Daughter of Danger

by John C. Wright

  Ami rolled to her feet and jumped upward and to the left. At less than one fourth her normal weight, she was able to jump up two stories. She drew the baton from her back and snapped it into its full length, using the thrust from the untelescoping butt of the longbow against the wall of the dance studio to throw her against the wall of the hospital.

  Here, she found a bricked-up window, but with sill and ledge still intact. She wedged herself into the non-window, foot against one sill and spine against the other, shook the blood free from her shortsword, sheathed it, and then used both hands and one foot to string her bow.

  “Look out! It’s a trap!” Elfine’s words echoed off the dark walls and were almost lost in the howling uproar. It seemed odd how long it took for the words to reach her ear, but time seemed strangely to be running slowly.

  Ami’s fingers were shaking as she strung the bow. The wolf-man who had attacked her was horrifically strong, larger and taller than Ami. Dumb luck and fast reflexes had saved her. But there was no time to feel the fear she was feeling. Ami cleared her mind of words, of thoughts.

  She did not have a free hand to adjust the lenses on her mask, so she tossed her head to slide the mask up. She scanned the area. The night air was cold on her face. The wolf-man she had gut-stabbed was writhing on the ground and making a terrible noise. Howls of wolves sounded both far away and near at hand. There were shadows moving at the mouth of the alley and also from the empty lot behind. They were coming from all directions. She tossed her head a second time to lower the mask back in place.

  The second man, a tall fellow in a red cap with a knife in either hand, was staring upward, looking for her. During the moment when her mask was up, he must have seen a flash of her white face, for he pointed and howled. She sent three shafts into his chest. Down he fell.

  There was a noise from below. She dropped a handful of flashbang mini-grenades among them. The stuttering, shocking, eye-searing light revealed the scene clearly, but only for a moment: at least a dozen shaggy wolves were in the alleyway, crouched and waiting. Coming from the open lot behind were three figures in red caps.

  A fourth figure on an enormous horse was behind them, hidden in the shadows. He was on the edge of the zone of momentary light, and the horse reared, and she heard it whinny, but otherwise Ami saw no details.

  Of the three closest to the horseman, one seemed a human: a dark-haired man in a black suit and tie and wearing dark glasses. The second was half-human and half-wolf, shirtless, standing upright with human hands, but with human trousers still around his flanks and tail and crooked legs. The third had a wolf’s body except that it was the size of a pony. He had the face of a man, a grinning big-nosed fellow with a beard. Gold chains were around his neck, and five of his teeth were gold and set with diamonds.

  Elfine was standing halfway between the two groups, shivering. She ran two paces to the left, two to the right, and back again. Ami saw a circle of red thread, four paces wide, had been set on the ground. Elfine was in the middle of it.

  Then, the light was gone. Ami twisted a gold ornament at the temple of her fox mask. The light amplification lenses slid aside, and the infrared lenses rotated into place. She now saw the heat escaping the bodies below. She raised the longbow and sent an arrow into the spot she remembered where the thread lay, hoping to sever the string.

  It must have worked because she heard Elfine whoop with joy and saw the heat signature of the slender humanoid figure shrink to a dot. It vanished from view. Maybe it was not large enough or hot enough for the mask lenses to pick up.

  Ami heard the noise of hoofbeats clattering. The glowing heat outline of a horse and rider rushed down the alley and away.

  Ami, meanwhile, shot arrows at the wolf-man and the man in dark glasses just on the general principle that creatures with hands, who could throw or shoot, were more dangerous at the moment. The wolf-man fell, but the man in dark glasses, showing a remarkable presence of mind and speed of reflexes, put an elbow around the neck of the wolf-man and held his squirming, bleeding compatriot before him as a shield. The heat outlines were not clear enough for her to strike his face peering over his dying friend’s shoulder, but neither could he draw any weapon as both hands were occupied.

