by Eric Asher
“You’re … full sized.”
A warm, white glow that emitted no luminescence enveloped the fairy before she snapped into a much smaller size.
“We have found it to be helpful keeping the tourists in line.”
“And it's good for business,” Damian said.
Aideen sighed. “Can we help you find anything?”
“I’m actually here to see Damian. I have something from … a friend.”
The smoldering-sleeved necromancer perked up and leaned forward on the counter. “And you needed a werewolf bodyguard to bring it here?”
“Need is a strong word,” I said.
“Ouch,” Alan said, casting me a small smile.
“Ha!” Damian said, glancing at my bandages. “You’re …” He narrowed his eyes. “Beth, right? Elizabeth?”
“Just Beth, yes.”
Some thought seemed to darken his brow. I wanted to ask him what it was, but I didn’t want to pry. The guy's bug nuts. I didn’t want to make him angry.
He shook his head. “Well, what is it?”
I glanced at Aideen. I didn’t know much about the fairy, and saying the wrong thing in front of the wrong person seemed like a good way to get yourself killed these days.
I nodded twice. “It’s a book.”
Damian’s gaze shot from me to the other two. “Let’s go upstairs. We’ll have a bit more privacy.”
“I will keep watch over the store,” Aideen said. A hurt look flashed across her face, and I wondered why.
Peanut trotted along behind Damian while the necromancer quickly rubbed the cu sith's head. “He's a lot more calm than Bubbles, usually. That's the one you really need to--”
The saloon style doors flew open, and the other cu sith charged through, trampling Damian before leaping into the air. I watched Bubbles sail into Alan’s arms, landing with her paws around his neck. He grunted and spat trying to get away from an enormous pink tongue.
Damian regained his feet a second before the cu sith charged back at him, knocking him into the wall before vanishing into the back room again.
I couldn't stop a sharp laugh, and that gave me pause. How could anyone take this klutzy shopkeep seriously when he stumbled around and managed to set himself on fire with a microwave? But he was a demon slayer, a deathspeaker who may have signed our death warrants by breaking a Seal.
“No respect,” Damian muttered as he stood up and brushed himself off. He stuck his head over the top of the door and nodded. “Alright, they’re both back in their hole.”
“How far under the shop have they dug?” Alan asked.
“Straight to hell, I think.”
“What?” I asked, following the group into the back. We passed an old grandfather clock that clicked in the relative silence. Something scratched at the walls, but I couldn't see what.
Damian led the way past some shelves, pointing to a jagged hole in the wall. “They carved out a den. It’s …”
“Huge,” Alan said. “At least the building didn’t collapse yet.”
Damian flashed the werewolf a grin. “So optimistic with that ‘yet,’ Alan. Come on.” He started up a staircase, turned at a landing by the back door, and we followed him the rest of the way up the carpeted steps.
“So, what did Koda send you over here with?”
I only half heard his question. We had crested the top of the stairs by the time he finished asking it, and I stood at the end of a library that ran from one end of the building to the other. There wasn’t so much as an inch of space at the top of the shelves. The scent of old paper overpowered the room.
Damian and Alan made their way down to a low table surrounded by large, dark leather chairs. I took one slow step after another. I recognized some of the books, modern works on the history of wiccans, but others … others were bound in leather and flesh and deeply carved with runes I didn’t recognize.
A book of shadows caught my eye. It was an ancient thing, hundreds of years old. I knew it without reading it, as if it spoke to me. I started to reach for it, barely catching myself before my fingers touched it.
“Beth?” Damian asked.
When I met his eyes, I had the feeling that wasn’t the first time he’d said my name. “Sorry. I just … you have more books on witches than I expected.”
He squinted and nodded. “I think we have about two hundred and sixty of them now. You’re welcome to borrow them, outside of a few of the more dangerous volumes.”
I didn’t understand his offer. He knew I was close to Ashley’s coven, but why make that offer? Some of those books were worth thousands of dollars, and that was just the ones I recognized. What was his angle?
