Casting Shadows

by E. A. Copen

  I scooted away until my back hit the wall. “It’s okay, man. Nothing to be ashamed of. I actually kind of like it.”

  He grabbed me by the foot and dragged me closer. When I tried to pull away again, his tentacle appendages pinned me to the ground while his human hand waved the big glass shard around. “Your screaming will encourage them to hurry.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, pal. This isn’t my first time being tortured. You’re really going to have to work for it if you want me to scream.”

  He grinned, turned away from me, and sliced through Remy’s upper arm. She let out a cry that made heat surge into my throat.

  I kicked and fought, but he had me pinned down tight. “Hey! Leave her out of this. Hurt me if you want to carve someone up!”

  He brought the knife back in front of my face. “Every time you give me a smartass remark, she’ll pay the price. Now, scream.”

  Tires squealed somewhere nearby followed by a blaring horn. Mask stood up straight, staring at the window as one of the military trucks crawled by.

  “Looks like I don’t need to scream after all,” I said.

  “Get them up. Outside. Outside!” Mask screeched.

  His braindead minions picked us up roughly and half-dragged, half-shoved us through the front door and onto the sidewalk. Down the street, one of the military Humvees made a wide U-turn at an intersection and sat there, facing us.

  “Idiots,” I mumbled. “They’re trying to save us.”

  Mask stepped to the center of the road, still waving around his glass shard like a knife.

  The Humvee revved up its engine twice. Its tires squealed and it took off, accelerating quickly to full speed. Mask stayed where he was, smirking at the oncoming vehicle only to sidestep at the very last second. Stupid. The rear driver’s side door swung open and crashed into Mask, knocking him to the asphalt. As soon as the vehicle was clear of Mask and just beyond the reach of the infected standing around the intersection, Foxglove leaped from the open door. He rose from his crouch and drew the broadsword at his hip.

  Mask laughed and pushed himself to his feet. “You think you can beat me this time, do you? It didn’t go so well for you the last time you tried.”

  The Humvee slid to a sideways stop. More doors opened and more people stepped out—Paula and that detective friend of Laz’s, all looking equally pissed off. Paula pumped a shotgun and raised it to her shoulder, aiming at Mask’s head.

  Mask’s eyes rolled toward Remy. I’d be damned if he was going to make a human shield out of her again.

  I swung an elbow back, breaking Mask’s minion’s hold on me and rushed to knock Remy out of the way. When Mask threw out a tentacle to grab her, he got me instead. It wrapped around my waist and yanked my feet from under me to fly backward five feet.

  “Everyone wants to be a damn hero,” Mask hissed, positioning me in front of him. “When are you going to learn this isn’t a story where the heroes win? In this fairy tale, I win.”

  Foxglove stopped several feet away, just out of reach of Mask’s tentacles. He scanned the street from side to side while the others flanked him on either side. It was three of them versus two dozen infected and Mask himself. A suicide mission if ever there was one. “Release them.”

  “Now, why would I do that?” Mask took a step back, pulling me with him.

  Foxglove turned his head and nodded to the detective. Detective Drake lowered his gun and slung a backpack to the ground before kicking it toward Mask. Mask gestured for one of his minions to go forward and check it out.

  What could they bring that could possibly be worth trading for Remy and me? No… They wouldn’t.

  The minion slowly unzipped the backpack, reached in, and lifted a glowing green stone.

  “There are two more,” Foxglove said. “You get them after Finn and Remy are freed.”

  Mask chuckled. “Let me guess. Your necromancer friend decided he’d rather have his daughter than die alone? Family relations are a weakness fae don’t share with humans, thankfully. It would’ve been much too easy to conquer Faerie had that been the case.”

  “But you haven’t conquered Faerie, have you?” Paula slid forward a step, the two barrels of her shotgun still focused on Mask’s head. “Shadow and the High Court have slipped through your grimy little tentacles. What’s even worse, you’ve underestimated one other court.”

  “You mean your Court of Miracles, which you are no doubt here to represent.” Mask flipped a tentacle dismissively. “All temporary. I have the Shadow King here in my grasp, and the deposed Summer Queen. The High Court is weakened, and the so-called Court of Miracles is fading from existence as we speak.”