  From the sounds and heat shadows, she could tell the wolves were now making prodigious leaps, ten and fifteen feet straight up, and snapping at her where she rested in the windowsill. More than mere muscle power was involved because the wolves were making taller leaps with each attempt, as if the howling and baying of the wolves gathered below increased their strength and fury.

  She shot and shot. Two wolves with arrows in their hides fell back into the alley, yowling. This was not working. There were too many, and their leaps were getting higher. She raised a foot, unstrung her bow, and collapsed it into a baton.

  At that moment a particularly ambitious wolf leaped higher than the others. She caught it in the chest with the foot of her boot and shoved. It fell back into the air, snarling and snapping as it plunged. She shot her wirepoon across the alley, unable to see where she was shooting because the wall was not giving off any heat. The grapnel snagged something.

  She swung away from the snapping jaws and let the whining wirespool draw her rapidly upward. She tossed her head to raise the mask, and, in the glare of the upper story lights of the dance studio, Ami caught a glimpse of a tangle of transformers and electrical wires protruding from the side of the building. She was about to run into them.

  She did a flip in midair and landed on a warm and humming transformer. She tossed her head to lower the mask and saw the heat signatures of the wolves in the alley. They were milling and howling, unable to reach her high perch. But the pony-sized quadruped heat-shadow suddenly grew bright and then brighter in her lenses, as if the monster had swallowed a furnace. The man-faced wolf reared back. In her view, the red mouth looked like a yellow flower with a blindingly white center. The monster vomited a spume of flame up toward her.

  She drew her baton and short sword. She vaulted upward, using the power of the unfolding bowstaff to propel her, and slashing the electrical cables running to the box as she did so, clearing her path.

  Her instincts must have been sure the nonmetallic blade was safe, but, even so, it was a reckless blow. Wires spat sparks and fell down among the wolves, who were packed closed enough together that if one were touching an electrocuted one, he was electrocuted as well.

  Fire from the spew of the monster splashed across stone and glass and clung, as if it were burning glue, including the transformer box she was no longer atop.

  The lights of the upper floor of the dance studio went dark. She soared straight up, sheathing her blade as she did. This time she was not blind, because the burning monster-spew splashed along the wall stones beneath her sent her shadow, in a jumping triangle, up the wall ahead of her.

  Ami shrugged the wirepoon into her palm and fired at the roof above her. She did not have two hands free for archery, so she folded the bowstaff back into a baton and sheathed it. As the wire spool drew her rapidly up the side of the building, she drew and threw a boomerang whirling into the skull of the flame-breathing wolf-man. He staggered, howled, and ran around the corner. She threw a second boomerang and must have judged the angle right because the spinning boomerang curved nicely around the corner and out of sight, and the wolf-man uttered an agonized yelp that trailed off into a whine.

  The churchbells began chiming on the cathedral next door. That, or the flash grenades, or the loss of their leader, must have panicked the wolf pack because the beasts howled and fled in every direction.

  By the time Ami reached the roof of the building, the dim alley was too far for a boomerang or throwing star. She once more drew out, unfolded, and strung her bow. Three wolf corpses lay there in the light of the dying flame, two of them with human clothing tangled about their twisted limbs. But there were no targets left for her.

  Ami heard Elfine scream again. The scream was coming from the alley between this bui
lding and the cathedral. Ami twisted the ring to full weightlessness, fired the wirepoon to catch the opposite lip of the dance studio roof, and yanked herself across the distance, regardless of the danger of such headlong speed.

  3. The Black Knight

  Ami shot across the space between the dance studio and the cathedral. Looking down, she saw the top of an awning. It blocked the scene. The sounds of hoofbeats hammering and Elfine screaming in panic came from below this awning.

  From the sound of the hoofbeats and the motion of a light that she could dimly see through the awning fabric, it seemed the horseman carried a torch in his left hand.

