by K. A. M'Lady
“Or it could build me an empire,” he said, his own distinct gleam appearing in his eyes as he arched his brow and cocked his head, a cocky repose if there had ever been one. “So what do you propose I do, my great strategist?” There was no mocking to his question, just interest, as though we were playing some game of War or Battleship. Sadly, this was a game that would only have one outcome. Those who win get to live.
“What of this ‘other′ that I am sensing with Jirvel? What do you propose we do about that?”
“I’ve never been one to shy from the Darkness, Kieran. It’s not who I am. If you want a mouse go date a Wererat,” I said. “Otherwise, I think it’s time Jirvel got a taste of her own medicine. She wants to play with the Darkness, we can send her to play with the Darkness.”
We’d discussed several options over the next forty-five minutes or so and by that time everyone else in the house had risen as well. They were all clued in to what was going on. Between neurotic Necromancers, wayward flesh-eating Zombies, a rampaging Werewolf—which we didn’t have to worry about any longer, since I’d gone and killed it—and of the rest of the Other World wack we’d had to contend with—we decided we were sending Kieran into the white witch’s den. But at least this time, he was going in with back up.
The rest of us? We got to pay a call on the Queen of all Pixie Land. Boy was she going to be thrilled.
Some days my job didn’t get any better than this.
Just remind me to feel this amped up about it when I drag my sorry, bleeding, been-drug-through-the-mud-and-wishing-I-were-dead ass home.
Chapter Fifteen
Spring with its grass hairdo arrives, but not for me,
It’s winter I get with its bald and frozen graces,
My song is headed for the cemetery
Of the common wordhoard’s great wide-open spaces.
From Song of the Body’s Tiredness by Ottó Orbán
Translated from the French by Don Patterson
I’d kissed Kieran good-bye a good half an hour before but I still couldn’t quite shake the unnerved feeling that was growing in my belly. Something seemed off. The night seemed a little too thick for my liking, the wind a bit too still. Something. It was making me squeamish.
We’d agreed that Kieran would take Dragon, Ivy, Jet, Berg and Markus with him as well as Ien and Garric. His servant, Dragon, who was also a Wereleopard, two Vampires, two Werepanthers, and two Werewolves. It wasn’t much, but at least it would be a little bit of backup until the rest of us could get there. We had a date with Queen Corral. Lucky us. Ten sharp, “And don’t be late!” her majesty’s secretary ordered.
I’d be taking Mercy, Jade and Gimlit with me. Three envoys only. Queen’s order. I don’t think she was very happy about allowing me even three, but fuck her. They were coming anyway. I’m quite certain if my mother had her way, I’d be trussed in chains and dragged kicking and screaming.
My connection to Jade would hopefully help ward off the Queen’s angry advances—I was really, really hoping so. I so did not want the tiny Queen of Good-dom filling me with more Light than the Second Coming on resurrection day. Can you say power overload?
You may be asking yourself why I was so paranoid of a four-inch Pixie that was supposed to be the Queen of all that the Fey Realm represented of wholesome goodness; the world of Light and hope and pleasantries?
Well, let me tell you, to the human world the Light is a good thing. A very good thing—and when it’s used against the powers of Darkness, it’s a very, very good thing. But underneath our clothes and beneath our gleaming magic dust is that little bit of mayhem that ruins the pretty. Because let’s face it, some people are just plain ugly on the inside no matter how lovely, small and sparkly the packaging.
Sometimes, bitch just runs straight through to the bone.
None of us were really certain how my Wolf was going to affect me in Pixie Land. We were all hoping she’d be strong enough to hold the Queen at bay. Really, with her known fits of temper, it was all a toss-up anyway.
I’d hadn’t been home very often—maybe once or twice in my lifetime—to be affected by its power, so I wasn’t even certain myself. I think each visit had been just long enough for my bitch of a mother to humiliate me in front of the entire Fey Court and then pawn me off on one of my sadistic relatives. Back then, I hadn’t any powers to speak of. I had not yet come into my own.
