When I glanced at her I saw that she had magically changed into her robes of state and crown. Tivernius was decked out, too, and a golden circlet rested on his head to match the silver one on Milandra’s brow.
“I would love to, Your Majesty, if I had any inkling of what you are talking about.” The Unseelie count had transformed his wardrobe as well, now garbing himself in robes of deepest black velvet with black fur trim. A black circlet capped his brow, with a large red stone in the center. The stone pulsed rhythmically, almost as if it were in time to a heartbeat somewhere. I looked down to see if my clothes were any different, but it was the same armor I’d put on when I crawled out of bed in the morning.
Oh well, can’t have everything.
“Please, Your Excellence, do not play ignorant with us. Your kind has long held enmity for the changelings, and you have much truck with the trolls. If you are not behind these attacks, then who?” Milandra seemed almost to be enjoying the jousting with the snotty faerie, but I wasn’t sure she was going to get anywhere.
“Of course we loathe the changelings, but it is the human vermin that we would exterminate, not the innocent Fae that you cast out like so much unwanted livestock. We are the rightful lords of this realm, and bringing humans here to breed with and create abominations like yourself is an affront to our true heritage.”
I took a closer look at Milandra, and for the first time could see that her ears were a little more rounded than the rest of the faeries I’d seen. Must have been a human branch on her family tree somewhere in the past.
“If we wanted to attack anyone, you would be a more likely target than any poor changelings you’ve cast away into the mundane world like so much rubbish.” Darkoni smiled and leaned back in his chair. “I suppose if that is all you have to ask, then we will accept payment for our travels and leave.” He reached for a small bag lying on the table beside Milandra’s hand, and she clasped her hand over his wrist before he could withdraw.
The Unseelie stood and drew a knife, pointing the tip at Milandra’s wrist. “I suggest you release my arm, before you lose your own, Your Majesty.”
I whispered from behind him, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Excellence.”
He turned his head slightly and saw the point of my dagger hovering right beside his eye. Otto and Greg had the trolls covered, and Armelion knights surrounded the rest of Darkoni’s entourage.
“This is an outrage, Milandra,” Darkoni shouted, veins bulging in his neck. “We have come here in good faith, answered your questions, and now I wish to take my payment and leave. You stretch the boundaries of hospitality to the breaking point, lizard-slut.”
“That’s it, I’m drinking him.” I grabbed his collar and pulled the count’s neck around toward my mouth, only to have him twist in my grasp and stab me in the chest with the dagger he’d threatened Milandra with only seconds before. I looked down at the hilt sticking out of my chest, and then I got really mad. Apparently chain mail is only useful against swords and slashing weapons, because the faerie’s dagger went through my armor like a hot knife through butter.
“I really, really liked this shirt, you prick,” I said, just before I took him by the neck and one wrist and flung Darkoni across the great hall. He crashed into the far wall and slid down like the coyote in a Saturday morning cartoon. I pulled the dagger out of my chest, looked over at Milandra, and said, “Sorry, but he was a real asshole.”
“He’s also not dead, bro,” Greg said from right beside me. I followed his gaze and saw a very angry Unseelie count heading my way with a sword in one hand and a wicked barbed dagger in the other.
“Crap. Sabrina, cover the queen,” I yelled as I reached across the table and grabbed Milandra’s sword. “Sorry, Majesty, but you need to not be here for this part. Greg, you with me?”
“Right here.” My partner, being the smart one of the pair, had not left his sword in his bedroom this morning. Me, being the good-looking one, would be using a sword borrowed from the Faerie Queen in tonight’s entertainment. Then with a howl of rage from Darkoni, the great hall erupted in mayhem and bloodshed.
Chapter 20
Greg and I hopped onto the table to get a better view of things, and I ended up eye-to-eye with Thorgun, who was bringing his giant hammer around for a swing at Otto. I waited until he got the hammer up to the top of his swing to slide my sword into the unprotected space under his arm. A gout of greenish-black blood spurted from the wound, and the troll’s eyes rolled back in his head. He started to topple forward, right onto Greg and me.