  The shadows cast from the torch were crisp and large. Under the awning, his shadow parallel to him on a wall, was the horseman, galloping in full career. Strangely enough, he had a butterfly net deployed before him like a lance, and in it was writhing a tiny glowing dot small as a firefly. The butterfly net was peeping out from under the awning, and Ami could see it directly, not just as a shadow. The horseman must have just then snatched the burning dot out of the air.

  Three things happened at once. First, there was a sudden spray of sparks which made the shadows jump and scatter. The butterfly net ripped open, and Elfine in her green bodice and skirt was there, full sized, burning with colored sparks, with the ring of the butterfly net circling her waist and pinning her arms to her sides. Second, the horseman passed out from underneath the awning and into view. The horseman was yanking the trapped Elfine to him with both hands, dropping the torch as he did so, and he threw her body across his saddlebow. Third, darkness filled the alley.

  Ami, looking down from above, could only see the silhouette of head and shoulders of the figure bent over and pinning down the brightly sparkling girl. The light was directly behind and beneath him, and his dark outline rippled as the sparks danced. The many-colored sparks hid all hues but revealed his shape: He was in a tall helm and billowing cape. There were shadowy suggestions of a sword and shield hanging from his saddle, but the barding and skirts on the horse were clear. This was not merely a horseman, but a fully armed and armored knight.

  Ami’s heart leaped with pain. If Elfine were afraid of one small metal nail, what must she think of a knight covered from head to toe?

  Third, as part of the same motion as he captured the fairy girl, the knight casually put his gauntleted hand on the small of her back. All her sparks suddenly went out, so the shadows swelled and filled the alley with darkness. The sound of Elfine’s screaming, the knight’s triumphant laughter, and the horse’s retreating hoofbeats filled the gloom.

  All this Ami saw in an instant as she soared over. Ami somersaulted in midair so that her feet would strike the wall of the church and absorb her impact, but, to her surprise, when she struck the wall, her full weight returned, and she fell.

  With an enormous clatter, her bowstaff snapped out to its full length, and the bowcase across her back was suddenly its full volume and weight, shedding arrows. Some of her weapons erupted from her belt pouches and flung themselves into the air. The wrist holster, elbow pads, and knee pads all jumped into their normal size and weight, and the sword blade was now protruding a foot beyond its scabbard at her back. The silk half-cape unfolded into wings and flapped awkwardly in the spinning air. Features she had not known, such a triangular blades hidden in the forearms of her gloves and the toes of her boots, jumped into being. A newly discovered snorkel absurdly flapped past her nose.

  She had the presence of mind to fire the wirepoon into the statue of a saint as she fell. The wire yanked her arm and slowed her sharply, but then the wire shrieked and snapped in half.

  Ami fell onto the awning, bounced, hit the awning a second time, and fell to the ground. Throwing stars and spilled arrows fell to her left and right, making a sad, small sound like metallic raindrops.

  She rolled to her feet and flung aside her wings and belt, snorkel and bowcase, and anything else tangling her limbs or slowing her movements. She left the gear without a glance and ran toward the sound of hoofbeats.

  Down the alley she sprinted, listening. She could see no horse or steed, but the clatter of hoofbeats was loud and unmistakable. It grew louder, passed right before her face, and receded back the way she had come, heading toward the brightly lit street.

  Elfine called out once more, woebegone, frightened, and uttered a smothered squeal from her nose, as if her voice were muffled. The sound grew faint and distant.

  Ami ran and ran. Eventually, she came out of the alley and into the broad avenue.

  Here were normal-looking people walking in the evening, faces drawn and glum, eyes down. There was the motionless traffic, beeping and bleating. Ami drew down her mask and clicked through the different bands of vision her lenses afforded. The main street was too bright and too hot: she saw a confused blur of images. She raised the mask and grabbed for where her binoculars should be: her fingers brushed her waist where there was no belt. She looked left and right. She shouted Elfine’s name again and again.

  The humans plodded past, ignoring her.

  Elfine was gone.

  4. Missing Person

  Shaking with fury and blushing with shame, Ami returned to the alley between the cathedral and the dance studio and began to collect her gear.

