Boss Fight (Beyond the Aura Book 1)

by Helen Adams

  Mama Denique finally finished setting up. Using muscles that I didn’t know she had, she’d pushed the sofa – and therefore Lukas – further into the big room, creating space all around him. Into that space she’d placed fourteen tall green candles, the kind that earth witches used, in a circle around herself and the sofa. They were interspersed with clumps of crystals. She lit each candle in turn, going anti-clockwise with a lighter.

  “Don’t witches use matches?” I asked, remembering too late that I shouldn’t interrupt.

  She actually laughed. “Maybe I should rub two sticks together?”

  Silly me.

  Next came a sprinkling of fresh herbs, dusted carefully over each cluster of crystals. They smelled good, familiar, sitting just on the edge of memory. Power rose from the ground – tenuous, untouchable. What was next, voodoo? Did she have a chicken in that carpetbag?

  Amidst the plastic fruit her taufrkyn woke, yawned and stretched. Lavender replaced the blue in her fur. Settling herself again she studied what Denique was doing with bright, round eyes.

  “Does she always watch you work?” I asked. She hadn’t seemed to mind the previous interruption.

  “I couldn’t keep Kisha away if I tried.”

  “She isn’t affected by the magic?”

  “Why would she be?”

  “She’s sitting on top of your head…”

  “My magic goes where I direct it.” She sniffed haughtily. “I don’t know what sort of witches you deal with, but where I come from, overspill is the height of bad manners.”

  Right. That told me.

  Denique reached inside the bag with both hands. When she pulled them out I was sure that I’d see a chicken, almost imagined the beak and white feathers, but what she actually brought out was a knife.

  Whereas the Mark Two – clotted with troll blood and in desperate need of a clean – was a purely functional blade, Denique’s knife was made for ceremony. The gold handle crawled with runes and glyphs and curlicues. Candlelight flickered along the metal.

  Denique muttered under her breath, holding the knife horizontally with both hands in front of her. I caught maybe one word in ten and didn’t recognise the language. That sense of power deepened, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Kisha’s fur turned a deep, vibrant yellow.

  Denique grasped the ornate handle in her right hand, placed the edge of the blade to her left palm, and sliced.

  Blood welled in the wound. Seeing it, after fighting the flesh golems, made my stomach stir uneasily. I breathed through my mouth until it settled.

  Denique closed her hand into a fist and held it over Lukas’s chest. Ruby liquid dripped onto his blackened skin. As the drops landed they splashed, moving with more vigour than any natural substance, and spread out to cover his torso. Her blood moved like a living thing.

  Denique began chanting. I still didn’t know what she was saying but it didn’t matter; the ancient power that thudded through my bones was explanation enough: - it was Ed, the first language of humans.

  I’d once read that the oldest written language was used by the Babylonians, around three thousand years ago. Their words were dense collections of lines carved into tablets. But it wasn’t the oldest spoken language. That was both simpler… and more complex.

  Ed was older than the Babylonians. It was the language of our ancestors – our deep ancestors – when they climbed down from the trees and learned to walk upright. Preserved through the oral tradition, Ed was only spoken by the most powerful of human magicians. Each syllable had energy; each word was the name of a thing, the first name our species had ever given to an object – be it tree, rock, fire or water – and they were so filled with age and meaning that they overflowed with power.

  Magic crawled along my skin and I sat bolt upright. Across the room Raz straightened and we exchanged uneasy looks. From the corner of my eye I noticed strands of my hair rising; the air was alive with static, and I felt that if I touched anything now I’d make a spark. It caught Raz’s ponytail, lifting it away from his neck. It was almost so dense that I could see it, a glimmer of light. When it touched Mel it curled around her and caressed her skin like a lover. What did that mean?

  The glimmer – the rising thrum of energy from the very earth itself – solidified into a living being; a snake, a great serpent of light and force, longer than a boa, wider than a python. It made the electric lights (which my tired eyes had thought were clean and bright) look pale and washed out. It was beautiful, it was brilliant, and it was terrifying, but I couldn’t have moved from my seat if I’d tried.

