“It’s all right,” Izumi said. “Those are my mother’s personal guardsmen.”
There were twenty riders in all. The men wore spurred boots, winter robes, and heavy riding cloaks that spilled back, draping their horses’ butts. I use the term “horse” rather loosely; they had six legs and two stumpy horns.
The doors to the stables opened and Ravenwort shambled out to take reins and get the animals out of the weather. Two of the guards shoved him away, keeping their mounts ready to run. The rest moved toward the lodge like they were storming an enemy encampment. Their lack of manners and sense of being on a mission—before the mission even started—set off warning bells in my head.
I moved back from the window and the girls, and touched the bag at my side, pouring my will into the stone.
Whipping out swords, the men kicked the door in, sweeping in to threaten us. My red shield popped on, shoving a swords man back from me. He cursed, and his image wavered at the loss of concentration. The cloak stayed the same, but underneath, his robes turned gold, as did his skin. His smooth hair shortened, turning ragged as flame. His ice blue eyes became the color of smoldering rust. The rest of the men dropped their glamours as well. They were no longer Winter Court fey.
“Summer Court!” Izumi yelled. “How dare you invade our lands! Are you trying to start a war?”
“War won’t matter,” one of the men said, “if we have the dream stone on our side. Where is it?”
I pointed at the furs on the bench by the fire, and screamed at Izumi. “The stone—get it!”
Automatically, she turned in the direction I pointed.
One of the guardsmen shoved her aside, raced to the bench and scooped up the stone. He tucked it in like a football and raced back outside. A moment later, we were left alone as the riders galloped off.
“They didn’t really get the stone, right?” Josh was looking at me. “Tell me you pulled a fast one.”
I grinned and let the real dream stone appear in its pouch at my side. “I gave them a dream of success, a dream that will soon fade, leaving them nothing.”
“Nothing but a belly full of rage,” Izumi said. “They’ll be back soon.”
Hooves filled the courtyard once more.
I created a dream of a house in smoldering ruins as if someone had burned the lodge down. Blackened timbers surrounded us. Gray smoke roiled, melting snowflakes out of the air. The housekeeper screamed from her suddenly burnt-out kitchen. “Just an illusion,” I yelled. “Bear with it.”
We felt our way out of the illusion, avoiding invisible furniture, and walked outside. We stood there unseen as the Winter Court guardsmen reined in, staring in horror at the lodge. One of them threw himself from the saddle, running closer. “Princess! Princess!” he screamed.
Izumi looked at me. “I know him. I think they’re real this time.”
“Let’s find out,” I said.
I pulled my concealment off her.
The captain of the guard hurled himself at her, enveloping her with his arms. He all but wept in joy, finding her alive. But just to be sure, I materialized a copy of the dream stone in her arms. He ignored the stone, standing back, kneeling to honor her.
Izumi asked, “Did you happen to see some riders on the road when you were coming in?”
“No, Your-Glory-In-Ascendance. There was a small orchard of gold-skinned apples I hadn’t remembered seeing before…”
Right, an orchard.
“…but nothing as uncommon as here.” He peered into her eyes. “Princess, are you alone? What of the rest of your party? Are they…?”
I banished my dream of flamed out ruin. Izumi’s stone vanished. The hunting lodge returned.
“We’re right here,” I said. “Put away your animals and come in. I think dinner will be ready soon.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“Killing’s who I am. It’s what I
do. I’d do it for free, if I had to.”
—Caine Deathwalker
We’d ridden for hours through the gray, overcast morning. The horses made good time since our path wound down through ever-shrinking hills. Snowy evergreens gave way to jutting formations of limestone and bottom-land hardwoods. The elm, maple, and ash I recognized. I asked Izumi about other trees we passed.
She pointed at them, “That’s honey locust, hackberry, and that, elderberry I think. These are the borderlands. As we get to the Dream Marshes, you’ll see natural levees with oak, and in lower, wetter areas, cypress and tupelo-gum, and a little of what you humans call Spanish moss.”
“Sounds like Louisiana,” I said. “Are we going to run into raccoon and alligators?”
