I needed a change in tactics. I extended my hand claws and simultaneously willed my magic nail polish to render them invisible. I gave Mason a silent prayer of thanks. His whimsical gift of color-changing nail polish to a vain werewolf girl had saved my life more times than I could count.
Onyx was still glowing with fairy healing magic. In seconds he would be ready to attack again. Would my invisible claws be enough to counter his speed? My wolf side bared her teeth, but shook her head. Even invisible claws wouldn't suffice against this assassin.
What else did I have? Magic? Almost none of my spells would work as expected in Fae. The laws of metaphysics worked differently here. Sure, I had a spell that could blow us all up, but suicide wasn't my goal.
The time-twisting amulet around his neck was growing brighter. It needed a little more time to recharge. That was why he had stopped his attacks—not just to heal in real time, but to let the damn thing suck up time. For this instant, he was stuck in real time, stuck with me.
Thought and deed were the same. I reached into my invisible bag, intent on throwing that silver dagger through his heart.
The blade was halfway across the room, aimed straight for his chest, when he blurred. He was suddenly at my side as the blade embedded itself into the castle wall.
"You're just full of tricks, aren't you?" he said, before speeding up again.
Unbalanced from the throw, I stumbled forward as he jerked my invisible bag from my shoulder. In less than a blink, he was back across the room. The amulet was dimmer; he needed more time to let it charge up again.
Onyx emptied my bag, examining the contents. Canteen, Jorōgumo's climbing rope, some coins, other odds and ends. "There's no trace of magic here, these are useless."
Onyx stuck his hand inside the bag and watched it disappear. "This looks like it's made from one of our stealth suits."
"Where did you get that?" asked the Guildmaster. "Only Guild members can have the secret of our invisibility, on pain of death."
Without taking my eyes off Onyx, I replied, "I made my designer bag from the hood of the last assassin you sent." I nodded at the silver dagger stuck hilt-deep in the wall. "She also left that dagger. You guys are kind of clumsy about leaving your toys around."
Onyx's eyes widened at the mention of the dagger. He dropped my bag and zipped over to the wall. He tugged on the handle of the knife with a grunt. Luckily, my throw had embedded the blade so deep into the masonry that all his strength wasn't enough to free the weapon. I shuddered at the thought of the damage this speed-freak killer could do with a silver dagger.
"You're lying!" sputtered the Guildmaster. "Ember was my finest assassin, my second-in-command, my daughter. She was more than a match for a mangy cur."
Onyx grimaced at the "finest assassin" comment.
"Yeah, not so fine." I changed tone, equal-to-equal. "Did you really think sending your assassin to my world, my home, where my pack reigns, would end any differently?"
He bit his lip. "How did it end?" His eyes pooled with tears, and he stopped struggling to rip his clothing from the iron spike.
I laughed in his face. "I stripped Ember of her toys, stripped her naked, and dropped her in the middle of the Nevada desert. My pack gave her the honor of pursuit."
Onyx interrupted. "Honor of pursuit?"
"I marked her as prey for my pack. Free to run, free to fight. All she had to do was survive until dawn. We gave her an hour's grace, then harried her through the nighttime desert. She was swift, running with grace and with steps so light they left barely an impression in the earth. We cornered her in a moonlit canyon just as the sky was lightening."
"You're a monster!" said the Guildmaster.
"Thank you," I said. "I do my best."
I did my best double-take and shifted to superior-to-inferior mode. "Was that supposed to be an insult? Coming from the bastard who has set assassins on my trail for months? Avoiding all attempts at truce? Who made me come here to your best-defended place to confront and kill you?"
I gestured theatrically, stepping closer to the pile of contents from my bag. My foot rested against Jorōgumo's gift.
"Onyx," said the Guildmaster, officer-to-soldier mode, "kill this bitch even if it costs you your life."
"Onyx," I spit out, "see how he cries for his daughter, but has no emotion to spare for his son? You want to obey this creature?"
"What son? I have no son," said the Guildmaster, puzzlement clear on his face.