I realized I’d been silent too long again. I hurried down the aisle and said, “Thank you. That’s very generous.” I dropped into one of the open chairs, surprised at how far I sank.
“Good for naps,” Alan said, stretching his legs out with a lazy smile.
Damian gave a solemn nod. “You’ve learned my most secret of secrets. You can never leave here alive.”
“Just ignore him,” Alan said. “He has a terrible sense of humor.”
I gave the werewolf a somewhat nervous smile and unfolded my purse. The book slid out easily.
Damian cursed when the golden light exploded into the dimly lit nook. “What did you bring into this house?” He held up his hand as if asking for silence.
“Oh, not that thing,” Alan said as Damian pulled a brown, shriveled something off the shelf.
He held it in his palm and reached out to me.
“What is it?”
“A silence charm. No one will hear us.”
“What's it made out of?” I asked. It felt fleshy against my palm, and it took everything I had not to snatch my hand back.
Alan took my left hand and the world became a muted silence.
“No one can hear us now,” Damian said. “Tell me, what is this?” He nodded at the book.
I didn't understand why it was glowing again. “Koda said it’s the Book of Blood.” Damian reached for it with his free hand, and then stopped.
“To unlock the Book that Bleeds?” he asked, his eyebrows raised. “That's a lost text. That book is legend. It can't be real. It was mentioned in the Black Book, but I never thought ... the Book of Blood … it’s like a key or something, right?”
“Yes,” I said. No one spoke for a moment. I broke the awkward silence. “Koda said to unite it with the Black Book. That’s all I know.”
Damian spun around to face the wall. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t focus on him. Reality seemed to bend away from the necromancer, forcing my gaze to Alan or even the shelves of books beside us. I had to lean forward to keep my hand against that ghastly charm.
When he turned back to us, a darkness laid in his hand unlike anything I’d felt before.
“That's it?” I asked.
He nodded and ran his hand over the rough leather. I wanted to look away from the unholy thing. My skin tried to crawl away with my resolve when the necromancer set the book on the table and leaned back.
Was he trying to make me lean over that terrible thing? That blight upon our reality that cast its own pall over the room? I frowned, unable to stop myself.
“I'm sorry,” he said, leaning forward again and shifting the book to the opposite edge of the table. “I didn't realize how much it was bothering you.”
I let go of Alan's hand so I could hold out the warm, golden book. Damian gently took it from my hand and gasped. The golden glow swelled and brightened until the necromancer shouted, dropped the book, and the silence charm. He grimaced and held his head, whispering “quiet” over and over again.
Sound came rushing back to my ears.
Alan stood at his side in a heartbeat, seeming ready for anything. “Are you okay? Is it the souls?”
“Souls?” I asked.
“You don't have to tell her that,” Damian said through gritted teeth.
Alan continued as though Damian hadn'
t spoken a word. “The souls of those who died at Gettysburg attacked Vicky, the little ghost.” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “Attacked may be the wrong word, but they swarmed her. Damian took them away.”
“How do you 'take' them ...” I trailed off and stared at the necromancer.
“Yeah,” he said. “I have some extra voices in my head now. Sometimes it's worse than others.” He cringed and took a deep breath.
“Better?” Alan asked
Damian blew out a breath. “Yes, thanks.” He turned his attention back to the Black Book, and the Book of Blood. “No sense waiting.”
Before either of us could so much as protest, he snatched up the Book of Blood and slammed it onto the Black Book. I expected something dramatic, a flare, fireworks, an explosion, something. Instead, the Book of Blood slowly sank into the Black Book, and instead of the gory, rough leather and pervasive sense of darkness, a nightmare sat in its place.
“By the ...” Alan's voice trailed off. We all stared at the leather tome. It wasn't black, it wasn't golden, it was a mottled, scaled mess that dripped a constant thread of blood.
