by Bryan Fields
We turned left onto Charleston and immediately had to stop for a red light. The Trove was still several miles away, but the gleaming towers were a welcome sight. No one cheered or expressed gratitude for making it back; we were all thinking about the battle we were driving toward. I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel, watching the light and the street. My phone sounded an alarm I’d set for six fifty-eight. I silenced it and said, “Two-minute warning.”
Half a block away, a guy sleeping on a bench inside a bus shelter jerked awake. Pressing his hands against his chest, he stood up, took one step, and exploded like a blood-filled water balloon.
Screams erupted from a liquor store on the south side of the road. Blood covered the inside of the windows as well as the panicked customers rushing out the doors.
The light changed and I got us out of there. Over my shoulder, I asked, “Any idea what kind of spell does that to people?”
Eric and Rose looked at each other and shook their heads. Nadia pursed her lips for a moment and said, “I don’t think it was a regular spell.” She paused as we drove past an abandoned city bus with three giant blood splashes inside it. “I…I think they’re being harvested.” She took a drink from her water bottle and gagged. “Agh! Ohgodmove!” She got the canopy back and leaned over the door just in time. I slowed down, but she waved at me to keep going.
When she finished vomiting, she wiped red smears off her mouth and spit into the street. “Water. She changed it to blood. Throw it away.” A second wave of nausea struck and she leaned out of the car again.
Water? I opened the lid on the cooler sitting next to me. It looked like an abattoir. Both the water in the bottles and the ice around them had changed. I closed the lid and Rose tossed the cooler into the street.
Nadia snapped her fingers and a tall shot glass of vodka appeared in her hand. She swished half of it around in her mouth, spit it out, and repeated with the rest of the glass. “I think I got it all,” she said. “I don’t know if she could actually do anything to me, but I don’t want to find out.”
“We’d better hurry,” I said. “Even in Vegas, someone’s going to notice this.” I steered around an abandoned car and dodged a group of people waving and shouting for help. “Is it safe to contact your folks for an update?”
Nadia shook her head, but pulled her cell phone out anyway. “I doubt it’s safe, but I’ll try anyway. I’ve got a few options for reaching them.”
Ahead of us, a pair of police cars whipped around a corner and raced west down Charleston, right past at least two other groups trying to get their attention. I drove past them too. It made my stomach knot up, but I had to do it.
Nadia looked up from her phone. “Geneva just activated a locator beacon with my recognition code. Any idea what ‘cost cont’ might mean?”
I laughed. “Costume Contest. They’re in the main ballroom at the casino. We’ll be there in five minutes.” Another police car passed us, lights and siren on, dodging and swerving around the increasing number of hazards in the roadway. I floored it and stuck to the patrol car’s bumper until we reached our turn for the Trove.
One of the benefits of arriving early to do our booth setup was learning how to find the main loading dock. It was adjacent to the main theatre, which was where the costume contest was being held. We’d just have to get past one pair of security guards and a steel gate.
I turned into the driveway and stopped. Someone had rammed the gate, and both guards were dead. They’d been forced to kneel before the bastards slit their throats. Bloodstains and bodies littered the concrete. Hotel employees, delivery drivers, another security guard. All killed by sword blows. What I didn’t see was anyone who could have done it. Watching for attackers, I drove into the loading area and stopped next to the stairs up to the dock level. Nadia passed the spear to me as we got out. I tucked it into my belt so I could keep my hands free.
I heard the scuff of boots on concrete, charging toward me. This time, I was ready for the Darkness spell. I dropped and brought Kindness around at knee height. I hit flesh. The wound caused my target nothing more than a pained gasp, but it was enough to aim for. I thrust and felt flesh and bone against the blade. My adversary kept struggling. I pressed forward, twisting Kindness with both hands.
Bones cracked. He felt it. I yanked Kindness free and heard him fall.
Without the caster to maintain it, the Darkness spell dissipated. As I expected, my opponent was another Sanguine Vanguard warrior. I brought Kindness up to my shoulder, blade straight up, in the in-no-kamae stance. “All right, you little fairies, who dies next?”