Modgav’s name rang some pretty horrible bells in my memory, to be specific. It was rumored that he was the Queen’s half-brother. A Goblin, no less. One she allowed to wander the halls of the Pixie Court unattended, and unguarded. It was he that my mother had given me to as a birthday present on my last visit—I was seventeen.
I spent a month in chains in Modgav’s bedchamber, no powers to my name, completely unable to defend myself against him. It was the most horrendous thing I have ever endured. But endure I did. I survived where most only dream of survival. Something I don’t think my mother expected.
I swore if I ever saw him again, and had the power to do so, I would kill him. No pleasantries, no warnings. Just death.
Gimlit thought that my powers would be strong enough, now that I’d come of age to protect me and because Jade was a Were and a creature of the earth, his power should also be twofold.
With me being a child of both the Light and the Darkness, I wasn’t really certain of anything. Ever since coming into my powers they have never been normal to begin with. Call me a freak from birth. For starters, I didn’t receive my Tells at the normal rate: one per year after your twenty-first birthday was the general rule.
Since this year began, I’ve received at least four—five, if you go by Gimlit’s counting. Now, I have the ‘powers that be’ throwing into this mixture a Werewolf. Me, a fucking human-Pixie-Werewolf. Can you say Hybrid Pixie Wack! Brilliant fucking intelligence there, if you ask me. Of course, yet again, no one was.
All that I knew for certain is that this is going to be one hell of a night.
By seven o’clock, I began pacing the floor, amped up with unspent adrenaline, all but chomping at the bit. Kieran had wanted to do a blood exchange with me before he had left with the others. “Merely as a precaution,” he had said.
I quickly vetoed that line of thinking. I already had enough Vampire blood swirling around inside of me; I certainly didn’t want or need anymore. Besides, I’d just gotten over becoming a Werewolf—and really, was I even over it? I could now turn furry at freakin’ will. Furry!
Who the hell knew what more of Kieran’s blood would do to me in my present condition. A glowing, furry snaggletooth—yeah, that would be brilliant!
If we survived this night then maybe we could discuss it. Maybe. Maybe I’d rather be dating a rotting flesh-eating Goblin Zombie cross-bred Troll called from the Shadow Lands who misses his mommy. Not bloody fucking likely!
Kieran and I hadn’t even touched on the subject of me turning into a Werewolf. Well, not really. Or the fact that I’d supposedly taken Jade as my ‘mate’. I guess that’s just one more thing for us to deal with later. Like, if we survive the night.
Gimlit and I had talked about it and we hadn’t really come up with a plan to keep the Queen from taking me over. Our only hope was to make sure she didn’t separate us and if she did, then I was to try to funnel some of my Darkness, hoping it would block out her powers of Light.
Seemed a rather slim chance in hell if you asked me, but we were out of time and counting on luck to guide us.
When the phone rang it nearly sent me flying out of my rainbow throw-up chair where I’d been casually sitting, trying not to gnaw my fingernails off while we killed time waiting to go see my Queen. As Gimlit’s voice carried from the kitchen where he’d picked up the phone, his responses stilted, the annoyance carrying the short distance, I vaguely had an idea who he was talking to. I started praying to the Prophets that for just this once to let me be wrong.
“There is no need to yell, Inspector. I understand the situation entirely. Y
es, Inspector, she’s right here. Just one moment.” Gimlit covered the receiver. “I am afraid, Mistress, that it is Inspector Cage and he is in a rather foul personage, needing to speak to you immediately.”
My sigh as I got up from the living room was pretty telling. I so wanted nothing more to do with Adam Cage and his pathetic excuse for a Police Department. In my opinion, it was his fault I’d gotten munched by that damn Werewolf in the first place. What the hell else did he want me to do for him? Take a bullet? Slay a dragon? Birth an Orc?
No item too big or too small for we Hunters. Yeah, the sarcasm was getting heavy.
I took the phone from Gimlit. “What the hell do you want, Cage?” I was quite certain that the annoyance in my voice was coming across clear as death.
“Don’t give me your shit, Rihker,” he started.