“Keep thinking about it, and we will,” Josh said. “Fairy’s interactive, remember?”
The hills flattened out and our trail wound followed the edge cypress forests that appeared on our left. We stayed just out of it, riding across spongy ground covered with cattails and wiregrass. On our right, the grasses stretched out for miles, vanishing into mists. Out of those mists, we occasionally spied ponds and lakes, their surfaces still, like gray-green glass. The sky overhead was a brighter blue peeking through cotton candy clumps of white cloud. The grass began to crowd our trail, causing us to ride three abreast, and string out farther as we traveled. Silver-and-gold-toned flowers increased in frequency, adding sweetness to the air.
Yannin, the captain of our guard, rode at point with one of his men. After a moment of conversation, the aide slowed and dropped back to us. Me, he ignored, focused entirely on Izumi. “Princess, there are shadows in the woods. We are being paced by riders.”
“Probably Autumn Court fey. Well, it’s not like we weren’t expecting this.”
“Watch and listen for a signal,” I said. “Those flanking us will wait until we reach a sizable force that will be lying in ambush somewhere ahead.”
Now the aide looked at me. “How do you know that?”
I shrugged. “It’s what I would do.”
“Options?” Izumi asked.
The aide said, “Our captain wants to change course, head out into the marsh. We can hide in the mists and walk our horses quietly until we lose pursuit.”
“Which won’t work if they’re tracking us by magic,” I said. “I would be.”
The aide shot me a dirty look and rode forward once more to confer with Captain Yannin. I heard a heated curse from Yannin, then he was falling back personally to speak with Izumi. “Princess, I don’t know what this unlearned outlander has been advising you, but—”
Izumi held up a hand to silence him.
“Nothing I haven’t thought of myself. I think you need to leave the strategy to me from here on.”
He flushed in the face, eyes bulging as he choked on fury. The muscles at the corners of his jaws knotted as he got himself under control, producing a respectful tone. “Yes, Your Glory. I await your orders.”
“You and your aide, fall in behind me.”
“I-I—yes, Princess, I serve your will.”
I’d been keeping an eye on the woods, but missed seeing anything shot into the air, but I did hear the sharp crack of exploding black powder, an import from my world. A burst of red smoke hung high above the woods, already thinning in a swirl of wind.
“Too late to avoid trouble,” I said. “There’s the signal. We need to turn hard into the woods, cut down the riders shadowing us, and keep going. If the rest have to chase us at full gallop, dodging trees, we won’t have too many arrows coming at us.”
“Do it!” Izumi ordered.
She and I veered our animals into the woods, driving them with shouts, and digging knees. My left hand held my reins while my right drew my new Beretta. As we surged past blurring trees, coming up on warriors in bronze armor and tawny cloaks, I extended my weapon and squeezed off shots. Two warriors toppled from their saddles with holes between their eyes, the backs of their heads wet, crimson messes.
“Grab their horses,” I yelled. “We might need the spares later.” Besides, spoils of war. They might have
valuables in their saddlebags, food and water if nothing else. We’re going to be pushing hard from here on.
A third rider tried to slow us down. Yannin finally became useful by growing a spear of ice in his hand, driving the point through the warrior’s chest. The body fell from the saddle, and we gathered in another mount. From then on, we tore way too fast through woodland. Only the fact that the cypresses weren’t packed tight saved us from disaster.
After a while, with no one closing on us, we relaxed our paced to spare the horses, veering off on a tangent to be less predictable. “Think strongly of our need to find the Oracle,” Izumi yelled. “Let the land bend us a shorter route.”
“God knows we need it,” Vivian yelled. “If I weren’t a proud dhampyr bitch, I’d be crying by now. My ass hurts. ”
I thought of offering to kiss it and make it better, but this wasn’t the time and place. “Hey,” I said, “If we can bend our path, the Autumn Court soldiers can bend theirs.”
“Of, course,” Izumi said. “We should be coming up on their rebooted ambush any time now.”
“How you people live in this place totally escapes me,” Josh said.
