Black City Saint

by Richard A. Knaak

  What I couldn’t get used to, but never gave a hint about, was her ghostly beauty. It wasn’t that I wanted her; it was that she’d been born to make all men desire her. That’d worked fine until she’d become the mate of Oberon and discovered that her allure wasn’t always to her benefit.

  It is adjusted . . .

  I wasn’t sure what she meant until the seneschal rose and opened wide his long, long hands. In them lay Her Lady’s gift, whole again.

  “Well, that didn’t seem like too much trouble after all,” I quipped, as I reached for the hilt. My rudeness earned me a murderous glare from Her Lady’s servant, and I guessed that he was not only serving her in his current role, but also in her bed. He looked willing to take the sword and give it to me point first.

  I left him seething as I tested the blade and found it as well-balanced as ever. I made one false thrust at the seneschal, who, despite his best efforts, couldn’t help leaping back a step. That earned me an even more murderous glare, not that I cared. I’d been mentally fighting off the influence of a dozen or more Feirie minds, including his. Everyone sought to influence the Gatekeeper, despite his lowly “human” status.

  As I returned the sword to that hidden place in which I carried it, I caught a glimpse of something in her half-seen face that I’d never noticed before. A wistfulness. Almost as if my swordplay had resurrected some memory of a better time. It startled me the more because I knew somehow that she’d not meant it to be seen.

  For the first time a little off-balance myself, I bowed my head. “Thanks. If your changeling still exists on the other side, I’ll probably need whatever aid it can offer.”

  That will be yours . . .

  “Good.” But as I started to turn away, she surprised me again by raising a hesitant hand to stop me.

  There is something else, Gatekeeper . . .

  The seneschal drew dangerously near to her. No word passed between them that I could hear or sense, but he retreated just as quickly, his head bent low. He’d been reprimanded, though I couldn’t say how.

  Her Lady reached to her bosom and from a place dangerously hard to ignore she pulled up something hanging at the end of a silver chain. It was a teardrop-shaped gem nearly the size of a Peace Dollar and so black I knew it had to have some sinister curse or power attached to it.

  She slid her hand until the gem lay in her palm. Gifted to her at their wedding, it was a promise of a bond never to be broken . . .

  It took me a moment to realize the significance of what she’d said. “Ob—he gave this to you?”

  The exchange of the deepest of gifts is part of what we are . . . Not once did her full lips move in conversation, but now they pursed even more as Her Lady obviously recalled a significant moment in her existence.

  The silver chain turned into tiny eyeless sprites that darted into the surrounding forest. Her Lady extended her hand to me.

  A single touch of his blood . . . an offering of his true devotion . . .

  She hadn’t said “love.” I wondered about that . . . and then wondered about something else. “And what did you give him?”

  Her Lady’d had millennia to practice her “human” expressions, but only now, only when pressed about her marriage to Oberon did I see something real among the ever-present shadows surrounding her. She grew more wistful, then solemn. Her dangerously fascinating eyes focused on me in a different manner.

  Beware, her darling Gatekeeper . . . what she gives to you so many others would like . . . not merely the Court, not merely the Wyld, but even those exiles with whom you find better association . . .

  By “better association,” she meant those whom I considered close to friends, such as Kravayik. If Her Lady knew just how devout he’d become to his new life, she’d have been shocked.

  While I was thinking of this, she gently—gently—set the gem in my grasp. I noticed for the first time that her palm had no lines on it like mine or Claryce’s—or even Kravayik’s—did.

  Guard the drop until needed . . . and use only if necessary . . . it is power and it is poison . . .

  “I don’t—”

  Use it if you must, her darling Gatekeeper . . . but use it rather than let him take it . . . you do not want it to be a part of him again . . .

  I was stunned by the sadness I heard in her “voice.” Sadness for Oberon. “What’ll happen—”

  Her Lady turned from me. As she did, the entire forest receded from me so swiftly that vertigo nearly overtook me. I watched her back shrink into the distance . . . and watched her seneschal continued to glare at me as he also faded into the background.

  I felt myself flying backward to the Gate. I tried to slow my momentum, but only did so barely.

