Another picture showed me laving ice cream off her pale torso. We’d been out of waffle cones, but not ice wine, wine frozen by her touch to remove water and make the final product extra potent. Izumi had her uses, I had to give that to her.
“It’s not going to work,” I called out. “I don’t get sentimental when I’m about to kick ass.”
“Worth a try.” Her voice drew my gaze to the bedroom door. She stood in the doorway, without a stitch of clothing, looking utterly relaxed. She pirouetted, giving me a 360° view. “Isn’t there something else you’d rather do to my ass than kick it?” she asked, peering over a creamy shoulder at me.
Well, I knew she wasn’t about to fight fair.
I let cold indifference glint in my eyes as I lied to her, “I’ve seen better. Pack your crap and get out of my territory. I’m putting word out that my protection over you is rescinded. By dawn tomorrow, you’ll be gone or dead. And don’t think the wolves will stand for you. Their Fenris has called them in for an accounting.”
I turned to go.
“Caine…”
I stopped. “What?”
“We’ve been friends a long time. Doesn’t that count for something?”
I laughed, a wounded sound, thin and sharp as a katana. “Sure, I haven’t killed you myself, have I?”
The blizzard hit then, a wall of snow coming out of some nameless frozen hell. Slashing winds wound around me like barbwire. The temperature dropped another twenty degrees. My blood felt like it was turning to ice wine in my veins and arteries. My defensive shield buckled under the onslaught, but stronger, automatic wards activated.
She vanished in the white-out, merging with her storm, as snow flurries whirled and drifts formed on the carpet and furniture.
Heat built at my core. Electric current crackled in my blood, the price I paid for the Dragon Aura spell that warmed my muscles, keeping organs functioning, and my flesh fever-hot to the touch. The magic would last for six hundred and sixty-six seconds, but required six days, six hours, and six minutes to be renewed.
The snow touching me evaporated, refreezing once the vapor reached Izumi’s blizzard. Winds howled, hiding the sound of her movements.
I was sure she’d hit me from some unexpected direction. I kept my face down, which changed my range of vision, letting me see further behind me. Not that I was focusing. That’s the common mistake that half-assed martial artists make. To focus is to limit your perception. To anticipate is to limit your responses. By being ready to respond in all directions to everything, I wasn’t going to be blindsided.
Except for the killer snow men that formed from the snow all around me, leaping in with icicle teeth bared in old, savage aggression. They had indentions for eyes—not even lumps of coal, poor bastards—and they actually thought they had a chance.
A spinning heel kick took their heads off, splattering them against a distant wall I could no longer see. Somewhere in the storm, I heard a lamp crash over and a picture fall. Headless, they still grappled with me, becoming slush as my furnace level metabolism melted them. As ineffective as this attack against me was, it had to be a simple diversion. Izumi had to be close to making her real attack.
I almost missed it when it started.
The wet slush around my feet became a block of ice, anchoring me in place. For her ice to stand up to my magic-fuelled heat, she had to be expending a huge amount of energy. Still, ice could be dealt with in an old-school manner. I drew my guns and fired around my feet, freeing myself...
…As she slid down a stalactite-sized icicle grown from the ceiling, landed on my shoulders. Her bare legs wrapped around my neck, but before I could act, she arched backwards, her dead weight flipping me along with her. Fortunately, my ankles were free; otherwise, this little maneuver of hers would have broken them. As it was, I sailed over her, out the front door, and rolled off the porch, onto the walk way.
Rising from the sidewalk, I noticed she’d followed me outside. Dressed in armor made of blue-white ice, she stalked toward me with twin swords made of ice. They had serrated edges, and were curved like sabers. Another of her threats, the blizzard following her out of the house like an eager puppy.
She flew from the porch, lifted by the screaming winds of her storm. They added to her power as she slashed.
I threw myself to the side, squeezing off two shots that fractured the ice over her heart, presuming she had one. With a snow demon, you couldn’t always be sure.
