Lonesome Paladin

by S. M. Reine

  He didn’t know when he’d see Fritz again.

  “Whatever you do, don’t say goodbye.” Fritz was speaking quietly enough that nobody else would be able to hear. The gentleness in his voice—so far departed from their usual sarcasm—was enough to fill Cèsar with a frustrated, strangled feeling a lot like despair.

  “Sorry,” Cèsar said.

  Fritz’s hand stroked over the hair on the back of Cèsar’s head, almost like petting him. “I’m not dead yet.”

  “Not about that.” Cèsar managed to bare his teeth in a humorless grin. “I’m sorry about interrupting your trip to pound-town with Agent Big Butt. Damn, that looked good. You should see if she wants to take a ride on your new wheels.”

  Fritz’s quiet chuckle was a shock of light. He pressed his temple to the top of Cèsar’s head. “Come back soon.”

  A scoffing noise made Cèsar look up.

  While he wasn’t paying attention, they’d been approached by someone who looked nothing like an OPA agent. His dirty-blond hair was unevenly sheared to an inch. His jaw had the reddened look of a white guy who’d just scoured the beard off his face with a dull razor.

  Without the scruffy hair, Cèsar needed a minute to recognize Lincoln Marshall.

  Lincoln offered him a bundle of clothes. “Not interrupting something, am I?” There was an edge of judgment in his words.

  “No,” Cèsar said, yanking the clothes out of Lincoln’s hands. He felt awfully self-conscious for having been up to nothing. He turned to Fritz. “What’s this guy doing here? Did he commit another crime?”

  “Not a new one,” Fritz said. “Mr. Marshall is going to escort you to the Winter Court. He’s kindly volunteered to employ his expertise to help you navigate the Middle Worlds safely.”

  “Volunteered?” Cèsar shook off the sweatpants.

  Fritz gave him a pleasantly blank look. “He had alternative options.”

  Which meant that Lincoln had been recruited the way that the OPA recruited everyone.

  Forcefully.

  “You did not,” Cèsar said. “God, for fuck’s sake, Fritz, I told you that after Genesis we weren’t going to let the OPA harass people like that anymore and—”

  “You need an experienced guide through the Middle Worlds to survive. Hate me if you want, but do it after you find Ofelia.”

  Cèsar resentfully jammed his feet into his pants, one leg after the other, and buckled while scowling at Fritz.

  Lincoln had brought clothes tailored to the harsh environs within the Middle Worlds. That meant a bulky leather jacket, canvas work pants, and boots. Every article of clothing was stamped with runes. By donning each piece, the hum of music from the other side of the ley line became progressively quieter.

  Lincoln was already dressed similarly. He was warded too, though there were fewer markings on his jacket. He didn’t have powers to suppress.

  “What expertise have you got that’s gonna get us through the Middle Worlds safely?” Cèsar asked.

  Lincoln was inventorying his weapons. They hadn’t bothered giving him any guns—those didn’t work reliably in the Middle Worlds—so he clutched only a fistful of daggers stamped with marks of power. They were such small weapons to wield against such a great unknown. “I used to work in Hell.”

  “Huh.” Cèsar glanced between Fritz and Lincoln. “So that’s something the two of you got in common. Sounds like you should be fast friends.”

  Fritz laughed again.

  Lincoln did not.

  “Both of you should perceive a reasonably normal forest in the Middle Worlds for several days, but the wards will degrade quickly,” Fritz said. “I’m told the courts are overwhelming to human senses, so you’ll need to find a replacement ASAP, Mr. Marshall. And Cèsar, your wards will degrade even faster. It’ll be up to you to suppress another outburst at that point.”

  “Outburst?” Lincoln asked.

  Agent Sparrow gave a wordless shout, and the ley line brightened. It spread into an uneven disc. Daylight gleamed on the other side, and the sound of orchestral music climbed.

  It was time to go.

  “The juncture is only stable for a few minutes at a time. You need to get in.” Fritz waved to an agent, who brought Lincoln and Cèsar leather backpacks with blanket rolls strapped to their tops. “The redoubt staff will equip you with swords and then provide directions to Alfheimr. Alfheimr will be able to direct you to the Winter Court. Move as fast as you can.”