  The snake, hovering in the air and coiled like a Gordian knot, began to unwind. Its scales glittered with their own internal light, a dazzling mixture that was sometimes green and sometimes blue. I watched it move with the wonder of a small child. Joy and fear mixed in equal parts.

  The snake stretched its sinuous body. Its jaws opened and a tongue – sparkling red like a tumble of rubies – flicked in and out, in and out.

  It slithered through the air. It took no notice of gravity. What was a force of science to a being of pure magic? Because that’s what it was, even I recognised that; an entity coalesced from the very material of creation. It wasn’t primal magic. There was no stench of burned chicken. This was what had come before, and I was humbled in its presence.

  The snake wriggled an unhurried path toward Mel, curling over her shoulders and around her torso. Its tongue flicked over her earlobe. In her meditation – I assumed she was still meditating, her eyes were closed – she smiled, and her whole posture relaxed.

  Why Mel? What was so special about the kitsune?

  Mama Denique was still chanting that old, old language, the words thumping through my body like a pulse. Sweat dripped down her skin, and she was still squeezing blood from the cut on her palm. A normal liquid might have run off Lukas’s chest, might have stained the fabric of the sofa beneath. But Denique’s blood was no longer a normal liquid. It flowed, but only over Lukas, so thick that it obscured the oozing burn from sight. She stopped speaking Ed and flowed seamlessly into High Vaengrjarl.

  The steady thrum of energy didn’t diminish. It strengthened. The snake raised its head and looked at Denique. Could it hear what she was saying? Could it hear the command buried in every word, feel the tug on its magical bones? I did, Raz did. And we weren’t vaengrjarl. Though they were part human…

  The snake rubbed its head briefly against Mel’s cheek – her smile deepened, then faded – and approached Denique. That tongue came out again, gentle now, exploring, and licked the blade of the knife. It tasted the few drops of blood caught on the edge.

  Was it satisfied? I thought at first not, because it drove its rear segments into a coil and rose up, great head weaving to and fro. It reminded me of a cobra without a hood.

  Then it plunged – head, body and all – into Lukas’s chest. It vanished in an explosion of turquoise light that blinded us all for a few seconds.

  Denique screamed, but not with fear or terror. It was a lusty scream, a yell of completion, of triumph, of success. Every taufrkyn in the room added their voices to hers.

  Lukas’s eyes snapped open. He grabbed Denique’s hand – the one holding the knife – and her throat, and said, “Whatever tailor sold you that ghastly dress?”

  There was a lot of noise. I distinctly remember that. People shouting – mostly Lukas, I think it was Lukas, but it could as easily have been Raz – and Mama Denique’s voice rising above it all, telling people to sit down and shut up, ordering them to calm down or be calmed, then finally threatening them with the back of her hand. Still nestled securely in the plastic fruit, Kisha added rough cheeps and squawks that I was damned sure was the taufrkyn equivalent of bad language.

  It was hilarious. Both men were cowed. Lukas, an ancient vaengrjarl prince of immense power, and an experienced berserker, reduced to little boys by a stern voice and the threat of having their ears clipped. But as they sat – a naked Lukas on the sofa, Raz back to hi
s armchair – I realised that it was more than that. Denique’s voice still rang with the remnants of pre-primal energy. It was fading fast now, trickling back to wherever it had come from, but enough remained for her to restore calm. If I hadn’t already been sitting I would have felt the compulsion to do so.

  And Lee – Lee, who would have drunk all this in like a weed starved of rain – had slept through it all.

  “That’s better,” Denique said as the room filled with sullen silence.

  For once, some distant survival instinct kicked in and kept my mouth shut. My sub-conscious was wary enough of Denique not to mess about. That was a pleasant surprise, considering I was so fucking tired that my tongue had pretty much bypassed all brain-mouth motor controls.

  All the blood had vanished. The knife was gone, presumably back into the carpetbag. Lukas’s chest was clean and healed, without even a hint of a burn. The cut on Denique’s hand had healed to a thin scar. The tall green candles – now stubs only two or three inches high – had gone out, the herbs burned to ashes. The crystals were shrivelled and cracked. Kisha curled herself up once more and went back to sleep.