“No, Adam,” I said, quickly cutting him off. “I’m not in the mood for you or your fucked up Police politics. Or anyone else’s bullshit tonight, for that matter. I got fucked over by that fucking Werewolf for you people and do any of you give a rat’s ass? Hell no! So state what ever it is you called me for and then fuck the hell off. Because from here on out, unless my orders come direct from the Silent Court—and in writing—I’m done with you people.”
“Lady Twilla’s dead.”
That was it. His voice completely deadpan. No emotion, no ranting, no raving. A complete void of emotional connection. Hell, he didn’t even bother telling me I was a selfish bitch. Just—Twilla’s dead. My Necromancer from the graveyard, who had tried to help put Zombie Fred to rest was freakin’ dead. Damn it!
“What?” I said as the initial shock spiked through my already emotionally charged brain. “Who? Where? How the hell did you let this happen? I thought your people were protecting her?” I asked when I could finally draw enough breath to form a complete thought.
“That’s an awful lot of questions for someone who doesn’t give a shit.” The derision was so thick I could have cut it with one of my blades. Just like I wanted to cut out his damn tongue for being such an ass. To think, I actually felt something once for this idiot. Call it a total lapse of sanity. One among many.
“We’re not sure, exactly,” he finally added. “We had her in protective custody. At a private location that only four people knew about. There was a guard—plainclothes—on her door. Another in the room with her. The inside man said she went in to take a shower, heard the water running and everything. Next thing he knew she was screaming hysterically. Something was slamming against the walls, glass was breaking. He tried to get in, but it was like the door was made out of solid steel or something. Within seconds, the screaming stopped. Only then was he able to break down the door.”
“What’d he find in the bathroom?” I asked as tension filled me. I had the distinct feeling that I already knew.
“That’s what’s so weird, Rihker,” he said his voice softening as though seeing the images again. “He didn’t find anything. Not a goddamn thing.”
“Then how do you know she’s dead?”
There was a small huff of laughter through the receiver, smug, annoyed. “Because whatever fucking killed her left you a goddamn note.”
I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath through my nose. I didn’t have time for this shit. But I knew it didn’t matter. Whatever killed Twilla killed the other Necromancers, too. It had probably even called Fred from his grave, and would more than likely be calling others. There was only two creatures that I knew of with enough power to enter a place completely undetected, destroy a person in seconds, and then wipe the place clean—a Sweeper and a Shadow. The Court could order both. But someone else seemed to have access to the Shadows as well.
But why? To what end? What would either hope to gain by killing the Necromancers?
“What does note say?” A hard, tight knot began to form in the pit of my stomach.
“It says, and I quote, “Duty, so much like death, is a dark gift to bear—eh, Rihker? But will we ever be set free? We are much the same, you and I. Many masters, oh so many masters. Told was I she had to die. But she thinks you can set to rights this suffering. Have you the power? Are you the Chosen?”
“What the hell does that mean, Rihker?” Cage was screaming again. It seemed to be his normal state of communication with me. It was growing very tiresome.
“I’m not sure, a riddle maybe.” I think I knew, but I wasn’t about to share with Cage. I had a feeling that a Shadow had taken Twilla. But what I didn’t know was why?
“A riddle, maybe,” he said his voice edgy, squeaky, as he mimicked me. “You had best figure this shit out, and soon. We’ve got one—let me repeat that so you firmly understand me—one Necromancer left living in the Tri-state area.”
Then the little bastard went and hung up on me. I was left standing in my darkened kitchen listening to the buzz of the dial tone, wanting nothing more than to pound the receiver on the counter a couple hundred times; but really I was wishing that it was Adam’s head I was pounding on. Of all the nerve. Like this was my fault that Twilla was dead.
Did I ask for her to get killed? No. And was she really dead? I didn’t know. Did I ask for yet another whack-job to leave me psychotic notes at a murder scene? Oh, hell no. This night was quickly turning to shit, and I hadn’t even left my house yet. So much slaughter to sift through, so little time. This was not boding well for my courtly visit.
Chapter Sixteen
It’s drought from here on in, nothing but constant drought
Time points out with its admonitory finger.