“Split!” I yelled as he fell forward, and the gigantic body came crashing down, tearing the sword from my grasp and turning the heavy wooden table into toothpicks. Greg and I dove in opposite directions, him landing on the back of an Unseelie man-at-arms with an unpleasant crunching sound, while I went headfirst onto the floor.
I’d love to say I rolled to my feet in a smooth motion and came up with a knife in each hand, but the reality of it is that I sprawled on the marble floor like a skinny fish out of water and lay there for a minute cursing about how bad my knee hurt. After a couple seconds’ worth of creative profanity, I stood up and looked around for an abandoned weapon. Thorgun’s hammer was lying on the ground, but even with my vamp-strength I couldn’t swing that behemoth effectively. I snatched up a shattered board and brought it up just in time to block a sword blow from a very angry Count Darkoni, who smiled as he circled me with his sword and dagger.
“I will enjoy bathing in your blood, vampire,” he sneered as I tried to parry all his thrusts.
“Well, since I borrow it, you won’t technically be bathing in my blood,” I said as I took a swing at his head. He ducked easily, and I got a slash across the ribs that my armor turned aside. At least my chain mail was good for something.
“No matter, bloodsucker, it won’t be inside you any longer, that’s all that matters to me.” He lunged with the sword, and I batted it aside easily.
Unfortunately I forgot about the knife in his other hand. At least, I forgot about it until he buried it in my thigh. The barbed blade ripped all sorts of useful things when he jerked it out of me, and I screamed as I fell to one knee.
“Now die, fool,” he snarled.
I looked up as he raised his sword for one final thrust, and did the only thing I could think of. I bit him on the inside of the thigh.
Darkoni threw his head back and screamed, then stabbed downward with his sword. My armor deflected the worst of the blow, and he dropped the knife to try a second time with both hands. That cost him valuable seconds, though, and as he raised his blade for another thrust I drained more of his lifeblood with every heartbeat. He summoned up all his remaining strength for another downward cut, and I reached out with my left hand and broke his kneecap, knocking him backward and dislodging me from his leg. Arterial blood spurted high into the air, and I crawled up the count’s twitching body to get to his throat.
I stopped right before I bit into him again, and looked him in the eyes. “Now who’s sending the trolls?”
The count laughed, a wet, dying sound, and spat in my face. “We have no need to kill our own kind, fool. We wish to purge all the realms of inferior beings, like yourself.”
“Well, today’s purge isn’t going so well for you, asshole.” With that, I bit deep into his neck and drew the last drops of blood from his body.
I stood up, faerie blood and battle fury roaring in my veins, and took the count’s sword from his dead fingers. I quickly cut off his head, just in case faeries could come back as vampires, and looked around at the rest of the fight.
Sabrina had Milandra backed into a corner behind her and was holding off a pair of Unseelie soldiers who looked like they had bad intentions for the Faerie Queen. Tivernius and Otto were duking it out with Thorgun’s evil twin, and they seemed to be holding their own. Greg was swashbuckling with two dark faeries, and the knights seemed to have everything else under control. I tossed Darkoni’s sword across the room and thro
ugh the back of one of the soldiers threatening the queen. His partner turned to watch him fall, and Sabrina cut his head half off with her sword.
I ran to pull Milandra’s sword out of Thorgun’s armpit, and looked around for something else to punch. I froze as a hand wrapped around my ankle, then yanked up abruptly, upending me onto the floor with a crash of chain mail, plates and vampire parts. I rolled over and looked up, trying to see what was after me now.
I lay there, mouth open as I watched Count Darkoni’s body reach down, pick up his head, and jam it back onto his shoulders. The count rolled his shoulders like a boxer loosening up before a round, then picked me up and hurled me across the great hall.
I crashed into a wall and slid ten feet to the floor, still staring at the undead Unseelie. The zombie Count didn’t seem any the worse for wear from his recent demise, and he stalked across the room towards Milandra with murder in his eyes. I scrambled to my feet, still high on faerie blood, and blocked his path to the Faerie Queen.