  “Now,” Denique continued, “I could murder a cup of tea. How about someone puts the kettle on?”

  “I’ll do it,” I said, standing.

  My legs felt as if I’d been sat for days. The ceiling light was throwing out thin illumination, fighting with the dim sunlight that filtered through the curtains. And I could hear birds tweeting.

  It was dawn. Denique’s healing had taken all night.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of the funny way time had passed and I wasn’t sure what to make of Denique’s magic. In the kitchen, I filled the kettle to the top to give myself time to think. Tea, now: - I was sure about that.

  “You all right?”

  I looked up from my intense study of the slate floor, caught in the act of nibbling a thumbnail. Raz had followed me.

  “Right as rain.”

  His eyes played over my face, that rich warm brown dimmed by exhaustion.

  “You don’t look right as rain.”

  “What a shocker. Maybe the whole golem-troll-dragon combo doesn’t make such a good beauty regime. You?”

  “May have taken a bruise or six.” He seemed as tired and ruffled as I felt and his smile looked forced.

  The kettle clicked. I rummaged through the unfamiliar cupboards and dug out some mugs, then rummaged again and found tea bags, milk and sugar.

  “Want some help with that?”

  “I can manage.” But I smiled to show that I appreciated the offer.

  A slight weight on my neck shifted; I reached behind me and felt Lorl’s warm fur brush my skin. Had she been asleep under there?

  “When did that happen? I didn’t even notice her.”

  “It’s Denique’s magic.”

  “Time went all wiggly. It was…” I struggled for the right words as I put teabags in mugs, splashed in milk and dumped sugar in a bowl. “That snake thing. What a sight.”

  “Snake?” Raz sounded puzzled. “It was a crocodile. A huge one, a bull croc.”

  “We saw it differently.” I poured boiling water into the mugs and shoved them onto a tray. I was so tired, at this point I was willing to believe anything I saw or heard. “See if you can find some biscuits, will you? I’m starved.”

  When we returned to the living room the furniture was back in place. Denique had cleared her things into the carpetbag (‘a handbag?’) and sprawled across the sofa Lukas had previously occupied.

  The vaengrjarl prince was now dressed in a navy suit that set off his grey eyes and brown hair. Where had that come from? Was there a room upstairs full of suits? He was gaunt and tired.

  When I glanced at his hand, the two missing fingers were no longer missing. They were whole and healthy, not the bloodied stumps that I remembered.

  I looked at Denique with fresh respect.

  “…and yet you continually dip a hand in my life,” Lukas was saying as I entered with the tray. “You expect me to believe that you didn’t interfere at the Dyja?”

  Raz followed behind and leaned against a wall. Mel was out of her trance, or high, or wherever the hell she’d been, and was as serene as a fucking alpine lake.

  “Interfere?” She looked as if she was tasting the word, rolling it around on her tongue. “I prefer to think of it as… managing, perhaps.”

  I gave her a hard look. Lukas thought that Mel had pointed me in the right direction at the Shake, even after she’d gone to pains to avoid being seen in her human skin. He was sharper, more dangerous, than I’d given him credit for – and I’d already given him a lot.

  And the way she talked to him. Managing? What was she to him?

  Then I realised that I was being jealous. Jealous. Like I cared! Lukas could shag as many men, women or flying lizards as he wanted, and I wouldn’t give a damn. I had zero interest in the vaengrjarl prince.

  Ah, fuck it. Who was I kidding? Of course I was interested. I was also pretty sure that I was mental.

  “We will continue this discussion later,” Lukas promised, glancing at me. “For now, I believe we have work to finish.”

  “Look, you don’t need to help,” I rushed to say, putting the tray down on a coffee table. “You’ve done more than enough.”

  “Less talk, more tea!” Denique commanded. “Three sugars in mine, dear, if you don’t mind.”

  I didn’t mind, though from the warning look Raz shot my way, he expected me to make a smart-arsed comment. The truth was that I had way too much new-found respect for Denique’s healing power to mouth off (though it helped that I was dog-tired). I was used to ending lives, to killing trolls, vampires and any other monster that tried to eat people. But Denique saved lives. That was something special.