"He doesn't even know. He doesn't even care," I said, hoping to engender some family conflict. Onyx had serious daddy issues.
"I obey," said Onyx, as he reached for his amulet.
Once he went to full speed, the fight would be over.
In desperation, I kicked Jorōgumo's artifact toward Onyx.
He caught it easily in one hand, holding the rope and swinging the weighted ball back and forth. "Do you expect me to hang myself with this mundane rope? I'll hang you with it instead." He grabbed the ball with his right hand.
He opened his hand to drop the weighted ball, then seemed surprised when it stuck to his palm. He shook his hand furiously, to no avail. The line moved sinuously to wrap around his wrist.
"Not as mundane as you expected?"
He reached for his amulet with his free hand. "I'll garrote you with this cord and hang your body from the battlements."
Would the webbing still respond to my commands?
"Cocoon!" I shouted.
The knotted ball at the end of the line rose like a snake getting ready to strike, then wrapped itself around Onyx's hand and continued up his arm, wrapping as it went. It reached his shoulder, then slithered across his chest at hyper-speed. In seconds, it covered his chest in loops of super-strong spider silk. His straining hand was just inches short of touching his time-warping amulet.
The line continued down his frame, immobilizing his legs. He kept his feet far enough apart to maintain his balance, but would topple at any push.
Finally, the knot, much diminished, lay at his feet. It raised its head and nodded, as if in satisfaction at a job well done. Then it dropped to the floor, anchoring Onyx in place.
Onyx's eyes burned with hatred and he was gasping for breath. There was just enough stretch in the webbing to allow him to breathe.
"Onyx," I said in parent-to-child mode, "can't you stop this tantrum? I don't want to kill you, even though you tried your best to kill me. Just promise never to hurt me or mine again and we can stop."
"Never! All your tricks and traps won't stop me!"
"Okay, I tried to be reasonable. This will hurt you more than it hurts me."
I stepped closer and willed my claws to extend, not bothering with the invisible nail polish. "Now hold still, I don't want to damage my cocoon." One swipe of my claws would hamstring him, allowing me to eliminate the Guildmaster without interference. Onyx might listen to reason once the neglectful bastard was dead.
Onyx screamed and stretched the webbing enough to allow a fingertip to touch the amulet. I jumped back and retracted my claws.
He seemed to jitter in place for several seconds, blurring almost to invisibility. But the webbing held him fast. When he stopped vibrating for a moment, he had tiny streaks of white hair mixed in with the black. He looked like he had aged ten years in seconds.
Then he screamed again and blurred for a longer time. The stench of burning silk wafted through the room.
When he stopped, his hair was now pure white and his face full of wrinkles. His body had changed from robust to lean—lean enough that the burnt silk no longer wrapped him tightly. Wisps of silk floated down and gathered at his feet. He had burned off nearly fifty pounds in a few seconds.
"Onyx, if you stop now, you can still have a few good years—"
I stopped as he stepped out of the cocoon. He had murder in his eyes and a smirk on his lips.
"Onyx, don't make me do this," I pleaded. I made a fake gun with my thumb and forefinger, pointing it at the deadliest assassin i
n all of Fae. "I've taken it easy on you until now."
"I won't stop until one of us is dead." He reached for his amulet.
"Vengeance!" I cried in desperation as he accelerated to hyper-speed.
Faster than even this time-warping killer could move, the arrow of my vengeance arrived. Iron—and Mason's curse—penetrated several stories of stone, cement, and assassin. The bolt transfixed him from his collarbone to crotch. Then the iron turned red hot and started burning him from the inside out.
I tilted my head as he screamed, enjoying his demise like a songwriter would enjoy a particularly nice rendition of her composition.
It took a long time for him to finish singing.
Burning humans smell like pork; burning fairies smell much sweeter. But I wasn't here to indulge my appetites.
I turned to the Master of the Guild of Assassins, held my fake gun up in the air and blew across my fingertip, clearing away imaginary smoke.
I drew on the power of my moonstone, its lunar energy healing slashes and breaks.