Nadia jumped on the hood of the car. “All of them,” she muttered. Auras of smoke and flame surrounded her hands as she chanted. While she cast the spell, Eric dropped to one knee and exhaled an arctic wind that swept the area, leaving a layer of ice and snow on the ground and on the Dark Elves.
Two tried to block our view with Darkness spells, but Nadia already had her spell targeted. Gale-force winds blasted out of her hands, roaring like a freight train and pushing a maelstrom of superheated ash and poisonous gas at the dead warriors. The cloud covered the entire loading area and all the Dark Elves. The flow rebounded back off the building wall, but broke down before it could reach us. The superheated air rose up and over the hotel, covering the sky with a mushroom-shaped cloud. In its wake, all the Dark Elves were encased in searing hot rock-hard ash. Thankfully, the whole area was bare concrete and no other cars were back here. I had no desire to burn down a brand-new hotel.
Eric’s expression was downright gleeful. “The Onrushing Maelstrom of Pyroclastic Entombment! I’ve never seen it used against live targets.”
“We call it Volcanic Death Cloud,” Nadia replied. “But, yeah, I just went Pompeii on their asses.”
I stared at the devastation, shaking my head in wonder. Then my brain kicked in and I headed up the stairs. The nearest door was unlocked, but chained closed on the inside. It wouldn’t budge more than an inch.
Nadia snorted. “Like that’s enough to stop us.” She unfurled her Movable Hole and pressed it against the door handles and locks. The chains fell to the ground and we walked right in.
As expected, we were in the backstage area for the main auditorium, concealed by the set backdrop used for the various panel discussions. We could hear a low level of crying and screaming, punctuated by occasional whip cracks and bellows of “Silence!” Someone on stage was doing a lot of moaning and snarling, accompanied by several voices chanting something very much not in English.
I peeked between the backdrop’s curtains and spotted four guards near the stage entrance, all with pistols, watching the backstage area. There was another scarecrow in the security booth by the dressing rooms, fifteen feet away. I relayed the information to the others. “Got anything capable of quietly dropping the guard in the booth?”
“I can,” Nadia said. “Well, my familiar can.”
“I didn’t think you had one,” I said.
Nadia cupped her hands together and breathed into them. “Yep. She hates Earth, so I let her play in Tír na nÓg until I need her. Everyone, meet Leagsaidh.” She spread her hands, revealing a hissing, chirping blur of rainbow-colored motion that flitted around her arm and settled on her shoulder. Leagsaidh was a tiny Dragon, about two feet from snout to tail tip, with wings that unfolded like a Chinese fan and looked like a mask made of parrot feathers. Her whole body was a mix of bright red, metallic gold, deep blue, and emerald green.
Rose and Eric both afforded Leagsaidh a nod, which the little Dragon returned. Nadia said, “Leagsaidh is a Faedragon. She stands out a lot, but only when she wants to be noticed.” With that, the Faedragon vanished, taking the Movable Hole with her. A few seconds later, the scarecrow in the security booth leaned too far back in his chair, flailed his arms, and crashed to the floor.
The four guards came to investigate the noise. As the first reached for the office door, he screamed and fell through the floor. The second one flailed his a
rms, grabbing onto the guy behind him for support. It wasn’t enough, and both vanished. The fourth pulled his radio out of its holster, and it kept going. It flew out of his hand, hovering two feet out of reach and just over the top of his head. He grabbed for it, but the radio swooped sideways. He snarled and leaped, grabbing it by the wrist strap. He realized his mistake too late, and dropped through the floor like a rock.
We ran around the backdrops, keeping an eye out for more guards. As we did, the scarecrow in the office stood up, holding one hand to his bleeding scalp. He opened the office door to get to the medical kit on the wall and fell through the floor as well.
I heard a soft trilling noise, like the cooing of a large dove. Leagsaidh dropped the illusion of the floor and made the trilling noise again. This time it had a malicious tone to it. She was laughing. The Movable Hole went through the foundation of the building and down into the support pilings. All five scarecrows were injured and begging for help. Nadia blew them a kiss before she peeled the Hole off the floor and tucked it away.
I closed my eyes and looked away. “What happens when you do that?”