Damian picked it up, wincing like he expected a blow. Horror warred with fascination as he cracked the book open. Pages flipped, and nothing came screaming out to kill us. I suppose Koda would have warned me if it was that dangerous, but he was from a different time, and had different ways of teaching.
“The Book that Bleeds ... bleeds?” Damian said.
I watched the trail of blood drip from the book, but it left no stain on the carpet, or the table, or even the necromancer himself. “That's the creepiest thing I've ever seen.”
Damian's stare turned hard. “I've seen it before.” He looked at Alan and then back to the book. “It's like Vicky in Cromlech Glen, when she was first ... when she ...”
He didn't have to say it. We knew the story of the child who was becoming the Destroyer.
Damian flipped through the pages. “There's more text than there was before.” He flipped through another chunk of the book. “Timewalkers? There's a chapter on the Burning Lands. This isn't even the same book anymore.” He turned the pages more and more frantically. “I need to find Koda.” He slumped into his chair and seemed to bury himself in those pages, muttering exclamations and shuffling through a pile of aged manuscripts on the shelf beside him, comparing notes and gods know what else.
“Come,” Alan said. “He will be busy for a great deal of time.”
The werewolf led me to the staircase. I glanced back at the necromancer once. If I thought he was barking mad before, now I was sure of it. He was driven to protect his friends, and I could understand that.
Alan led the way back to the front of the shop. I glanced at the hole to the cu sith’s den, fairly certain I could fit the entirety of myself into it. Aideen waited on the counter by the register. The bell on the front door chimed and an unremarkable man walked in, notable only for his three piece suit and the bowler perched on his head. He wrung his hands together, his eyes darting from the shelves, to us, and back again.
When the visitor looked away, Aideen flashed into her full-sized form. “Edgar?”
When the man turned around he took a deep breath, pausing to compose himself. “Is Damian in?”
“Yes, he’s upstairs. You could have called, you know? I’ll let him know you’re here.” She turned back to us. “Alan, Beth, be safe out there.”
Alan shuffled me toward the door, exchanging a nod with the man who almost seemed familiar now, but I couldn’t place him. It wasn’t until we were back on the cobblestones, angling down toward the riverbank that I said, “That was Edgar the Watcher!”
“I believe he prefers just Edgar,” Alan said, “but yes, that was him.”
I wondered what he was doing there. “I thought all the Watchers were sent east, no? To watch over the Fae city and treat with the military?”
Alan nodded slowly. “Some Watchers can step into the Warded Ways and travel here in a flash, Beth.”
I watched the cobblestones go by beneath my feet. I’d heard that other beings could walk the Ways, even though I’d been taught that only Fae could walk them. I slowed as I crossed a rebuilt section of the street.
Alan looked behind us, and followed my gaze.
“This is where Damian and Ashley's fight with the blood mage was caught on camera.” My fingers traced the frayed edge of the bandage on my left arm and I shivered. “Way to put us all in the hot seat, jackass.”
“The mage, you mean?”
I looked up at the werewolf. “Yes, the blood mage. The world's going to think we're all completely psychotic nutjobs.”
Alan studied my bandages for a time before we started walking again. “Maybe not completely, but one does wonder at the mental state you need to be in to damage yourself so profoundly.”
I didn't know what to say to that. I wasn't actually a cutter, although I'd known cutters that were far more balanced than I was ... Damn werewolf.
“I've offended you.”
I released a humorless laugh. “No, no, it's fine. It's just ... blood is a requirement of the arts, you know? It's a way to include a piece of yourself in every spell, every incantation. Your entire body is like that, when you shift.”
The werewolf took a deep breath. “I never thought of it like that. Our bodies are certainly broken and damaged by the shift, but we heal quickly. Our tolerance for pain is substantial. I've heard that's not the same for all shapeshifters.”
Alan frowned slightly, his boot scuffing the curb as we started down the steeper hill toward the river. The grass held on to its green tint in places, but fall closed in around us. Soon it would be brown and dead.