Her sword blurred past, missing me by a mile.
But then I wasn’t he target. My left gun was sheared in half, made super brittle by the focus of her magic. That still left the gun in my right hand. I spun to keep the muzzle centered on her. The sidewalk iced over as her feet touched down. She wheeled toward me, the swords continuously swirling around her upper torso. In another moment, she’d lunge back and I’d be a twig in a wood chipper.
Extended, locked onto her head, I pulled the trigger, ready to empty the full clip into her. The gun exploded in my hand, made too fragile to fire bullets by Izumi’s winter stare. The icy air made the explosion sharp and clear, only muted by the screaming and cursing I was doing as my trigger finger separated from my hand and spun through the sir, trailing smoke. It fell in the grass as I bit off the flow of my own profanity, ripping my shirt to staunch the blood. My thumb was shredded but still attached.
If not for an impossibly high tolerance of pain, I might have passed out, or given in to shock. As it was, my thoughts were fuzzing up, running in circles. Get out your sword … get your finger a good surgeon can reattach it… Wait! What’s Izumi doing?
One of her swords slashed low as she tried to separate me from my knees.
I leaped onto her sword, my weight taking it down, shattering it.
Her other blade came straight at my face, point first.
I ducked under it, ramming my head into her armor. The pain of impact cleared my head a little. She directed the sword I’d ducked into the air, bringing the spike on its pommel down into my left shoulder blade. On my knees, I grabbed her legs, driving my head between them, lifting her into the air, flipping her over my back.
She crashed down hard. Pieces of her ice armor broke off. As she slowly rolled over, orienting on me once more, I used the strip of cloth I’d torn free to bandage my hand, tightening it with my good hand and teeth, all the while glaring at her. Like a wounded wolf, I was done with playing around.
But her blizzard hit me like an eighteen wheeler, slamming me across her lawn, though a section of fence, into a car parked at the curb. The whiteout of dancing snow blinded me. Sleet pelted me, rattling off the car behind me. I activated the tribal-style Demon Wings tattooed to the back of my shoulders and my upper back, above the shoulder blades. Paying for the magic felt like taking a spiked mace to the head, but at least it distracted me from my hand, what was left of it.
The blizzard lost focus. Its attacks faltered, spreading randomly over the area. I walked through the storm, back the way I’d come, until the air cleared. Izumi stared through me, at her pet blizzard. The cloaking magic I used didn’t allow her to notice the footsteps I was leaving in the snowy ground. I walked right up to her—and punched her in the throat.
Her sword fell as she did. I stepped on the ice blade as she scrambled to pick it up. Coughing, choking, wheezing, she made the sweetest music as her larynx swelled, cutting off her air flow. On hands and knees, she shuddered with the knowledge that death was very close. I kicked her in the face, shattering the helmet she’d made from ice. She dropped back, sprawling on her back. I stomped her chest, right over her heart where the ice armor was crackled. The body armor fractured off her.
She flopped around, managing a sort of mewling sound.
Her pet blizzard came running, but its magic was thinning. The ice and snow dropped on the lawn and quivered like amputated limbs. The air cleared as Izumi lost consciousness, growing still.
I staggered over to her. My heat spell had left me. I was shivering. The d
emon wings spell was burning through the last of my strength. Izumi had put up a hell of a fight. For what? It had been a pointless battle. Was she so afraid of whatever had chased her here that she preferred having me kill her?
Now there was an interesting thought.
I sat on her stomach, my knees pinning her arms to the snow covered ground. Using my good hand, I pulled out my tanto, putting the point between her breasts, right over her heart. That’s when I noticed Old Man standing beside me, watching with great interest. “Take a picture,” I said. “It will last longer than this bitch is about to.”
“I’d hurry,” he said. “Her breathing is getting easier. The swelling in her throat is going down. She appears to be healing herself even in an unconscious state. I’ll have to try that some time.”