  “Yes sir,” Cèsar said, saluting.

  Lincoln headed for the lift. Cèsar followed, but a hand caught him. He looked down to see Fritz gripping his wrist tightly.

  They shared a silent look.

  Before Genesis, they might have been able to read each other’s minds word for word. They had been bonded magically, after all. Kopis and aspis. Sword and shield. Now Cèsar could only feel the blinding whiteout of panic inside himself, afraid that this would be the last time he saw Fritz alive.

  “I told you to come back, didn’t I?” Fritz asked.

  “As fast as possible,” Cèsar said, linking his fingers briefly with the secretary’s.

  Then he let go. He had to climb onto the hydraulic lift without looking at Fritz again. He wasn’t sure he could leave if he did.

  Lincoln joined him.

  The platform jolted. They began to lift, growing nearer and nearer the slice of daylight. It felt like it took eternity—simultaneously too fast and too slow for Cèsar’s final moments on Earth.

  “You can back out whenever you want,” Cèsar muttered to Lincoln. “I don’t need protection.”

  Lincoln yanked on a wide-brimmed hat. The blazing light from the ley line juncture burned all the color out of his irises. “I’m going to Alfheimr with or without you.”

  It was oddly reassuring, the way that Lincoln shrugged off Cèsar’s words. Even if he hadn’t started out a volunteer, Lincoln was all in.

  They were just a few feet from the juncture. The light burned away the dark forest, and the music was sweetly overpowering.

  “Just two lawmen heading into lawless territory,” Cèsar muttered out the corner of his mouth. “That can’t go wrong.”

  “Man’s law might not touch the Summer Court, but God’s law has no borders,” Lincoln said.

  “Jump!” Agent Sparrow shouted.

  The former deputy grabbed Cèsar by the neck of his jacket. “Count of three?” Lincoln asked.

  “Three seconds is too much time to regret what we’re about to do,” Cèsar said, stepping forward.

  They jumped into the ley line simultaneously.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lincoln’s first impression of the Middle Worlds was an acid taste in the back of his throat, seizing muscles, and his flesh erupting with chills as he spewed bile across the ground.

  It seemed that his human body wasn’t a big fan of interdimensional travel.

  He was still coughing up bright-yellow fluid as he staggered to his feet. He wasn’t sure where he was, what was around him, or what dangers he might have been unprepared to face. He had to get upright as quickly as possible.

  When his vision cleared, he came face-to-face with Undersecretary Hawke glowing like a fucking faerie.

  There was little difference between Cèsar and that hooker in downtown Reno. His skin had a sparkly bluish tint to it. Luckily his shirt was on, so Lincoln didn’t have to know if Cèsar had black diamond nipples like that whore. Given that Cèsar’s eyes swarmed with endless fields of wildflowers, Lincoln would bet that Cèsar had all those nasty attributes.

  “Damn,” Lincoln swore, lurching back. He gripped one of the daggers at his belt.

  Cèsar’s “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” look faded fast. The colors drained as runes stitched into his jacket absorbed his magic. “What’s wrong?” Once the wild magic drained from his eyes, there was nothing left but a guy who looked like he had Mexican mixed up in his background, maybe. Dark hair, dark eyes, brownish skin. Dirty looking.

  “You’re one of
them.” Lincoln’s fist tightened on the dagger. “You’re a faerie. You lied to me.” Cèsar Hawke was a liar, and a faerie, and a hell of a lot more dangerous than he’d looked before. “Why’d they want me escorting a sidhe through the Middle Worlds? You should be escorting me.”

  “Wow. Fritz told you exactly jack and shit, didn’t he? Typical.” Cèsar snorted. “Look, I just Rebirthed with new powers and accidentally attacked Fritz. If I don’t get my ass to the Queen of the Winter Court fast, he’s gonna drop dead.”

  “Might be a favor to the world if he did,” Lincoln muttered.

  A crystalline glow washed over Cèsar, tinted angry red. “You don’t have to do anything, Deputy. Definitely don’t gotta do any favors for me. Get on. Go.”

  Lincoln glanced around at the enormous forest. Normal as it looked, it was huge. He couldn’t see where he was going. “Like I said, we’re going the same place. Might as well stick together.”