  The minion left the bag and brought the gleaming stone to Mask, offering it on one knee.

  Mask took the stone, passed it to his hands and turned it over, examining it. “Your King Lazarus would be a fool to offer me the stones for any reason. Where is he?”

  They didn’t answer.

  I studied Foxglove’s hardened expression. “He is an idiot, but even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to come down here himself. Why do you think he sent the B squad? He’s probably off working on some way to kick your ass for good.”

  Mask’s hold on me tightened. “No, he sent them to free you. The Spellweaver and the stones in the same place? That could be his only reasoning. Tell me, Foxglove, why shouldn’t I just kill you? Then I can take the stones and keep my Spellweaver too.”

  The minions closed on Foxglove’s trio.

  Paula turned her shotgun on the closest one and pulled the trigger. The infected guy stumbled back a few steps, his white t-shirt peppered with tiny red dots. Her second shot hit the next infected in the face, and he went down. Not dead, but blinded, so he was at least temporarily no longer a threat.

  The crowd of infected surged toward them. Drake’s bullets didn’t penetrate skin, but impacted with enough force to break bones. It didn’t even slow the infected down unless he aimed for their legs, and even then he wasn’t doing enough damage to stop them. Rock salt and rubber bullets wouldn’t be enough. Lazarus must’ve told them not to kill anyone. Damn his good nature. It was going to be the death of us all.

  At least Foxglove had come armed with a real sword, if only he’d use it as such. He slammed the pommel into faces, kicked back attackers, and broke wrists with the swing of the sheath in his other hand, but he didn’t dare slice into an innocent human.

  I twisted my head to look at Remy. One of Mask’s monsters—a Nightclaw—stood with its giant claw against her neck, just waiting for the kill order. All of us dead men walking. Whatever your plan is, Lazarus, you’d better make it happen quickly.

  Mask turned and stomped back toward the shop, dragging me with him. “It’s time to end this. No more Spellweaver, no more hope. All I have to do is kill you and this ends.”

  I struggled against the tightening of his tentacle around my throat. “Then why haven’t you?”

  He threw me against the exterior wall. My head bounced off the brick and I fell to the ground, blinking away dancing piles of cash. “You can’t, can you?” I rose slowly, my vision still spinning. “Because my blood is as toxic to you as it is the rest of your creations, isn’t it?”

  Mask was practically steaming.

  I smirked. “I figured that out in Faerie when we fought to free the Shadowlands. How much does it take? One drop? Two and you’re a quivering pile of jelly? Must not be very much. You’re afraid of me.”

  “You forget. I don’t need to kill you for you to die.” He grinned and raised his hand to snap. When he did, his tentacles retracted, disappearing into the holes in Codey’s stomach they’d made earlier. Codey jerked, blinked, and looked down at the holes in his gut before falling to the ground. Black goo poured out of his mouth to pool on the ground around his head while Codey made awful gagging sounds.

  What the hell was he up to?

  The black goo bubbled and rose like a living being before shooting straight at Remy.

&nbs
p; I screamed for her to move, but all she did was turn her head. No matter how fast she moved, she couldn’t get out of the way.

  The Humvee’s horn suddenly cut through the sounds of fighting. The Mask goo shifted as if it were looking the other way just in time for the Humvee to hit its brights. Mask gurgled. The Nightclaw that held Remy hissed and recoiled. The crowd of rampaging infected scattered with shrieks, running for the Humvee. Whoever was inside gunned the gas and drove backward, leading the crowd away.

  I rushed to Remy’s side and pulled her away from Mask. “We have to run.” I glanced over my shoulder at the Mask goo, which was slowly leaking back into Codey’s body.

  The Nightclaw that had pulled away before suddenly sprang up in front of us with an inhuman roar. Its scythe-like claws sliced through the air just inches from her face. We backed away. More infected thudded onto the street, jumping from the balconies above and cutting us off from the others. Without the light from the Humvee, we were easy prey, especially with our hands bound.