I looked at her pale, sleeping face. Tears had jeweled her eyelashes with chips of ice. Her mouth hung open, inviting.
The tip of the knife cut into her flesh as I shook my head, refusing to indulge in any of the memories we’d made together. I leaned forward, a second away from plunging the knife into her.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Do it,” she begged. “Please.”
I drew the knife back. “Like I’d do you any favors.”
“Stay there,” Old Man said. “I’ll go get your missing finger. I just might know a zombie spell for restoring damaged flesh.
I put the edge of the knife against Izumi’s throat. “There are worse things than dying, you know. You better hope he can fix my hand.”
“Let me stay,” she said. “Wasn’t this the best fight you’ve ever had? And imagine what the makeup-sex will be like.”
“I can get sex a lot of places. You’ll have to do better than that.”
“You need something to nullify the grimoire necklace Sarah is using. I know of a relic that can do that.”
“All right. You’ve got my attention.”
SIXTEEN
“Why does everyone want me to kill them?”
—Caine Deathwalker
Izumi and I popped out of the human world and fell through a heavy, green-tinged darkness. There was a brief moment of slamming pressure, like taking a corner in a too-fast sports car, as we broke into the fey world. A spectacular view awaited us. The setting sun—an icy ball of light—seeped through veils of cloud on the far horizon where forested mountains gnawed the sky. Overhead, the low-hanging clouds were thicker, darker, spitting snow down upon us.
The Ridge Road we stood on was pitted and rutted by passing horses and wagons. There were other tracks, reptilian, maybe some kind of giant, flightless bird. Along the winding road, some of the shrubbery still had green leaves showing through their ice glazes. Clinging to webbed branches, thin icicle’s provided a festive look.
Looking down the steep embankment from the road, I spotted azure balls of light dancing in the air. The will-of-the-wisps played tag in small orchards, but avoiding well-lit farm houses painted riotous colors. From the distance, the buildings looked like miniature models, toys abandoned to Fate.
A chilling wind bore the scent of mistletoe and winter berries. The freshness of the breeze spoke of a place that had never known industrialization. This place was an environmentalist’s wet-dream; a land with more life than back on earth. Here, if you hugged a tree, it just might hug you back, if it didn’t drink your soul. Nature isn’t as warm and fuzzy as some would have us believe.
We pushed on, traveling past a bed of lavender that should have been long dead. I saw stick-figure humans the size of my small finger, ice fairies floating about on hummingbird wings. They were tending the plants, brushing off the frost, strengthening the growths with their Faire light. The glow indicated that the creatures didn’t do magic—they were magic.
Ahead of us, the road stretched up a bank to an ice bridge that spanned a frozen river. The road continued into a city labyrinth shadowed with soft blues. The icy spires, blocks, and domes were carved from glacier ice.
I grew aware of a new silence; it had been a while since I’d heard the clack of high heel boots. I turned to see Izumi standing motionless a dozen feet back. The look on her face was one of painful longing.
“Is this it, Izumi?”
My words snapped her out of brooding abstraction. She started toward me, scuffing along like a convict toward her execution. A very hot convict. She wore a glittery body sheath of midnight blue. Blue diamond earrings studded her earlobes. An ermine half-cloak was her only concession to the weather and its hood was thrown back to expose the artful pile of her hair. Black diamond chips glinted from the butterfly pins keeping her hair in place.
“Yeah,” she said, “Winter Court, they run this corner of Underhill. Once we reach the bridge, they’ll know we’re here. I’ll be all right, but I can’t guarantee you’ll even get across. The ice trolls are always hungry.”
She’d brought us to this road just outside the fey city limits, dropping us into a domain off-limits to anything non fey. This pseudo-space counted as an entity itself, one that kept demons out. Always. Without her, I could have materialized in a web of illusion, never knowing I was anywhere close to anything fey. That she could bring me past all defenses contradicted what I knew of her.