“It’s all that most fey know,” Izumi said. “Few of us travel to Earth anymore with its iron cities and railroad lines disrupting the magic of the ley lines, and your incomprehensible technologies.”
“You manage all right,” I said. “I’ve even seen you use a microwave when necessary.”
“Don’t tell my mother.” Izumi grinned at me. “She’d be scandalized.”
Another one of those exploding arrows smudged the sky with crimson smoke. I shook my head sadly. “Don’t they realize that when their sentries do that to signal their men, we also get warned?”
“We fey can be quite set in our ways.” Izumi flicked her reins and picked up speed. I hung in there with her as she leaned her horse in on mine, driving us both to the edge of the path. She shaped a sword of ice from thin, moist air and jabbed it straight ahead. I snatched a quick look at her face. Her eyes were hard as blue diamonds, her lips pressing into a firm line. The force of her will iced the path ahead. She challenged the path, “Bend. Now!”
The path ahead of us jerked the way she was leaning, changing course—but then snapped back in irritation to where it had been.
Izumi bared her teeth like a challenged wolf. “I will not be fucked with by a borderland that hasn’t even been claimed. I am the Heir of Ice, Princess of the Winter Court, and I will be obeyed!” Snow fell from the sky. The cypress trees shivered under the lash of killing frost. I thought I even heard a deep rumble in the ground as if some unseen moorings were being ripped.
And then the path curved sharply, putting Izumi and I dead center, with the rest of our party thundering along in our wake. As we rode our new path, the sky darkened to twilight. Silver stars appeared above, seen briefly as we pounded across clearings. A bright hunter’s moon appeared, making the pale bark of the cypress shine. Balls of yellow and tangerine, Will-of-the-wisps bobbed in the air, urging us on.
Not totally at home in a saddle, I risked a look back at our troops, wanting to get a feel for how everyone was doing. Well enough, though faces were grim and fatigue had to be setting in. I noticed great winding thickets of thorn had sprouted behind us, so we only had to worry about more interceptions ahead. Without the recent heightening of my senses, the thorns would have been difficult to make out at dusk as I bounced on the back of a horse. Now, my focus snapped details closer as if I were using a sniper scope.
When I had time, I was going to have to analyze these abilities, and figure out the tougher skin I now had. These were clues to my true nature. Half human, I knew, but the other half of my DNA was a persistent mystery. Old Man and Gloria both had that knowledge, but could they be bothered to let me know?
Hell no. That would make things way too easy on me.
And then we were out of the woods, splashing through water concealed by wiregrass and cattails. A bloated, amber sun was rising off to the side as if we’d leaped planets. Great scarlet gulls clacked in a gray morning sky, living pinwheels hovering above the marsh. There were garnet logs in the water with … yellow-green eyes?
Crap! We’re in the dream marshes.
I screamed at everyone, “Whoever the hell is thinking about alligators—stop it, now!”
The reptiles opened their jaws, showing us rows of sharp teeth as they made strange hissy sounds like the skritch of raked gravel. One of them broke that sound in half by snapped jaws at us, like he couldn’t wait to chow down. Our horses panicked, rearing, backing away, dumping all of us in the water. Splashing told me the horses had too much sense to stay around here.
Tails wagging from eagerness, the gators were splashing closer in the shallows, bending the grass out of the way as they advanced.
My guns filled my hands, bucking as I unloaded round after round, emptying my clips.
Izumi stood closest to them, just standing there unconcerned. And then I realized that the water around her feet was growing hard and white, frozen into ice. The ice floe grew, sweeping out to meet the gators. In a moment, the reptiles had a lot to hiss about, frozen in place, locked in the ice. Izumi stepped up onto her floe. I hurried to do the same before the water froze around my lower legs.
The landscape shifted from one breath to another, and we were at a small village woven from reeds, occupying a deck on stilts. A wooden ladder beckoned us to the top of the pier. We climbed. The upper deck had a railing over which several fishing nets had been hung to be dried and repaired. There were no people around, unless they were hiding in the woven huts.