“Just out of curiosity, how many times will I have to kill you?” I asked.
Darkoni just grinned and punched me in the chest. I staggered back several steps and looked down at my dented breastplate. The chest was caved in to a point that breathing was nigh-impossible, and I was pretty sure he’d cracked my sternum. I could feel the bones knit as the magical blood in my veins kept me going, and I didn’t need to breathe except to talk, so I rushed back at the Count.
His eyes widened at my assault, and I noticed for the first time that his eyes had gone completely black. No pupil, no iris, no nothing. Just black. For some reason, that was creepier than the whole screwing his head back on thing. Probably because dead guys walking around had long since lost their ability to impress me.
But he locked those black eyes on me, raised a hand palm-out in my direction, and I froze. It was like invisible bonds wrapped every inch of me, and I couldn’t move a muscle. My eyes widened as the dead faerie closed on me, and it smiled at the terror in my eyes.
The Unseelie faerie stretched a hand out to me, and its fingers glowed with a dark aura, almost like it was surrounded by a halo of blackness, if that’s even possible. When it pressed a finger to my forehead, the temperature plummeted and everything went away.
I was suddenly alone, floating in a featureless void with no indication of where I was, what I was or what was happening. I thought my eyes were open, but the darkness was so complete I couldn’t be sure. A voice came from inside me and all around me, a sibilant whisper that penetrated my skull and ran through my brain like rivers of ice.
The voice latched onto my fear, and spun it into a hurricane.
“You’re alone, Jimmy, in a pit as black as your name, as black as your heart. No one can find you here, because no one cares enough to look. You’re just another parasite, Jimmy, just another leech to be burned off and thrown aside to shrivel and cook in the sun. You’re nothing, less than nothing, because at least nothing can survive on its own. You can’t even do that, you worthless bloodsucker.”
“You’re the lowest of the low, Jimmy. You killed your best friend and made him a monster. You watch your only other friend age and waste away, and now you want to spread your filth to that girl? Why would she want a nothing like you? She can have a real man. A man that she can grow old with. A man she can go out in the daytime with. A man who won’t try to kill her while she sleeps and turn her into a soulless abomination. You’re nothing. You’ve always been nothing, all the way back to high school.”
“But I can make you something, Jimmy. I can make you special. I can make you live again. I can make you whole. I can make you into something she can love. Something she can touch. Something she won’t be afraid of. Just say yes, Jimmy. Just let me in, and I’’ll make you a real boy.”
The voice wrapped around my head and my heart, poking at all my soft spots. I didn’t know what it wanted, then I did. Then I knew.
I spoke. “Come here,” I whispered.
I could feel it, the presence that had been riding along with Count Darkoni. The nasty hitchhiker that wanted to piggyback on my soul for a little while.
“I’m here, Jimmy. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready,” I whispered back.
“Say the word, and I’ll make you magic.”
“Here’s a couple of words. Go. Fuck. Yourself.” I opened my eyes and I was back in the great hall, half a second after the dead faerie had mojo’d me. I stepped forward, Milandra’s sword flashing across the distance between us, and I sliced the count’s head cleanly from his shoulders again.
This time, instead of a simple collapse, a black mass rose out of the body with a shriek, spinning faster and faster in a whirlwind toward the high vaulted ceiling, finally disappearing with a flash of crimson light. The body itself crumpled to the floor and dissolved into a steaming pile of dust.
I looked around at where my friends and Milandra’s people seemed to have the battle well in hand, and took the opportunity to crawl under the huge table and pass out.
I woke to Greg’s toe prodding me in my ribs, none too gently I might add. I looked up at him and felt an indescribable warmth flood through me. I scrambled to my feet and pulled him to me in a tight hug. It wasn’t even one of the one-armed bro-hugs that we usually do, it was a full-on hug with my arms wrapped all the way around his pudgy body.
“Thank God you’re still alive,” I said.