“Their bodies integrate with the existing material.” Nadia raised her eyebrow. “That enough, or do you want the full CSI review?”
“That’s enough, thanks.”
Rose opened the office door and looked at the stage monitor. “She’s encased in a crystal shell and there are fifteen… sixteen kids up on the stage with her. She’s also got six adults in costumes. Hostages, probably, and guarded by a small army of those scarecrows. Her transformation isn’t complete, but it’s close.” Rose looked up at the curtain hiding the front of the stage. “I have time to go home and change. When she changes, I’ll tank her. Eric, Nadia, clear trash. David…” She turned to face me. “I expect you to one-shot her.”
I patted the spear and smiled. “That’s what Heroes do, dear.”
We moved back into the wings, staying low behind a drum kit and a pair of keyboards. The instruments belonged to 50 DKP Minus, a hair-metal band made up of Gordon and some of the Avalanche developers. Hopefully they’d get to play tonight, but for now their instruments provided excellent cover.
I kissed Rose one more time before she travelled home. Eric and Nadia talked tactics in low voices, and I stared at the cocoon housing our demon. Cracks marred the surface, inching their way down the crystal. The chanting scarecrows were repeating a single word, over and over, as fast and loud as they could.
I pulled the spear out of my belt, careful not to jab myself with it. I looked at it and whispered, “All right, Crom, here we are. I’ve never thought about praying to you, or even thought you were real, but that hardly matters right now. All our lives depend on this spear having the power to kill the Bloodmaiden. All I ask from you is to have a shot. We’ll stand, and fight, and die if we must, as long as there’s a chance to succeed. Grant us that chance, and we’ll do the rest.” I paused and looked out on stage again. “Of course, if you want to send in some extra firepower, I won’t object. Amen. Or…whatever.”
Not the best prayer I’ve ever come up with.
Something moved in the cocoon, forcing the cracks wider and deeper. Small shards broke off and shattered into dust on the floor. The energy already infused into this ritual was almost tangible, but more kept flooding in—each little bit another dead innocent who did nothing but buy a good luck charm.
I felt Rose return on the far side of the stage. I looked in her direction. Three scarecrows—well, three and a partial torso—flew into view and bounced off the concrete floor. Rose leaped on top of them in a classic claw/claw/bite attack. The two-foot bone blade at the tip of her tail was already coated with blood. She shook the guts off her talons and pushed the bodies up against the wall. With no one to kill for the moment, she found a quiet spot within leaping distance of the stage and curled up to wait. One more quick spell rendered her invisible and she was ready to leap onto the stage. Bowling for assholes, she thought to me.
I couldn’t help smiling. “That’s my girl,” I whispered.
“And they called me a pervert…”
I whirled around, raising the spear point to strike…and lowering it in shock. “Tony?” I shook my head and stood up. “Tony, you’re dead.”
“Yeah, I know. I was there when the side of my head got blown open.” He grinned at me with that same damn devil-may-care grin that always seemed to lead to some manner of grand misadventure. Anthony Michael Doyle. High-school friend, Marine combat veteran, and casualty of war. He looked good for being dead three years.
We’d buried him in his dress uniform, but now he was wearing gold half-plate over dark crimson chain. Instead of a cotton gambeson under it all, he had a black leather tunic and trousers. He also had a bad case of prismatic lens flare—bright patches of green, red, gold, and blue lights appeared and disappeared all around the outline of his body. He struck a superhero pose and asked, “What do you think? Pretty cool, huh?”
“Yeah, you look all kinds of elegant.” I realized that I couldn’t hear anything but our voices and looked around again. There was nothing around us but fog and faint outlines. “Where’s everybody else?”
“Right where they were. You and I are between heartbeats.” He blew on his nails and rubbed them against his armor. “One of the perks of my new job.”
“Congratulations.” I gestured at his armor. “I was hoping you’d be chosen to become an Einherjar.”
“It’s Einherji. Einherjar is plural, and no, I’m not a goddamn Einherji. I’m Valkyrja, bitch!” He growled and flexed his muscles. “Those people chanting ‘all fags go to hell’ caught Lady Hel’s attention. Being the daughter of Loki, she ran with it. She asked Odin for her own troop of Valkyrjur, and the Valföðr allowed it. Now we are the most fabulous group of badasses the Nine Worlds have ever seen.”