I froze when we hit the riverbank. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” he asked, sweeping his gaze along the riverbank.
“There.” I pointed to a wake in the water. A wake without a boat, without a splash.
“Probably an old catfish,” Alan said. “They get fairly massive in these parts.”
I started walking again, boots crunching on the gravel. I pulled my jacket tighter, but I couldn't stop glancing over my shoulder as we headed back toward Ashley's. We walked for several minutes before the silence broke.
“Beth,” Alan whispered. “You were right. I've seen the ripple numerous times. It's moving against the river, and it's following us. Trade me places.”
I casually bent down to check the laces on my boots. When I stood again, Alan walked between me and the river, and I palmed my dagger.
He turned to me. “I can't let it follow us further.”
Did he mean to Ashley's? Or just along the river? Or ... I didn't get a chance to speak before Alan's forearms rippled, and the werewolf lunged into the water with his claws extended.
The water separated. I backpedaled when the river swallowed the wolf.
“Alan!” I regained enough of my senses to step toward the water and try to pull Alan back out, but not enough sense to realize that was the last thing I should do.
The bubbling current split and rose into a geyser. A face full of jagged, sharp teeth, set in a delicate face flowed toward me. The undine cocked her head to the side and a half-sphere of water rose behind her. A raging werewolf shifted and struck as best he could, but all in vain.
“Koda tries so hard to hide things,” she said, her voice as gentle as Euphemia, but her words a stark order. “Give me the book, child, and your friend may live.”
I suspected she meant 'may' as in 'might,' and the sudden anger curled my hands into fists around my dagger. The sharp point against my skin reminded me that it wasn't the daggers I should wield against this Fae ...
I dropped the dagger to the sand. “Please, don't hurt him.”
“He has perhaps a minute left. If he does not drown, I will crush the life from him while you watch. Give me the book.”
I didn't know this water witch. I considered telling her that Damian had the book. He's better equipped for battling these creatures as it was
, but that’s when Euphemia’s words came tumbling back to me.
“The Queen has sent assassins across the sea …”
I met the witch’s gaze. She was a predator. I didn't get any of the warmth I’d come to expect in Euphemia’s eyes. This witch was the Queen’s. She was here to kill me, and possibly my friends and Koda’s allies. Alan was going to die. I was going to die.
The werewolf's struggles lessened, and I steeled my mind.
“Please, stop! Take my dagger!” I kicked the dagger towards her, and her eyes tracked the glint of gray metal as it splashed into the shallows.
“You are a fool to leave yourself unarmed.” She turned her eyes back to me.
The thin blade felt rough and frigid between my fingers. It sliced cleanly through my bandage and the flesh beneath, freeing my scars and releasing my power in a crimson curtain. I didn't need to speak words anymore. Cornelius had taught me well.
I dragged my fingers through the slick blood on my left arm, catching them on the edge of my cut. My hand formed a claw, and I twisted my forearm in the air. I felt the ley lines respond, a rush I can barely put into words. It was a spasm of ecstasy and pain and a splash of power so strong I knew I had no real control over it. I could barely move it, guide it, but that was enough.
A geyser erupted around and through the water witch, rocketing some fifty feet into the air with a roar unlike any I'd heard before. A dark cackle fractured into an insane laughter, coming from nowhere and everywhere as the river caught fire. Beneath that torrent of water and flame, an undine screamed. A musical cry of agony that set my very bones on edge.
I twisted my hand and drew it in a sharp, horizontal line. The geyser fell away to reveal a half-drowned werewolf with his hands around the water witch’s throat. “You should have killed me, assassin.”
The undine cried out. “What have you done to me?!” Alan dragged her from the water and slammed her into the bank, her watery flesh as solid as my own. She wrenched her head around to find me standing on the shore. I'm sure I wore a look as dumbfounded as hers.
I glanced down at the bloodied edge of the blade in my hand. Something whispered in the back of my mind. That dark voice ... or had it been Koda? It said to cut the undine, and I listened.
