Death Kissed

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  It stripped the containment spells off Wrenn and Ranger.

  He was free to rip the head off the world.

  The sword had no idea what it had done. It had barked at the elf and gone back to sleep like some giant narcoleptic war dog.

  It was still in Wrenn’s hand. Still heavy and superbly balanced and sharp as death itself. Still something that, like Victor, was probably going to haunt her for the rest of her life.

  Her fingers spasmed. Her forearm jerked.

  Wrenn dropped the elven sword.

  Ranger twisted his shoulder and swept his hand toward the hilt. He arched and he lunged and he grabbed the hilt just before he landed on his back in the snow.

  The blue-white memory overlay popped and sparked as if the screen on which Wrenn’s brain projected it burned. All that remained were embers in the corners of her vision.

  Ranger grinned up at her where he lay in the snow, arm up and hand around the hilt of her sword in a reverse grip. “Aye, she’s more claymore than Viking toothpicker, ain’t she?”

  He was right there, right in front of her, on the ground, grinning up at her with red demon fire escaping from the sides of his eyes, holding her sword in such a way as to make it harder for him to attack than if he just dropped it.

  She pulled back her foot and let Ranger catch the full brunt of the fae steel in the tip of her boot.

  He rolled with the kick but she managed to open a gash along his cheek.

  “I am fully within my rights as Royal Guard here, Ranger.” She kicked at the shoulder of the arm that held her sword, but he rolled again. “I can and will kill you for being an eminent threat to mundanes and any treaties King Oberon has with these elves.”

  Information on the blood syndicate be damned.

  There were other kelpies involved. Two others had come through the dryads’ portal. Robin was probably interrogating them right now in the comfort of the castle.

  Not in the snow and cold. Not in the twilight between day and night in the mundane world. Not with a beautiful but stunned elf who stood perfectly still and blinking as if she didn’t remember where she was.

  The Sheriff pulled himself to standing. He favored a hip, but had his shotgun back at his shoulder before Wrenn came in for her third kick to Ranger’s head. “Benta?” He looked her over.

  When she didn’t respond, he aimed the shotgun at Ranger’s face. “The shells make you bleed. This close to your face I’ll probably blind you,” he said.

  Wrenn aimed her next kick at Ranger’s crotch.

  Ranger drove the point of the sword into the ground and raised his free hand. “Wait!” He braced himself with the blade, and now had leverage, even if he still held the hilt in a reverse grip.

  Wrenn held her kick. “Move away from the sword.”

  He looked at his fist and the sword, back up to her, then at the end of the shotgun barrel. “I’m needin’ a deal here,” he said.

  The Sheriff poked the gun at Ranger. “No deals!”

  “I’m a lot faster than ye, little mundane,” Ranger snarled.

  He kept glancing at the elf.

  The moment she came out of her stupor, she’d kill him. She might even kill Wrenn, for having a sword capable of overpowering an elder elf.

  “Why did you break into the Gallery of Artifacts?” Wrenn asked.

  Ranger didn’t remove his hand from the sword’s hilt. “Bridles, ye ignorant tart.” The red flames around his eyes flared.

  Bridles? In the Gallery?

  “Whose bridles?” For the first time in her years as a paladin, Wrenn wished she’d been trained on firearms. “Sheriff Martinez here could easily blow off your nose.”

  “Oh oh oh!” Ranger said. “So th’ bonny elves saved yer ass, an’ made ye th’ actual honest-to-all-their-silly-gods head o’ policin’ in their territory?” He guffawed. “A mundane?”

  “Are all kelpies like this?” Sheriff Martinez asked.

  Wrenn nodded. “This one’s not special.”

  Ranger pointed at the Sheriff. “Though he is a special mundane. He killed a granddaddy Gulf Coast vamp wi’ his bare hands.”

  Martinez groaned. “Shut. Up.”

  Ranger chuckled. “They would looooovvvvveeee t’ get their spindly spider fingers on ye.” He sniffed. “Or one o’ those….” He sniffed again. “Four?” Another sniff. “Five spawn o’ yers? Ye’ve been a busy man, my friend.”

