one knew, except me because I was a kindler and fire was my thing. I would’ve spent every day in the stables, if I could’ve. The wood felt wonderful after the cold grandeur of the cathedral and the damumoto knew me. Fire was our secret and it was lovely to share.

  An elegant head came over the end stall. “Mattie, I was wondering when you’d come,” said Volotora.

  I passed the other empty stalls and walked into his. It was filled with pine shavings and smelled like my father’s wood shop. “Is everyone out?”

  “Exercising as usual,” he said, sounding tired.

  “Did you want to go?”

  “I’m not up to it yet.”

  I glanced at his feed bin, filled to the brim with oats and sprouted wheat. He wasn’t eating and hadn’t been since Murcia died. She was his partner and mother of their colt. Sadness in a horse was hard to see, but it was there, written in the line of him and the drooping of his heavily-lashed eyes. We didn’t speak of it, just like how we didn’t speak of my parents. The night of the riot the cardinal had sent me to the stables. A message had come from the palace. I was to continue to treat the empress, but at a distance. Volotora was chosen as our messenger. I wasn’t to tell him anything about the empress and I didn’t. I’d gone to the stables and told Volotora everything about me. How we ended up in Vienna, Bentha, my fire, everything. He told me all about Murcia and we never spoke about it all again. There was nothing left to say really.

  “You need to eat,” I said, patting his warm flank.

  “I will.” He couldn’t have been less convincing.

  I grumbled, but didn’t belabor the point. If there was one thing I’d learned from Gerald, it was that mourning had its own course and it goes wherever it goes in its own time.

  I pulled the brass teapot out from under my cloak and set it on the railing.

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  There was another tiny pat on my neck and I sighed. “Fine. Come out.”

  Victory burst from under my cloak. “My trusty steed! My fierce flyer! Have you viewed my domain today?”