  She had been sure something would have been stolen or rolled into a stormdrain or something, but everything was there. It took only a few minutes to fit everything back into place. The longbow and short sword folded once again into their impossibly small shapes. She donned her cape, which was content to fall as silk.

  What had happened? Elfine had warned her that shining the light from the flashlight setting of the ring might have this effect. But Ami had seen no light. Could it have been something done by the black knight?

  She looked at the Ring of Mists. It was a combination she had never seen before: the metal was white, but the face had half-lidded eyes, which had been the weightlessness symbol. Perhaps it was broken. She drew it from her finger. The metal darkened to pewter. She let go of the ring. It hung in the air without falling. She returned it to her finger, twisted it once clockwise, once counterclockwise, and once clockwise again. Now it was white, and the face was calm. Ami felt no eyes on her.

  She returned to the next alley over, the one separating the dance studio from the hospital. The electrical wires were on the ground, buzzing. Three dead wolves were on the ground. Ami frowned, disappointed it had not been more. Ami went through the pockets of those with human clothing, finding nothing, not even lint.

  She carefully drew three tracking devices from her utility belt and jammed them far down the throats of the three dead beasts. Then, she recovered her arrows, hunted around, and recovered both boomerangs. One was covered with blood. The other one was lodged in the brainpan of a fourth wolf larger than the others. He had fallen headfirst into a trashcan in the open lot behind the hospital, and his legs jutted pathetically up into the night air. She had to reach into the can to pry her boomerang free.

  She was unwilling to summon light from her ring, so she drew the flashlight from her utility belt. She peered into the trashcan. His human face had changed in death to a long lupine skull of a wolf, which, for some reason, she had not been expecting. She could not reach his mouth, so she placed the bug inside one of his open wounds.

  In the shadows above the street lamps, she found a high perch on the skull of an ornamental gargoyle protruding from the wall of the dance studio. It seemed an odd architectural choice for a dance studio, but perhaps this building had originally been part of the cathedral next door. This position allowed her to watch all four wolves, the alley, the empty lot, and the still-buzzing wires.

  She toyed with the ears of her mask until she heard the steady beeping from the homing bugs. She found to her embarrassment that all along there had been controls inside the mask, meant to be worked by teeth or tongue, which could rotate the eyelenses through their various settings or control the ear radios.

  Her instincts or buried memories
had failed her. Ami felt another stab of shame.

  There seemed to be no screen or dial which would have allowed her to get a readout of the bearing and distance from the bugs or a way to display it on a scrolling map. A modern phone could have performed such a convenient function or more. Ami wondered why elfin gear—assuming it was elfin hands that had made this supersuit for her—was more inconvenient to use than human technology.

  The realization slowly and relentlessly seeped into her thoughts that her worry over her friend had tricked her into rushing in too quickly, when it would have been better to stand back, examine the situation, and avoid any confined area were she could be flanked or surrounded. She could have used the infrared setting to spot the wolves hiding by the alley mouth or the wolf-man in the doorway who had jumped her.

  Ami cleaned her weapons, threw away a useless length of wire, and restrung the wirepoon spool.

  Chores done, she knelt on the high perch in the dark night air, breathing slowly and calmly, accepting her failures, reviewing her errors, and resolving her will until it was clear and hard like a polished diamond, of which there is no harder stone.

  Her breathing slowed. She watched and waited, without fidgeting or sighing, as silent and terrible as a pool of undisturbed gray water beneath the motionless ice in which a man is fated to drown.

  Chapter Seven: Wolves and Shadows

  1. Hunting Blind

  Ami thought that whoever had sent the wolves to watch the hospital would wish to avoid both the attention of the humans and the attention of the elfs she had been told were the secret rulers of the world. Hence, the redcaps should be forced to act quickly, before either the power department, or the police, or whatever servants the elfs might send came to the scene. She assumed the owner of the dance studio, if no one else, would report the downed power line hissing in the alley behind the hospital.