  In one swift, perfect movement, Ranger planted his feet and used his grip on the sword to push himself to standing.

  Martinez primed the gun. “Benta! Now would be a good time for you to wake up!”

  But Ranger didn’t pull the sword from the frozen ground. He stared at the elf. “I meant it, wi’ th’ deal.”

  “You’re a liar,” Wrenn said.

  Ranger laughed. “Ye’re a quick learner, darlin’.” He flipped his grip on the sword so that he’d be holding it correctly if he pulled it from the ground. “Deals.” He shook his head. “We were fine till all those vampires disappeared last month.”

  The Sheriff poked the gun at him again. “What are you talking about?”

  Benta stirred.

  Ranger pointed his chin at her. “What happens when th’ enclaves get their hierarchies in a twist?” Then he pointed it at Wrenn. “Or us, sweets? What happens when th’ elders an’ th’ powerful smell a vacancy?”

  Martinez swore.

  Ranger nodded toward him. “He understands.” He tapped the middle of his forehead. “We can only trust our own.” He sniffed again. “An’ wi’ my kind, that doesnae work, either.” He shrugged. “We do stupid things.”

  “You were running victims to the vampires.” This she’d already figured out. “But those vamps vanished? Died?” She only knew something had changed.

  “Vanished,” Martinez said.

  Ranger nodded knowingly. “See? He understands.”

  “But the ones left still wanted their fill, didn’t they?” Wrenn asked. Started feeding on—and turned at least one of—their victim-running kelpies when their power structure was disrupted.

  Because vampires could never be trusted.

  Ranger sighed. “Oh, they wanted a lot more than their fill.”

  “Did they want extra magicals?” she asked. How else were they to get just that extra bit of specialness needed to become the Big Vampire in Town? “They turned on you.” Looks like eleven exsanguinated sprites wasn’t enough.

  Ranger yanked out the sword and took three steps backward. “O’ course they turned on us. That doesnae mean I cannae bring them…” He looked directly at Sheriff Martinez. “… a peace offerin’.”

  What had been a man in a black polo shirt and a black tactical kilt became the draft-horse-sized stallion she’d met in the castle.

  “Benta!” the Sheriff shouted.

  The sword floated just off the shimmering pale-green hide on his back, making it far enough up she’d have a hard time grabbing it.

  His bridle also lifted off his hide. It flared out with a sweet tinkling sound, and coiled down his horse neck and his horse back.

  Ranger made himself a scabbard to carry her sword.

  “Kelpie!”

  Benta flipped off her jacket as she unfroze. Every single tattoo on her waist glowed. She ripped off the hat and all the tattoos along her hairline popped out white-hot like a crown.

  She rolled up a crackling, almost-ultraviolet ball of magic and whipped it at Ranger’s head.

  The ball grazed the Sheriff as it flew by. He swore and spun toward Wrenn, clearly somehow affected.

  She caught him before he fell and he just as quickly rolled out of her grasp.

  “No worries,” she said.

  He frowned, then nodded toward Ranger and the elf.

  Ranger had dodged the ball of magic. He bolted into the trees.

  Instead of checking on the Sheriff, or Wrenn, Benta the elder elf ran after the kelpie.

  Chapter 16

  “I have two daughters.” Martinez rubbed at
the spot where the elf’s magic had grazed his shoulder. “Third is due in two weeks.”

  His wife was about to have a baby. A girl.

  Would Ranger really go after the Sheriff’s family? “Do you live in town or on a body of water?” Wrenn asked.

  “Around here it’s pretty much all trees and bodies of water.” He stumbled toward his cruiser. “You coming?” he called. Then into his radio: “Tracy, call Gerard. Tell him I need whoever’s awake to head to my place.”

  The radio crackled. “Copy,” Tracy said.

  He peered at the Andersons sitting at the picnic table. They were chatting amongst themselves, telling snowmobile stories or some such nonsense, and were completely ignoring the fuss around them.

  “At least that spell held.” He nodded toward the trees. “What did that kelpie do to her? I didn’t think they were powerful enough to harm an elder elf.”