  “Convenient.” Cèsar rubbed a fist over his eyes and looked around again. “What do you see?”

  “Forest. Lotsa maple trees. Reminds me of home.” In fact, if that ley line had dumped them out in the Summer Court, then the faeries lived somewhere that looked remarkably like the woods behind Northgate. “The wards on our jackets are working to protect us from that fae crap.”

  “I think the PC word’s sidhe, not fae,” Cèsar said.

  “I don’t do that PC bullshit.” And if being called a faerie hurt Cèsar, all the better. Knives were for people who posed a physical threat. Words set clear boundaries.

  There wouldn’t be any weirdness with Lincoln and Cèsar. No friendship, no familiarity. They were going the same place, and that was all.

  “Of course you don’t care for political correctness. Shoulda known.” Cèsar swept his fallen hat off the ground, crammed it on his head. “Redoubt’s supposed to be that way.”

  “What’s a redoubt anyway? Some kind of base?”

  “More like a fort,” Cèsar said.

  They trudged down what looked like a normal hill together. Lincoln’s jacket was heavy draped over his shoulders. It didn’t take much walking for it to get too hot, especially since everything was insulated for the Winter Court. A land drenched in snow was impossible to imagine in the Summer Court. Everything was bright here, sunny without a hint of an actual sun.

  “We won’t have to walk far,” Cèsar said. He’d noticed Lincoln fanning himself with the lapels of the jacket. “The OPA hasn’t gotten far into the Summer Court. Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t build right under the ley line.”

  Lincoln slid down a pile of leaves and stepped over a big log. “You see that?” he asked, pointing at a couple of trees. “The marks on their trunks?” Each of them had runes the size of Lincoln’s fist on their lower halves, like someone had taken a branding iron to them.

  “OPA proprietary runes,” Cèsar said.

  “Wager they’d placed the redoubt away from the ley line so that they’d have room to place more wards,” Lincoln said. No wonder it was so quiet, so mundane.

  “Thanks for the expertise. I’m so glad Fritz sent you with me to point out shit I already know.”

  “I’m not ‘with you’,” Lincoln said.

  But Cèsar was right. They didn’t have to walk far before spotting the redoubt. It was even less impressive than the base on the Earth side of the ley line; they had little more than a tent, a fire pit rimmed in collapsing chairs, and several locked chests.

  Three agents chatted quietly between the trees. Each was dressed in hooded black cloaks instead of ballistics jackets, carrying swords instead of machine guns.

  Lincoln would have been lying to say he wasn’t disappointed. These were supposed to be the people who could provide a better path to Alfheimr. People who could equip them. People with firsthand knowledge of the Middle Worlds.

  “Least it wasn’t much of a walk,” Lincoln grumbled.

  “Told you,” Cèsar said. “Now I’ve gotten this far, you can go your own way. I meant it when I said I’m not gonna make you work for the OPA.”

  “Don’t do me any favors and I won’t do you any. I’ll split when I’m ready to split.”

  “All right.” Cèsar hitched his bag up his shoulders so he could head down the slope.

  “Wait.” Lincoln grabbed Cèsar by the backpack strap to stop him, more by instinct than desire. “The runes are gone.” The magical markings protecting the path between ley line and redoubt didn’t extend all the way to the redoubt.

  “Shit. You know what that means?”

  “It means that what we’re seeing at the redoubt might or might not be accurate,” Lincoln said.

  The fact that the trees looked like typical Earth trees certainly wasn’t real. Without runes imprinted on them, shouldn’t they have looked more magical? He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t seen enough of the Middle Worlds to judge.

  His instincts told him it was a trap.

  “Damn.” Lincoln rubbed a hand over his jaw. “You wait here. I’ll go around back and scout it out.”

  He turned.

  An OPA agent stood behind them.

  Lincoln hadn’t heard her coming.

  In fact, he couldn’t hear anything in the forest. The wind didn’t seem to rustle the leaves. There was no birdsong, no distant river roaring, no buzzing insects.

  “What are you doing here?” asked the agent. She wore thick glasses and that hooded cape. Warding ribbons were bundled in her hands.

  Cèsar stepped forward, hands spread out to show that they were empty. “Secretary Friederling sent me. He said you guys can get us directions and an escort to Alfheimr.”