  “Get behind me,” I shouted and stepped in front of Remy.

  “What are you going to do, Finn? Stare them to death?” She shook her head. “Go. Find a shadow and get out of here. Father needs your help.”

  “Not without you.” What I didn’t tell her was that I couldn’t go anywhere. There were no shadows deep enough on the street, not with all the lights out. To make a shadow, the darkness needed light, and the latter was painfully missing from the immediate area now that the Humvee was gone.

  The infected closed, crawling over each other. There must’ve been hundreds of them, snarling, snapping, licking their lips. I put my back to Remy, and she to me. Our bound hands brushed against each other. I tried to twist myself so that I could untie her, but whatever they’d bound us with was smooth and too tight to pull. It wouldn’t budge.

  Remy’s fingers closed around mine, squeezing. “Finn, I never told you—”

  I squeezed back. “Save it. We’re getting out of this, hear me? I’ve been in worse scrapes.” The truth was, I couldn’t think of any, but since I was saying it, it must be true, right? I was fae. I couldn’t lie even if I wanted to.

  The first infected lunged forward and snapped at Remy. She kicked it back. Another slashed at my arm, leaving three bloody streaks behind. Remy cried out as one of them bit her shoulder. I spun and headbutted the infected in the face, but it was no use. For every one I fended off, there were three more. They clawed at us with their fingernails, bit into our arms and legs. I gritted my teeth and tried to take as my hits as I could. One more minute, I told myself, shaking one free and headbutting another. One more minute and the others will fight their way through. We’re going to be okay. We’ll get out of this. I said it so it must be true.

  The infected pressed in so close I couldn’t breathe, and I began to doubt the truth of my statement.

  I turned my head at the sound of another shout and saw Foxglove break through the crowd next to me. He grabbed my shoulder and dragged me several feet to throw me through an open door. I tumbled to the floor and landed next to Remy, who was bleeding from several scrapes and bites on her arms and neck.

  Foxglove raced in behind me and slammed the door shut, putting his back to it to hold it in place. “It’s not going to hold! You have to go out the back. There’s a working streetlight a block down. You’ll find a shadow there.”

  “What about the Stones?” Remy asked. Somehow she’d gotten her arms free and was working on freeing mine.

  The door bowed and Foxglove adjusted his footing to hold it. “Decoys. Lazarus has the real stones. He’ll pass them to you. Wait for the helicopters to fly over. He’s closing the seal himself.”

  The bonds on my wrists snapped. I pulled my arms free and shook off the plastic ties. “Can he even do that?”

  “Ask later. Hurry!”

  Remy helped me to my feet and went back toward Foxglove. “What about you?”

  “I’ll follow,” he said.

  I grabbed Remy’s hand to lead her out the back, but she pulled away. Stubborn woman.

  “You’ll come with us, Foxglove, or I don’t go at all.”

  The door crashed open, the force of the explosion pushing Foxglove against the opposite wall. Mask, back in Codey’s body and sporting several new tentacle appendages, pulled himself through the door with a growl and lunged for us with a tentacle.

  Foxglove’s sword flew through the air, slicing the tentacle in half. Mask let out a frustrated screech as the rubbery appendage fell, writhing to the floor, and shifted his attention to Foxglove. Foxglove mouthed the words, “take care of her,” just before three of Mask’s tentacles tore into him.

  Remy screamed, “No,” and surged toward him.

  I put my arms around her waist and dragged her toward the back door. The last I saw of Foxglove, he was still slicing away parts of Mask while dozens of hungry infected streamed into the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lazarus

  In magic, certain rules always hold true. A circle is always an impenetrable wall to hold power unless it’s bisected by a line. Lines through multiple circles will always direct power to the smallest possible space, hence the most powerful section of the circle at Jackson Square would be the smallest section in the middle, right where the statue of Andrew Jackson stood. Therefore, it stood to reason that whatever I was going to do, it needed to be done there. At least I hoped so.

  I climbed over the fence and slid between several brown shrubs to stand at the foot of the statue of the former president on his rearing steed. To be at the center of the circle, I’d have to climb the statue itself, and when I got there, I’d have to have some idea of what to do with the stones. They clinked against each other in my pocket as I gripped one of the horse’s legs and pulled myself up.