  So the sword yelling Mine! hadn’t been real-world audible. “It wasn’t the kelpie,” Wrenn said.

  Sheriff Martinez stopped between her and his police cruiser. “What’d you do, then?” He flipped the shotgun in his hand to have a better grip if he needed to aim quickly.

  “The sword released a wave of hot magic when she tried to take it from me,” Wrenn said. “Its name is Red. It’s a she. It’s talking to me. Maybe. Not in words, except for the whole yelling Mine! when Benta reached for her.”

  Eduardo Martinez, the Sheriff entrusted by elves to watch over their mundanes, cocked one eyebrow, inhaled deeply, and released a dad-worthy sigh unlike any Wrenn had heard before. “You have a big sword named Red that gets jealous anytime someone tries to take her away from you?” He sounded as if he’d heard all this before.

  “I wouldn’t say she’s my sword. I grabbed her because she was the closest weapon.”

  He nodded in the way all fathers nodded while listening to a child explain how the kitten in the kitchen had found the child and not the other way around. It was destiny, Papa. Fate. Of course we have to take care of it. Odin said so.

  He sighed again, but not into the dismissive father stance as if he’d made up his mind about adopting a new kitty. No, his stance dropped fully into detective. “No family here, huh? You sure?” He watched her face and shoulders as if looking more for body language clues explaining why she kept denying the obvious.

  “No family.”

  “Hmmm…” He pointed at the Royal Guard star on her belt as he pulled out his cell phone. “What’s that mean?”

  Wrenn unclipped the star. The champagne gold and silver metal weighed enough that her hip always felt its addition or subtraction. “I am a Royal Guard Paladin of King Oberon of the Fae.” Which meant nothing here. Not in elf country.

  “Paladin for a king.” He did the same scoff-snort and eyebrow lift he’d done earlier as he pointed at the cruiser. “Protocol says you ride in the back.” He tapped at the phone and held it to his ear.

  She clipped the star back onto her belt. “Ranger is part of a bigger investigation. My job is to bring him home,” she said. “I’m not going to harm you, Sheriff Martinez.”

  He peered at her again then looked away when someone answered. “We have an issue,” he said into the phone. “I’m calling Lennart and Bjorn. They’ll be on their way. I want you to get your sisters and your mom and go into the room in the basement, okay? And call Axlam. Tell her where you are in the house.”

  He must be talking to his son.

  “I’m on my way.” He cut the call.

  After a moment, he nodded once and pointed at the cruiser. “Go around to the passenger side,” he said.

  Wrenn jogged around and wedged herself into the passenger seat between the computer rack and door. At least he kept his car clean and she wasn’t sitting on his half-eaten lunch.

  Martinez dropped into the driver’s seat. The dome light illuminated the entire interior of the cruiser, giving Wrenn a good look not only at many gadgets of modern mundane law enforcement, but also his features.

  He was shorter than her by about three inches, which made him average height for a mundane man. A five-o’clock shadow accentuated the strong angles of his jaw. He wore a bark-brown Alfheim County Sheriff jacket and a beanie from under which no hair escaped, so she assumed he wore the same short cut pretty much every mundane male cop everywhere had.

  He made another call as she strapped in. A few taps and he held it up to his ear. “Benta’s chasing the kelpie. He stole the big fancy sword and is in stallion form.” He started up the cruiser. “He threatened my family, Lennart.”

  “We’re on our way,” the other person said.

  The call disconnected.

  Martinez pulled the cruiser around, phone still in his hand, and headed for the park’s entrance. “Do fae hang up like that?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Wrenn shrugged. “Magic operates better face to face.”

  He hit a button and the cruiser’s blue and red lights came on.

  Wrenn pinched her eyes closed and rubbed her forehead. Flashing lights never bothered her. Light didn’t bother her, and now all of a sudden she’d had two episodes in one twenty-four-hour period.

  “Are you sensitive to lights?”

  When she looked up, he was pointing at the roof of the cruiser.

  “No…” She sat up straight. “Not usually.”

  He turned out onto a two-lane road. “Okay,” he said. He glanced at her. “We’re going to communicate here. Law enforcement to law enforcement. Got it?”