Restored in body, if not in spirit, I turned to the Guildmaster. "He was the best you had?"
The Guildmaster pulled his bedcovers up to his chin, no longer a deadly killer, but a frightened child. "No! We have scores more like him! Even better than him! He was the least of our Guild."
"Scores?" I held up my fake gun and smiled. "Good thing I have a lot more ammo here."
I leaned closer and sniffed. "Scores?" I repeated. "You know I can tell when you lie? The scent of falsehoods irritates werewolves. Do you want me to get irritated?"
I gestured at the bed. "Do you mind if I sit? It's been a hell of a day." Without waiting for his assent, I plopped down on the edge.
I leaned over the end of the bed and stared down at the source of so much misery. I shifted to intimate mode, used by lovers and mortal enemies. "Now I'm a peaceable girl. I regret killing Onyx. All I want is for me and my family to live our lives without worrying about sneaky bastards trying to attack us. Are you sure we can't come to a solution?"
"The Guild will never abandon your contract. Reparations would bankrupt every member."
"Reparations? You mean that 'double your money back' guarantee is real?"
"It's real. We base our reputation on that guarantee. With every failure, we return twice the fee. If the client still wants to pursue the contract, the price triples."
"Sounds like the Martingale strategy. They'd love you in Las Vegas."
His puzzled expression showed he did not understand how stupid his guarantee was, especially against werewolves.
"So, you face ruin because you worked with a client…" I waited patiently for him to name Queen Mab. Unfortunately, he wasn't dumb enough to drop the name of the person who had set up the contract. I had my suspicions from an unreliable source, but it would have been nice to have confirmation.
"… a client who had more resources than your Guild," I continued. "Only a senior princess or a queen could have that much money." Another long pause. He still wasn't biting.
"And you set your assassins against me and my pack." I tut-tutted. "That was a terrible idea."
"Our pledges are binding. We cannot refuse a contract."
"Why not? Can't you just break it? You've lost so much already. Now you're set to lose it all."
"The Guild is more than me, or my daughter Ember. We have a tradition that goes back—"
"You've lost a daughter and a son," I said, nodding at the spit-roasted corpse of Onyx.
"My son? He's not my son—" His eyes darted as he put the hints together.
Then he frowned. "No matter. Biological son or not, he would never have moved any higher in the Guild. He wasn't good enough."
"Then why was he your guard?"
"The time-stone is fickle. It chooses who can wield it. That and hunting were his only talents. Talents that proved inadequate against a mongrel."
"A fickle magic stone? Sounds like the perfect going-away gift."
I stepped over to the well-cooked Onyx and reached for the amulet. I froze at my wolf's growl. The Guildmaster was watching me with anticipation. They both expected me to regret touching the amulet.
I examined the item with a magician's senses. Spells layered over the stone. Spells and potent curses. The spells were like an iron safe around a treasure—protective, but unrelated to the treasure inside. Potent, yes, but I could cancel them.
"How cute! It's cursed." I pulled the chain off of Onyx, ignoring the curses. "Too bad these curses don't bother me."
I pulled the slagged iron arrow out of his remains with a sigh. No one would shoot this again. Still, no sense leaving it behind.
"You can't steal the time-stone! It belongs to the Guild!"
I rubbed the bits of Onyx off on the silk cover on the bed and frowned at the Guildmaster. "Not anymore. We have a saying in English: 'To the victor go the spoils.'"
He looked like he had swallowed a lemon. "I'll cancel your contract if you leave that stone."
"Why would you now be willing to make a truce over this little—"
"It's the only memento I have of my beloved son."
I ignored his lies. Then it hit me. "This rock is the only way you can successfully hunt the Cheshire cats! Onyx wasn't just your guard; he was your hunter."
The look on his face told me I was right.
I grinned and slid off of the bed. I stepped across the room, picked up my purse, and began stuffing my belongings back into the bag.
"This will be a twofer," I said. "The Cheshire race is safe from you, and my children can live without fear."