  In my head, I went over every principle of magic that I knew, hoping to find one that would help me. I sealed spells in objects every day at work whenever I put protection spells into crystals, didn’t I? Maybe I could use the same process in triplicate with a whole lot of power behind it to do the same here. All I’d have to do was focus the spell through three objects at once instead of one, which I’d never done before, use more power than I’d ever used before, and affect a larger area than I’d ever attempted.

  Piece of cake, right? It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only plan I had.

  I really wish Finn hadn’t gotten himself kidnapped. I grabbed Jackson’s leg and pulled myself up more. Of course, that wouldn’t have happened if he weren’t head over heels for Remy. I’d never known Finn to do much of anything for anyone except himself, but it seemed to me he’d let Mask take him so that she wouldn’t be alone. At least she had someone with her that cared enough to protect her.

  I paused in my climb. “What the hell am I saying? Dammit, I’m not allowed to like her boyfriends. It’s rule number one of the dad code.”

  Fugly let out one last desperate cry. I turned my head to see it sink out of sight. Guess Ulmir had done his part, and Josiah was doing what he could. It was time for me to do mine.

  I swung my leg up and grabbed onto Jackson, sitting awkwardly behind him. “Excuse me, Mr. President, but one of us has got to save the city and, well, you’re just a sculpture.” I carefully laid the stones out in front of me. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

  With my eyes closed, hands hovering over the stones, I focused my magic into them. The stones woke the moment the first traces of magic energy touched them, drinking in power like a sponge. That was new. The crystals I used took magic well enough, but sending a flow of magic into the stones was like trying to fill the ocean with a faucet. I could pour everything I had into them, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  I needed more power.

  Okay, the square is close to more than a dozen cemeteries. There has to be enough power between those to fill these and fuel them to close the seal. I cringed at the idea of channeling that much power all at once. I’d have to take my mental shields down complet
ely, leaving me vulnerable to an assault on my mind. If Mask hit me, I’d be screwed, and there was no way he wouldn’t notice the sudden surge. Every magical creature in New Orleans would feel it. I just had to hope Foxglove was keeping him too busy to notice.

  More than that, I’d never channeled that much power before, not even a fraction of it. Standing unshielded in just one cemetery was enough to leave me tingling. Pulling on the power of several at once would be agony. It might even kill me.

  Don’t have a choice. I need more power. I closed my eyes and slowly lowered my shields one at a time, layer by layer. The pull of the dead was immediate and strong, tugging on my psyche from every direction. It was as if someone had slipped a dozen fish hooks under my skin and tugged on them all at once. I gritted my teeth and reached to the northeast.

  The energy that answered was enough to leave me swaying on the sculpted horse. I stayed where I was only by squeezing my legs tight around the horse’s rear end. Good thing it wasn’t real.

  And that was just the energy from the cemeteries in one direction.

  I called the energy from the northwest. The effort pushed the air from my lungs and left my skin raw and exposed, as if thousands of tiny razor blades had just been drawn over me in a net. I doubled over, gripping the horse’s tail to keep from falling over. In front of me, the three stones glowed bright, pulsing in time with the beat of my own heart. The circular path that also served to carve out the circles of the seal glowed a faint ethereal blue. It was working, I just needed more power.

  Holding onto the power I had so far, however, left my insides churning, my veins burning, and my head throbbing. Everything inside me suddenly wanted to be on the outside, organs included.

  I forced myself through a few shaky breaths. I can do this. I have to do this. Dammit, I’m Death, the Pale Horseman. I’ve survived the pits of Hell. I can make it through this.

  I pushed myself through the pain, forcing my arm to change direction and channel the last of the energy from the cemeteries in the quarter. It surged into my outstretched arm as a wave of blistering heat. The veins and arteries in my hand glowed bright red. Capillaries burst, leaving blood-colored lightning bolts crawling over my skin. Thick, red drops fell from my nose and struck the statue, racing down the side in a slow-motion waterfall.