“So where are we now?” Vivian asked.
Izumi shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s not the Oracle’s retreat.” She looked around for Yannin, gesturing him closer.
“Yes, Your Glory?”
“Spread out. See if anyone is home. Also see if there are any boats around we can use. I don’t want to stay here long. This place makes me … uneasy.”
“How many boats?” someone asked.
We looked around for the rackety, cracking voice.
“And how much will you pay?”
“There.” Josh pointed at a nearby thatch roof.
A small, wrinkled woman sat up there, her work clothes the color of sepia, her hair a mound of umber that might have housed a family of birds quite comfortably. Her knobby nose supported glasses with round lenses. She blinked owlishly at us, repeating herself, “How much will you pay?”
“A fair price,” Izumi returned.
The compact woman continued as if she’d not heard the answer, “pay in coin, pay in power, pay with blessing, pay with curse,” she cackled, “or pay in blood?”
“I have gold,” I said.
“Too late,” she sighed. “We mean you no ill-will, but a bargain made cannot be unmade. We’ve purchased our lives with yours.” The doors to the huts opened. More of the wrinkled old midgets stumbled out, knives and clubs, and bottles in hand. Shoulder to shoulder, the formed a line that inched ever closer, wearing clothes that were patched and stained from hard labors, stiff with the dried salt-spray off the wind from the surrounding marsh.
A crow cawed from a distant black tree that hadn’t been there before. Several of his fellows answered him.
“What is going on here?” Izumi demanded. “Do you even know who you threaten?” The imperial confidence of her tone caused the villagers to pause.
“Bargain is a bargain,” said the crone on the roof. “She told us we would not be destroyed if we held you distracted long enough.”
“Long enough for what?” I asked.
A fishnet flipped over me, tightening at once.
My hand seized the hilt of my knife. I struggled a second to free it from its sheath. The canvas bag slipped from my side and dropped through the gap around my legs, hitting the deck.
“For that,” the crone said.
The capturing magic of the net jerked it back, taking me over the railing, out over
the water. If only the villagers had harbored evil intent, my shield would have activated, saving me. Flipped into the air, the world blurred as I fell, still entangled, trying to warm up my Dragon Fire tat to burn myself free.
I smacked the water, and struggled to get my head up so I could breathe.
A huge-assed shadow covered me. I heard a growl and stared up into the fuzzy face of death. The Spirit Bear.
Her paw buffed my head, sending me flying into darkness.
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Now I know how a roasted duck feels.”
—Caine Deathwalker
I surfaced into awareness. A swimmer bobbing on a storm-wracked sea, my mind screamed: danger, danger! I felt the lack of guns and weapons. My gear had been stripped off along with my clothes. My head ached. I felt dried blood on the side of my face, and smelled iron mixed with the dusty, resinous scent of a pine forest. My arms and hands flapped bonelessly. I seemed to be curled over something as fuzzy as my thoughts. I groaned and slitted open my eyes, and saw dancing, rippling fur, a dark brown rug with spots of sunlight drizzled over it, pulling out brighter, gold tones. The spots overlapped, sliding into each other and out.
Concussion. Seeing double. Want a double Scotch. Wait a minute, this isn’t a rug. It’s alive. The Spirit Bear!
I hung balanced over her shoulder, draped down her back. The bear shambled quickly, occasionally using a front paw to keep me from sliding off. I hadn’t been killed right off. I was being abducted. The possible reasons for this were very scary.
I reached out mentally feeling for my demon sword, hoping I could reach it from a world away.
Feeling tension in my body, the bear skidded to a stop, and let me ride forward. Not letting me fall naturally, a big furry paw caught me in the air and slammed me down with brutal, bone jarring force.
Why the hell isn’t my shield working? That thought carried me back into darkness.
* * *
The next time round, I stayed limp, slitting my eyes to pick up motion, deepening my breath, keeping it slow as if I were still asleep. My head did more than ache. It felt like an ice pick had been rammed into the back of my skull. I had bruises on my bruises. Everything hurt.
Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2) Page 27