  The strain began to tell. I didn’t want to black out, but it was becoming harder to prevent it.

  I reached the Feirie side of the Gate, which at the moment appeared like a mirror image of what I’d seen over Lake Michigan. Still fighting to stay conscious, I started to cross.

  And at that moment, I was attacked. A heavy force crushed my mind, my soul, and my will, breaking through defenses I’d built up over centuries.

  A wave of bitterness washed over me . . . only it wasn’t my bitterness. It was his.

  It slowly occurred to me that we lay on the shore of Lake Michigan again, but not near where I’d left Claryce and Fetch. Instead, we were even farther north of Grand Avenue and Municipal Pier.

  Slowly, I rose . . . or rather, my body did. Once again, I felt like an onlooker. I could do nothing as my arms stretched and my legs slowly straightened.

  What had been my eyes then peered down at the powerful thing Her Lady had given to me. The teardrop-shaped gem containing a single drop of Oberon’s blood. All we supposedly needed to destroy him.

  The dragon folded his fingers over the gem. “It is different this time,” he remarked, in a voice that was and wasn’t mine. “It is stronger . . . this stone . . . it must be why.”

  I realized that he was referring to why he so dominated my human form. It was one thing for him to seize command when fully unleashed in his natural shape, but another for him to so readily command our body as it was.

  “Nick!”

  Her voice was faint, but both of us recognized Claryce’s call immediately. The dragon looked toward the cry, and through his emerald eyes we saw the distant figures of Claryce and Fetch running along the edge of the Lake toward us.

  A dangerous hiss escaped our lips . . . and the dragon turned the body and fled from the lake, rushing with speed I couldn’t and wouldn’t have matched. I felt our muscles ache, our lungs strain, as he ran into the city and far from Claryce.

  Gasping, the dragon looked back and forth across the first street we reached. He kept his thoughts shielded from me. Our heart pounded. I sensed both elation and fear. He’d never imagined achieving this point . . . and neither had I.

  Once more, he eyed the gem.

  “Yes . . . the bargain changes now . . .” The dragon held the teardrop high, setting it so that the moon shone just above it.

  A moon, I saw with shock, that was already full.

  CHAPTER 25

  Time flowed differently in Feirie than it did in the human realm, but I’d hardly been gone long enough to make two days pass in Chicago. Yet there hung the evidence that the Frost Moon was imminent.

  “To fly . . . to fly unhindered,” the dragon muttered.

  I expected us to sprout wings, but instead he lowered the hand with the gem and raised the other as a cab neared.

  “Eye have watched,” he said quietly, speaking with me. “Eye will play human . . .”

  Stop this! Stop this now! I demanded uselessly.

  The taxi veered toward us.

  “Nick!” Claryce’s voice rose loud. The dragon glanced over our shoulder. Panting, disheveled, she struggled to reach us. “Nick! We’ve watched for two days! Where were you? Where are you going?”

  “Master Nicholas . . . are you—” Fetch clamped his jaws shut. I
was caught between noticing that he could speak even so far away from me and understanding that he had suspicions the figure before the two of them wasn’t exactly me.

  “Go to the Packard,” the dragon ordered in a much too reasonable imitation of me. I wondered how long he’d been silently practicing for just this moment. “Return to the safe house. Will meet you there.”

  “But—where are you going?”

  “Have to meet someone. Will explain when I return. Go!”

  Fetch leaned his heavy body against Claryce, preventing her from coming toward us. “We should do what he says, Mistress Claryce . . .”

  “Nick . . .” She tried to maneuver around Fetch, but despite his still stiff back he kept in front of her.

  The cab pulled up. Turning from Claryce, the dragon grinned at the driver. He hadn’t been able to practice facial expressions much, and I knew without seeing it that the toothy smile only unnerved the heavy man at the wheel.

  The dragon climbed inside. “State Street—”

  “Nick!” Claryce managed to shove Fetch aside. “Come—”

  The cabbie took off. The dragon sat back, the monstrous grin still across our face.

  “Uh . . . where on State?” the cabbie asked with a thick Polish accent.