  She nodded.

  “Ranger was with you prior to falling out of the sky into the park?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So he wasn’t the kelpie the elves were chasing earlier.” He hit the siren and the accelerator. “You two are a brand-new fae problem.”

  So the elves were in the middle of another “fae problem,” which Wrenn guessed probably had something to do with the Queen.

  And the Queen was the reason Ranger had gotten into the castle in the first place.

  “All of which is tangential to our kelpie-vampire problem,” she said.

  “Nothing any magical ever does is tangential,” he said. “Nothing.” He turned onto another, wider road. “More likely we’re dealing with multiple overlapping world-ending scenarios here.”

  He was correct, of course. Most magicals were the volatile centers of their own universes, and when those universes collided, worlds often did end.

  “True,” she answered.

  “So we deal with them one at a time.” The look he threw her said I dare you to argue.

  “There is an imminent threat to your family,” Wrenn said.

  He nodded, clearly satisfied with her answer. “I killed a vampire back in Texas.” He pointed at his neck. “Got a scar to prove it. I thought I was dealing with a mundane serial killer. The Alfheim Pack thought they were dealing with a crazy werewolf, which is why when they showed up, they had two elves in tow.” They hit a bumpy patch of ice, and he slowed the cruiser. “I didn’t learn the vamp was affiliated with the Gulf Coast clans until after.”

  Ranger had made it sound as if the Gulf Coast clans didn’t know where Martinez and his family lived.

  Then again, she’d had no idea that Victor’s first creation lived here, either. “The elves are good at keeping their business private, aren’t they?” she asked.

  He glanced at her again. “Seems so.”

  “Yet they kept two vampires in town until recently,” she said.

  He threw her a surprised look.

  “The Royal Guard got a copy of the video of the little elf girl.”

  The surprise turned to fear. Then it vanished. His detective face reemerged.

  “Law enforcement to law enforcement,” she said.

  He nodded. “I’m not privy to most of the magicks around here. The elves, as you say, are private.”

  She nodded. “Most of the workings of Oberon’s Castle are above my pay grade.”

  Martinez grinned. Wrenn grinned back.


  “How do I kill a kelpie?” he asked.

  Wrenn chuckled. “You point at the kelpie and ask nicely for the nearest magical to take care of the problem.”

  “Heh,” he said.

  “I’m a witch,” she said. “I can protect myself, but that’s about it. I’m nowhere near powerful enough to bring Ranger to heel.” She inhaled. “He’s stronger than most kelpies, so be aware.”

  He nodded. “Witch, huh?”

  “Don’t know what my ancestry is, though I likely carry elven blood. I was born in Scotland.”

  Buildings appeared up ahead along with signs warning of a decreased speed limit.

  “Welcome to Alfheim, Minnesota,” Martinez said as they passed a big wooden sign carved with the same words.

  He looked her up and down as he turned down a city street. “When we have this under control, I’m going ask you a few questions about Scotland,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Now we focus.”

  She nodded again.

  He turned another corner.

  And all hell broke loose.

  Chapter 17

  The Martinez home…

  Gabriel was the only Martinez child not born in elf territory. He’d been a toddler when they’d moved, a baby really, and he had no memory of Texas. He carried no real concept of dry desert air, or sunsets in colors other than pink and gold. And even though he’d visited many parts of the state of Minnesota, he’d only once been farther south than Des Moines, Iowa.

  He remembered the arguments. Could they take the kids to Disney World? No. We can’t. We don’t dare. How about Disneyland? Do you know how many favors I’ll need to call in to make that work?

  His dad must have called in the favors, because last year, before Mom found out she was going to have another little sister, his entire family—plus Jax and his parents, another Pack family, and three elves—all flew to California on one of Mr. Freyrsson’s charter jets.

  Gabe was pretty sure he wasn’t the only kid walking around the park that day being tailed by a magical bodyguard. His, though, had been a huge fun-loving guy with sideburns, a ponytail, and an enviable number of Scandinavian death metal t-shirts. A big guy who literally could channel the power of Thor down onto anyone who dared even look at the Martinez family sideways.