I knelt down next to the bundle of silk rope, now shredded into a million fibers. I stroked the tiny ball at the end of the rope with my finger.
"Poor little Silkworm," I crooned. "It's like you were alive and you sacrificed yourself for me."
A tear dropped onto the forlorn ball of twine. "Thank you," I whispered. "I wish I could bring you back."
Suddenly, the ball twisted under my finger. As I watched in amazement, silk fibers twined themselves to re-form the rope that made up the creature's body. Then the rope shortened as the head of the rope swelled. It left me with about one hundred feet of line with a baseball-sized knot on one end.
It's a miracle, I thought. Then became suspicious. What was this gift? Had Jorōgumo set some kind of trap for Mason and me?
I turned to my internal companion, asking my wolf if we could trust Silkworm. The image she sent back took a second to decipher. Images of Silkworm choking our enemies for us, followed by an image of Silkworm wrapping around Jorōgumo's neck, then resting there. My wolf trusted the rope, as long as I didn’t use it against Jorōgumo.
"I can live with that," I said. I coiled the rope gently and placed her in my bag. I stroked her head and said "Thank you for your help" before closing the bag.
"Who the hell are you talking to?" demanded my spindled fairy.
I ignored his question as I walked over to the wall to pull that damned silver knife from the masonry. I stashed it in my bag.
"So who's next in your chain of command? Onyx and Ember are gone. Who will I talk to after we finish?"
"The Guild is united in our pledges. We will make no deals with mongrels."
"Come on, give me a name," I said as I pulled the iron spike from his pallet to free him. "Give me a name and I'll make this quick for you, relatively painless."
Even before I finished speaking, he attacked. The Master of the Guild of Assassins was well-trained, strong, and fast.
Of course he attacked. But compared to Onyx, he was slower than molasses. Compared to a werewolf, he was as slow as an untrained fighter.
I slammed him down on his pallet and shoved the iron spike through his right shoulder, pinning him in place. The poison effect of iron on his fairy constitution was quick. Black worms of corruption forced themselves through his body, heading towards vital organs.
I went to the door and kicked it open, allowing the Guildmaster's final screams to ec
ho throughout the castle.
When his screams turned to whimpers, I triggered my amplifier spell. "I've killed your best assassins; I've killed your best hunter. Your greatest treasure, the time-stone, is forfeit to me. Your Guildmaster lies at my feet."
Quieter than mouse steps, a silent army of assassins crept toward me.
"I can hear your heartbeats, smell your fear as you tremble in your cowardly suits," I continued. "You can't hide from me!"
The mouse steps halted.
"Let me leave without hindrance. Cease this contract on me and my family. Or the next time I return, I won't be so nice."
There were no more attacks as I exited the castle and made my way back through the forest.
4
We were at the headquarters of our mining operation—Moonrise, Limited—in a small trailer outfitted with office equipment. The harsh sun beat down on the Nevada desert outside, making me thankful for the air conditioning. The noise of trucks, conveyors, and earth-moving machinery filtered in through the glass.
My laptop glitched and the web page I was reading locked up. I blew out an exasperated breath and scooted closer to the desk to examine the computer. My belly bumped up against the desk and for the millionth time I wished this pregnancy was over. I scooted the computer closer, pushing aside the stack of detailed maps that Mason had annotated with the results of his mineral dowsing research.
I jiggled the ethernet cable at the back of the laptop to no effect; the screen was still locked.
"Damn cable. I wish we could use wifi here," I said.
Logan, my runt, had propped himself up against the far wall. He had one leg straight and the other kicked back against the wall. His heavily muscled arms crossed his chest and his head was tilted down so that his eyes were covered by the brim of his baseball cap. It almost looked like he was sleeping. Almost.
Logan lifted his head briefly, showing his amber eyes under the brim of the baseball cap. "Bad idea to use anything wireless around an active mine. It could set off the explosives."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Safety first, especially when there are normal humans around."
Lycan Legacy - 4 - 5 - 6: Princess - Progeny - Paladin: Book 4 - 5 - 6 in the Lycan Legacy Series Page 29