I laughed. “Good. I’m genuinely glad for you. I have to ask, though…aren’t you supposed to appear later in the fight and ask me if I want to live forever?”
“No. You asked for help, and Crom sent his best. Two dozen of his Einherjar, all Marines killed in action in Iraq or Afghanistan. I asked Lady Hel if I could be the one to bring them, and she agreed. We have your back, bud.” He spit on his fingers and rubbed them across my eyes. “Normally the living can’t see the exalted dead, but now you can. Just until midnight, though. We’ll plow the road and you bring the pain.”
I clasped his wrist. “Thank you. If we survive this, any message for your family?”
He shook his head. “I’m not allowed. You can tell them whatever you want, though. It’s a privilege reserved for the living.” He squeezed my wrist and released it. “Get ready. And…Odin’s beard, try not to fumble.”
He vanished, and instead of holding his wrist, I was holding the broken spear. Only now, the blood staining the spear point was fresh, wet, and bright scarlet. I reached out a finger to touch it…
No. Let’s not, and say we made a successful Wisdom check.
In the auditorium, the chanting turned into dozens of screams. The crystal cocoon absorbed all the energy raised by ritual as well as the last vestiges of life from several of the scarecrows on the stage. The cocoon shattered into dust, and Risenue the Bloodmaiden strode out onto planet Earth.
I sighed and shook my head. It was worse than I feared. A lot worse.
Chapter Twenty-One
Frag With Extreme Prejudice
Risenue’s hair belonged in a 1980s music video. Traffic-cone orange, moussed to the lowest circle of Hell and sticking out at all angles when it wasn’t hanging to her hips. The unholy bastard child of a candy-corn sea urchin and the mother of all mullets.
Her outfit was your basic dominatrix get-up—a blood-red vinyl teddy, elbow-length gloves, and matching thigh-high stiletto-heel boots. To round the ensemble out, she had blood-red fingernails, huge eyelashes, enough black eyeliner to make over a panda, and vast swathes of electric-blue eyeshadow.
She didn’t look like a goddess. She didn’t ev
en look like a demon. She looked like a lonely housewife who was trying too hard to be a naughty girl. She wasn’t exotic, or titillating, or even scary. She might as well have surrounded herself with cabana boys in leopard-skin posing pouches.
The children around her vanished, revealing yet more Sanguine Vanguard. These looked to be more capable than the others we’d encountered. Exotic-looking armor, for one, and wickedly elegant weapons that seemed to be paper-thin ribbons of mirrored glass. Frankly, they worried me more than Risenue did.
Rose was in position on the far side of the stage. I looked at Nadia and raised the spear. “Ready?”
She shook her head. “Geneva’s last message said, ‘hold for pull’. They may have a plan in mind for getting to the hostages.”
“All right. We stay on the same page, then.” I focused on Rose, asking her to hold. She agreed, but wasn’t happy. I risked a slightly closer look and Geneva’s message made more sense.
Aside from the ones on stage, dozens of scarecrows stood along the back and sides of the theatre, covering the audience with pistols and shotguns. There had to be fifty or sixty of them, and I doubt one of them was sane enough to know what day it was. Maybe we’d get lucky and they’d try biting people instead of shooting them.
Risenue held her arms out to her side and gave the audience her most beneficent smile. “My children, forgive me for interrupting your festivities, but only in this way could I be born unto your world. I am Risenue, She Whose Blood Brings Life to the Righteous, goddess of the Dokk-Alfar, and I am here to free you from fear, and want, and loneliness.” A gold chalice encrusted with rubies appeared in her hand and she extended it to the crowd. “Who will be the first to drink from my chalice and be exalted? I know! Your leader!”
The scarecrows seized two of the hostages kneeling on stage and dragged them in front of Risenue. My gut seized up—they’d picked Gordon and Lorena. Gordon was in his Axemaster G costume, and a bunch of the damn kids in the audience started whistling and yelling “Warbird!” A few even held up lighters.