  I didn’t need to hear the number to already know where we were heading. There was only one place of importance to us on State.

  He was heading for the cathedral.

  “Eye do well . . .”

  “You say somethin’?” the cabbie asked.

  The dragon hissed low enough that the man didn’t hear it. “Not to you. To State.”

  The cabbie shut his mouth and focused on the drive. He probably regretted picking up this fare and hoped he could get us to our destination before anything might happen.

  This is wrong! I silently railed. This is against your duty to the Gate . . .

  Again, there came a hiss. Our fingers squeezed the door handle and such was the strength of the dragon, even in my body, that I felt the handle twist and break.

  “What’s goin’ on back there?” the cabbie demanded. “You ruinin’ my cab—”

  The dragon reached forward and seized the man by the back of the neck. It was all the cabbie could do to keep from swerving into another auto.

  “To State . . . to the Cathedral . . .”

  “Yes, sir, mister! I hear you!”

  “Duty . . .” whispered the dragon angrily as he sat back. “Ssslavery . . .”

  Slavery. I’d more than once considered my task in the same light but always in the end considered it duty first. I’d made the mistake of slaying the Gate’s guardian and so, for as long as Heaven demanded it, I knew I had to serve as keeper.

  But I’d never in sixteen hundred years actually considered how much he’d hated his burden. I’d only considered him a necessary evil, an unwilling ally. What had his existence been before he’d been condemned to serve the Gate?

  The taxi came to a sudden halt. I thought the driver’d decided to flee his auto but through the dragon discovered that we were already at Holy Name.

  Naturally, there wasn’t any thought of paying the cabbie, who drove off anyway the moment the dragon stepped out. We studied the great cathedral, noticing that the door was opening and two men were stepping outside.

  I recognized them as some of the staff. The dragon moved out of sight as the pair descended the steps. When the area was empty again, the dragon took us up to the huge doors.

  He seized one door and tugged. I felt the strain of our muscles as he pulled open the door.

  There was no one in sight. The dragon strode through the hallowed chamber with a contempt worthy of Galerius at the height of his monstrous crusade. I expected the dragon to topple statues and shove aside pews just for the sake of chaos, but he surprised me by remaining focused on one thing and one thing only.

  “Georgius?”

  I would’ve actually welcomed the appearance of Diocles if I thought he could’ve done anything, but he was a ghost without any ability to haunt anyone but me.

  The dragon naturally ignored him, instead heading to where the Clothos card lay hidden. He grabbed at the hiding place . . . and failed to open it.

  “Georgius,” Diocles called again. He materialized next to us. “Just what is—”

  The dragon glared at him. I’d not thought about the fact that he might be able to see Diocles.

  My former master recoiled. He, in turn, obviously saw that there was something amiss with “me.”

  Diocles crossed himself. “The beast walks among us! Where is Georgius?”

  “Leave us, dead one . . .” the dragon snarled.

  “Who is out there?” asked the voice of the last person I wanted here now. “Who is it?”

  “The beast has Georgius!” Diocles cried out. “Beware!”

  But unlike the dragon, Kravayik couldn’t see or hear the former emperor. Instead, all the exile saw was me.

  “Master Nicholas! What brings you here? Is something amiss?”

  The dragon smiled again. I guess he’d noticed the cabbie’s response, because this smile was more subdued and almost human. “The card! We must see to the card . . .”

  Kravayik could no more hear my warning than he had Diocles’s. The exile blinked, then nodded vigorously. “If you say it must be so, then it must be, Master Nicholas!”

  “It must be.”

  “Open your damned eyes, sprite!” the ghost shouted. “That’s not Georgius! ’Tis the beast!”

  But Kravayik eagerly joined the dragon. I wasn’t surprised when the dragon proved versed in what was needed to open the card’s hiding place; he’d probably watched closely each time I’d done it.

  I had to give Diocles credit for once; understanding that it was futile to keep yelling at Kravayik, he materialized in front of me and swung a fist. It went through us, but made the dragon hesitate, which meant he and Kravayik had to start over.

  “Are you all right, Master Nicholas?” the exile asked.