Greg patted me on the back awkwardly and slithered out of my grasp. “Yeah, you too, pal. Really. Glad you’re not deader. Now . . . uh, let’s just . . . not hug anymore, okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Okay. No more hugging.” I looked around, and Sabrina, Milandra, Otto and Tivernius were all looking at me strangely. They kept their distance, as though I might have come down with some kind of weird disease that’s spread by hugging.
I held Milandra’s sword out to her, hilt-first. “I think this is yours, Your Majesty. Sorry about kinda stealing it.”
She held up a hand, then unfastened her sword belt and passed that over to me. “I think you may need it more than I do, James. Especially if what I suspect happened near the end of the battle is true.”
“Yeah, dude,” Greg said, “what happened to you? I finished off my guys, then helped Otto and Ty take out the last troll, and when we turned around you were out like a light under the table.”
“Didn’t you see what happened with the Count?” I asked. Greg shook his head, and I looked around at the rest of them.
“I believe I understand what you saw, but I would like to hear you describe everything in your own words,” Milandra said.
She waved a hand, and comfortable chairs and drinks appeared. I had to admit, I might not love magic, but I could get used to some of the perks.
I described everything that happened from the time I killed the Count to the time I killed him again, then told them all about the black cloud thing, the void and the whispers. I didn’t mention exactly what the voice was whispering, preferring to get out of the encounter with a sliver of dignity.
“So, Your Majesty. What was that thing, and how did I run it off?” I asked when I was finished.
“Sluagh,” she said, and Tivernius’ eyes went wide.
“Bless you,” I said. Nobody laughed. “Okay, fine. What’s a sluagh?”
Milandra actually shivered at the word. “The sluagh are souls. In a vast oversimplification, they are the vilest souls to ever walk the earth. Far too foul for Heaven, these creatures are rejected by all the Hells as incapable of redemption. They can touch all realms, but are of none. They wander between the worlds wreaking havoc as they see fit. They can only be slain by weapons of powerful magic, that’s why when you slew Darkoni with his sword, the sluagh inside him was able to continue manipulating his body as it searched for another host.”
“Another host?” I asked.
“You damaged the host body, James. It needed to find another one to inhabit. But it can only bond with a willing inhabitant. When you rejected it, th
e spirit needed to find another host. Then you struck it with my sword, and that was enough to kill both host and spirit.”
“You’re telling me your sword is magical, and that I just killed a spirit-creature that’s too evil for Hell?” I asked.
“In a nutshell, yes,” Milandra replied.
“Shit.” I trend toward the profane when truly shocked. “But if I killed it, why do you want me to keep your sword?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to need it more than I will. After all, if there was a sluagh controlling a pack of trolls here in Faerie, perhaps there is another one commanding the beasts in your realm. If nothing else, think of it as a gift from a grateful wedded couple, with no obligations.”
“Thanks, Your Majesty. I’ll try not to kill anything inappropriate with it,” I said.
“I hate to be the one to break up the party, but can we get home soon? I do still have a cousin dying there,” Sabrina said.
“Of course, my dear. Otto will travel with you to administer the cure. He knows how to properly prepare the verdirosa so as not to kill anyone who touches it.”
“Well that’s handy,” I said.
Milandra stood and waved her hands in a big circle. A shimmering circle appeared in the hall, and Sabrina stepped through it. Greg followed, and I started toward it.
Milandra held up a hand. “Be careful, James. I feel there may be something larger at work here. In all my years I have never heard of a sluagh attacking Faerie. If someone is commanding these creatures, they may be more powerful than we can comprehend.”
“Yeah, I’m out of my league. I know. Again,” I said as I stepped through the portal.
Chapter 21
We stepped through a glowing golden portal and were suddenly back in my less-than-glowing apartment. No more pink sky, no more Technicolor foliage, just some stains of indeterminate origin on the carpet and a couple of discarded Magic: The Gathering card wrappers under the coffee table. Sabrina took one look around, then grabbed her cell phone. I don’t have any idea where she hid it under the fanboy’s wet dream of armor she wore, but she pulled out the device and breathed a sigh of relief.
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