I stopped her with a hand on her arm as she made to pass me on the road. “Izumi, you’re not a demon, are you?”
She sighed softly. “No, I’m fey. My glamour disguises my magic’s feel, and lets me pass for demon, or Japanese snow woman. I can even do Santa Claus.”
“Please don’t.”
“Old Man knew.”
Of course he did. And he couldn’t bother telling me. He probably wanted me to discover her nature the hard way; on my own.
The dirt road acquired thicker coats of frost the closer we got to the bridge until we were treading ice. We paused, one step from the moon bridge. The posts lining the sides were square pillars extending into the frozen river below. The posts were capped by round spheres. Whatever wood they’d used was a mystery, covered by ice. Or perhaps the whole thing was ice.
I stared through the arch of the bridge, as if I could see what lurked in its shadow. “There really are ice trolls under there?” I asked.
“Two of them.”
“You’re going to help me with them, right?”
She looked at me. A slow smile appeared. “It will cost you.”
“How much?”
“I need a promise.”
“What kind?”
“You have to promise to kill anyone who I’m ever forced to marry—preferably before the honeymoon.”
I grinned at her. “Sounds like fun.”
She nodded and started up the bridge.
We reached the middle before the brutes climbed over the sides to block our way. The frost trolls were twelve feet from curl-toed boots to horned helmets. Their clothing was a patchwork of animal skins—fox, rabbit, wolf, and elk. PETA would be pissed. The trolls had ice-white beards and pale flesh. Leather straps held their kilts in place as well as assorted knives that would have counted as swords in the hands of small men. They’d made the climb over the railing one-handed, moving with speed and grace. Their free hands clutched the hafts of war-hammers, the heads flat on one side, spiked on the other.
They crowded each other while road-blocking the bridge, grunting in wild-eyed menace, grinning balefully. The one on the right had sapphire eyes, the one on the left, hazel.
Blue sniffed the air. “Demon stink.”
Hazel said, “The stench of a dead demon, you mean.”
Blue looked surprised. “He’s not dead.”
Hazel laughed; a hard bark of joy that boomed loud enough to crack ice. “He’s dead, he just don’t know it yet.”
I stepped forward, demon sword fading into my hand.
Blue lunged to meet me, giving no advance warning of his attack. I approved. My sword flashed as I swayed out of his path. He came to a sudden stop, staring at the stick in his hand.
The head of the hammer lay on the ice bridge. I’d cut its
handle in passing. Still moving, I closed with Hazel. His hammer fell toward the top of my head. I jumped into the air and caught hold of it, letting my weight add to the power of its fall. The hammer hit the bridge with a bone-jarring WHAM! The underlying bridge cracked.
I knelt and placed a palm to the cracked surface. I felt a dull, metaphysical knife gouge my spleen—the price I paid for activating one of my tats. A shockwave edged with infernal heat shattered the middle of the bridge. The trolls and I dropped to the frozen river, a hard white ribbon of ice. Pieces of broken bridge bounced around us, skidding every which way.
The trolls landed on their feet.
I landed on all fours, then stood, careful of my balance while I watched for the next attack.
Izumi looked over a stub of bridge, doing nothing else. Her glamour faded. Her eyes went western, no longer Asian, blazing like sun fire on ice. And her glossy black hair turned snowy white. If I wasn’t in the middle of a fight, I would have stopped to admire the change.
I called up to her. “I thought you were going to help me with these guys,”
“I am,” she said. “I’m absorbing their bitter cold so you don’t shatter like a rotted twig. Why do you think your protective ward hasn’t activated, draining your energy?”
Leaving the grunt work to me.
Blue stared up at Izumi. “I know you.”
The other troll nodded. “The little girl with a human heart.”
Izumi scowled at them. “Damn it, I’m fey to the core. You want a piece of me?”
Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) Page 12