  So I put three sugars in her tea and handed her the mug.

  “While your concern does your credit,” Lukas said, “it’s of no consequence. This has become a personal matter. I will find Mina. Then I will end her.”

  “If its revenge you want, you should get in line,” I said without thinking.

  Lukas paused in the act of adjusting his cufflinks, half-turned away from me. When his eyes met mine they were solid green. Shit. I’d almost have preferred a twinkle.

  “Vaengrjarl do not ‘get in line’.” His voice was cold. “We go to the front of the queue. And if the queue objects, we end them, too.”

  “Drama queen,” Denique sighed.

  Lukas turned his green glare on her. “You forget your place –”

  “Listen, mister.” She heaved her bulk upright and waved the mug of tea for emphasis. Liquid slopped dangerously close to the rim. “I put you back together again and without me, you’d be dead. I know the concept is foreign to you, but you’ll treat me with the respect I deserve… or when you need me again, I won’t be around.”

  “I won’t require your services again!”

  Mel, displaying what I thought was an insane amount of bravery, put her small hand on his arm.

  “Mina used a brood-troll wand,” she said. “Presumably she still has it.”

  I could have cut the tension with a knife, but a wild little giggle tried to force its way out of my mouth. I bit my tongue. Then, fearing that wouldn’t work, I mashed my lips against my teeth.

  Lukas removed Mel’s hand from his arm. He straightened the jacket of his suit. His nostrils flared, and his eyes were still flat and green, but that was the only outward sign of his anger.

  “Please excuse my rudeness,” he told Denique. “As the most powerful race in the universe, vaengrjarl at times forget that they are not invulnerable.”

  I nearly staggered. Lukas? Apologising? It was stilted and bordering on a brag, but it was an apology nonetheless.

  Denique nodded. “That’ll do.” k'12

  Lukas and Mel left, having foregone the tea. Of course, supernatural creatures wouldn’t drink a builder’s brew, but Denique certainly did, and after sitting back down she refused to budge
until she’d finished. I didn’t blame her. She looked exhausted.

  Raz flopped into an armchair, closed his eyes and was asleep in seconds. Lee was still sleeping like a baby, light snores punctuating everything that was said.

  “You two must be worn out,” Denique commented. “Now that I’ve got the lizard off my back, I can do something about you. How’s Sleeping Beauty?”

  My eyes opened with genuine surprise. “He…” OK, my tongue had actually stopped working. I tried again. “He’ll be fine in the morning, thank you. I slapped some of your leighis on his wrist and face. But Raz and me, we’ll be fine, we’ve got our own leighis.”

  Plus, I doubted that I could afford whatever price she chose to charge. And I doubted that all her fees were just money. Hah, what was I saying? ‘Just’ money. I was so fucking tired.

  “Let me give you a piece of advice,” the Way healer said, leaning forward. “When Lukas wants something, he goes after it. He went down the wrong path when he asked –” She cut herself off mid-sentence. “But that’s a vaengrjarl secret, I can’t tell you that. This time he’s got Mel on board. When she wants to find something out, it bloody well gets found out.”

  I mentally beat my flagging brain, trying to understand what she was saying. She took pity on me.

  “My point is that you don’t have a lot of time before Mel comes back with your information, hours at most. You’re not fit for another fight, none of you are, and if you go out again without help that splitter is going to kill you.”

  An idea formed in my head. “Is there a limit to what you can treat?”

  “I can’t bring someone back from the dead. But anything right up to that doorstep, you bet.”

  “What about madness?”

  She sucked air through her teeth. “Difficult. Pricey. But it could be done. You’re talking about your splitter, aren’t you?”

  “I want to rip her throat out, but that feels wrong.” And you’ll go to prison. I frowned, examining my ambiguity toward Mina, and nodded.

  I might feel differently the next time I saw her. I remembered the terror on Alice’s face – and a ghost of that anger was still there. Yes, I’d definitely feel differently when I saw her again.