What opens up ahead is a windy, cavernous mouth
Where all flames are blown out and no lights linger.
From Song of Time’s Raised Finger by Ottó Orbán
Translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes
At nine-seventeen we were flying down One-seventy-three heading East in Gimlit’s Jeep. For once in my life, I was on time for something. Doing something I didn’t even want to be doing. Going to a place I didn’t want to be going to. But I had sent Kieran and the others off to meet his maker—literally. If he could stomach the pain of it, then so could I.
Mercy had shown up about thirty minutes before we’d left and I had given her the condensed version of everything that had been happening. Fortunately or unfortunately for her, she’d been stuck at The Mound, Kieran’s only other nightclub that the wicked bitch Jirvel hadn’t taken over. It was also the place where the few remaining Vamps that had survived the night of Jirvel’s attack had been taken to recover. It seems Mercy was playing nursemaid and protector. Being the oldest and strongest amongst Kieran’s Vamps and them in their weakened state, they needed someone of power to watch over them.
Markus and Ivy, who are Kieran’s other two main enforcers had been unlucky enough to spend their night in the dungeon with the rest of us. While Mercy of course had been center stage for Blaen and his twisted Werewolves sexual rape and torture show. The rest of the twelve survivors that night Kieran had literally called back from the dead—again. Kieran had his enforcers at The Mound in shifts, but it was left mostly to Mercy to keep them in line and to see to their needs. I guess tonight they were on their own.
Kieran thought that if Modgav were wandering around the Pixie Court that it would be best to have Mercy at my back. I still wasn’t thrilled with the prospect—she just freaked me out. I mean, this tiny, attractive, Irish lovely who at the flip of a switch goes postal and turns into a horrendous, hunched-up oogedy-boogedy—it just seems so wrong somehow.
But I suppose if I really think about it, having a Vampire who just happens to be part Goblin at my back might not be a bad thing. Especially if Modgav is lurking in the shadows, where the Light can’t reach him. When dealing with Queen Corral, one never knows what kind of mood you’ll find her Court in.
I already knew what a waste of space my mother was; what she was capable of doing. She’d already left me for dead in the forest when I was a newborn, hoping that something would eat me. The
n to give me to a Goblin as a sex slave with no powers to protect me—she’d made it quite apparent that she’d stop at nothing to see me dead.
I mean really, like it was even my fault that my father, who’s another psychopath in his own right, sold his soul to a demon to kidnap and rape her just so he could have some promised power of his own.
Do you see a pattern here? It’s really looking like power, sex and death are the only things that are important to the two of them. Maybe they would have made a perfect match after all.
The Hill of the Clans is about forty minutes outside town, down several old country roads and past towns so small that to blink you wouldn’t even notice that you’d passed one if not for the mile markers and the glimmer of church steeples through the dust in your rear view mirror.
You know you’ve reached the Hill, because any Darkness that may linger in your aura suddenly seems to lift like a fog off the plain. Your skin grows tingly and you get a subtle sheen of sparkling glow to it, as though your very flesh is filled with gentle rays of morning light.
Myself, being a half-breed, or Halfling as Maebe likes to call me, felt the spark of life and Light fill me up as though an empty cup flowing over. I could practically feel the earth breathe as though it were calling out to me, even seated inside the Jeep.
The strange part of it all was that I felt my Wolf sit up, perk her ears towards the wind and scent the essence of the world around me. It was like she was ready for a good hard run, and the only thing holding her back from it was the force of my will and my flesh that contained her.
Jade’s hand on my shoulder brought my head around, my eyes meeting the icy cool gaze of his own. “Do you feel that, Rihker?” he asked, his voice holding the awe and wonder that I felt in my belly. “I’ve never felt the earth feel so alive.”
“Be careful, Wolf. Not all is what it seems, even in Pixie Land,” Mercy was saying. I watched her dark cocoa eyes as she scanned the darkness beyond the Jeep’s windows; ever watchful and always cautious. “Remember, what may be small, shine brightly and give the illusion of well-being will still rip your eyelids off and gouge out your pupils when you least expect it, all the while dancing a merry jig and singing a happy tune.”