  “Begin again!”

  His tone made Kravayik pause, but before my hopes could rise more, the cathedral’s caretaker nodded and resumed his part in the ritual.

  Diocles shouted, then swung once more. This time, though, the dragon remembered that the ghost was only a distraction. As Diocles and I both watched in mounting concern, the dragon and Kravayik opened the way to the card. I wanted to shake Kravayik, make him see that it wasn’t me, but of course that option wasn’t there. Even though, I had no mouth, I still tried to scream a warning.

  All to no avail. No one heard, of course. The false me wasted no time in drawing out the card.

  He did so with such impatience that Kravayik grew disturbed. “Master Nicholas! With all due respect, that aberration should not be handled so! Even that could cause some sort of change—”

  “—not the blessed saint, but the foul wyrm using his body, damn you! Listen to me, Kravayik!” Diocles shouted.

  And to the surprise of all four of us . . . Kravayik did.

  “Who are you?” the caretaker demanded of Diocles, Kravayik having heard of the emperor’s ghost but obviously never having seen him.

  “Never mind me! That is not Georg—Nick! That is the dragon in his—”

  Kravayik didn’t wait for Diocles to finish. The exile’d lost none of his swiftness, despite his change of heart. Faster than any killer Capone, Moran, Weis, or the others could hire, he had a short blade out that was already well on its way to my throat.

  But even though I’d have welcomed death in order to avoid catastrophe, the dragon proved even faster. He caught Kravayik’s wrist with his free hand, then twisted the hand up. I heard bone crack as the dragon forced the blade from his adversary’s hand.

  Kravayik was hardly daunted, though. His other hand was halfway to my chest, right at the point where the proper use of force could completely shove the air from my—and the dragon’s—lungs.

  The dragon pressed the card against Kravayik’s hand.
<
br />   The former enforcer for Feirie let out a scream that had to have been heard even beyond the walls of Holy Name. He fell back, and, as he did, his body shriveled.

  “No!” Despite no longer having a body, Diocles leapt at the dragon. I think all three of us were equally surprised again when the late emperor not only collided hard, but sent the dragon and himself sprawling to the floor.

  With a long hiss, the dragon swatted at Diocles. Unfortunately, the price of being able to attack meant that my former master could also be hit in turn. Diocles went crashing into the first pews.

  The dragon leapt to his—my—our—feet. He looked around for the card.

  I spotted it first . . . near Diocles. Diocles noticed it, too, and despite having experienced the first real pain since he’d died, managed to crawl over to it. It was clear that Diocles expected his hand to go through the card, but his fingers managed to grasp it. Such was the power of the card, even when not used as it’d been meant to be, that it gave ghosts solid form just by being near.

  I couldn’t see what’d happened to Kravayik, which left only Diocles to stand before the dragon. Diocles struggled to his feet and held the card’s face toward us.

  “Stand back, beast, or I’ll—”

  “Will you execute me again, Diocles?” the dragon asked in the softest tones I’d heard him use yet.

  I couldn’t give the late emperor any warning. He acted exactly as both I and the dragon expected. Expression shaken, Diocles lowered the card slightly and muttered, “Georgius . . . I can’t say—”

  The dragon lunged forward, snatching the card with one hand and striking the solidified phantom hard on the side of the head. Diocles fell, whether stunned or worse, I couldn’t say. His guilt over my ancient execution had let him be tricked at the most vital moment.

  The dragon glared at the transparent body, then spun toward the door. I heard sounds from elsewhere in the cathedral, but the dragon didn’t wait to see what might happen. He raced to the door and out into the night.

  There were no taxis about, but for where he needed to go simply crossing the street was enough. Staunchly religious despite their depravities, the North Side Gang had its headquarters right across from the cathedral. I’d known that each time I’d visited Holy Name, but I’d also known that one thing Moran’s gang wouldn’t do was desecrate the religious edifice. And even once I’d discovered Oberon’s connection with the North Siders, I’d been aware that not only did even Doolin not dare cross Moran and the others and break into the cathedral, but Oberon’d also understood that only I could actually remove the card.