  “Did he send papers?” she asked.

  “Papers?” Lincoln asked.

  “Documentation,” Cèsar explained. “We’ve got forms for everything with the OPA.” The tension had gone out of him at the agent’s request. He patted down the pockets of his jacket. “Oh. Here.” He produced an envelope, which the agent took.

  She unfolded the flap. Looked through the pages. “All right. Follow me.” She guided them into the valley. At the sound of their crunching footsteps, the other agents straightened to greet them. “I’m Agent Clausky,” she said over her shoulder.

  Lincoln stepped through the line of trees and he felt magic sweep through him.

  Being able to feel magic was new. He wasn’t accustomed to the sensation and didn’t entirely understand what it meant.

  Something had changed, though. Something big.

  Clausky folded the papers, tucked them into her belt. “We’ve been inhabiting this base for the last two weeks, but we’ve barely got any footing. I don’t think we’re going to be able to help you very much with any of this.” She patted the papers. “Some of the lesser sidhe keep raiding us. They’ve stolen half our supplies. Earthside operations are slow to restock.”

  “No supplies?” Lincoln asked. “What about the swords Friederling said we’d get here?”

  “Don’t have any extras. The Middle Worlds are a rough place.”

  “You can help us with directions,” Cèsar said. “Have you found a safe path to Alfheimr? Have you talked to the Summer Queen?”

  “No and no,” said another agent, over by the stack of bricks. Lincoln heard his voice like an echo. No and no and no...

  He rubbed his temples, glancing around at the places the runes should have been. The trees looked fine except for the gouges in the bark. Someone had placed proprietary OPA runes, and then cut them out of the trees.

  He hung back to watch Cèsar talk to Agent Clausky. She’d convinced him of her authenticity. The fool man was relaxed, even smiling.

  The other agents were watching them quietly. Standing around the clearing, unmoving.

  Something isn’t right.

  Lincoln let a dagger slip into his fingers, palming the hilt.

  Cèsar was saying, “Have you made any progress building the trail to Alfheimr?”

  “You didn’t see it? It’s back that way.” Agent Clausky nod
ded toward the trail in the forest. Lincoln turned to look at it, and the soil seemed darker than the surrounding earth, like it was freshly churned and watered.

  No and no and no.

  “Alfheimr’s that way?” Cèsar asked. “I thought it was south of here.” He pointed beyond the tent.

  When Lincoln focused into the distance, he felt a pinching in his forehead. The trees were growing. Slowly, subtly, inch-by-inch, their branches extended toward a blazing blue sky. The comfortable familiarity of the Summer Court was fading into dreams.

  “What happened to the protective runes?” Lincoln asked.

  “We’ve gotta put in new ones.” Agent Clausky’s smile didn’t touch her eyes. She turned back to Cèsar. “I see in your papers that we’re only restocking you. Since we can’t do that, we’ll escort instead.”

  Cèsar reached for the papers. “I’ve got enough help.”

  “We might as well come. We aren’t making headway here,” Agent Clausky said. “It’s not safe in the forest. The forest fights back. We’ll do better if we can get into Alfheimr.”

  “That’s not the plan.”

  “It’s been our plan for a while,” Clausky said.

  Still, that smile.

  Lincoln’s temples throbbed as the sounds of the world fell away, leaving him feeling as though there were cotton in his ears and a veil over his eyes.

  There was a new presence at his back. He turned, and he glimpsed white skin. Black hair. An aquiline nose.

  Elise.

  She wore motorcycle boots, a choker that draped chains over her shoulder. Her right eyebrow was pierced with a carpenter’s nail that left an indentation against her forehead. Her gloved fingers were stained with the blood of the God she’d slain, as glossy and red as a freshly picked apple.

  “Look.” Elise’s hand traced over his eyes. The fingertips felt like lips on his temple.

  When the hand fell away, Lincoln saw the truth of it, sudden and painful. He saw that the trees were seething. Their bark gleamed like copper scales slipping over muscle. The dense rot underfoot was dotted with mossy scabs.

  Lincoln was standing on something. Lifting his foot, Lincoln looked underneath to see there’d been a woman’s arm under his heel.