by Karen Chance
“I beg your pardon?” The king was faultlessly polite.
“You heard me. He’s half demon, son of that bastard Rosier—”
“I know that.” Aeslinn’s lip curled. “As if human blood wasn’t bad enough—”
“Hold your tongue, fey, or did you forget who you’re talking to?”
The tone was completely at odds with the jolly outfit, being vicious enough to make me flinch. But Aeslinn only smiled, although it was a bit more fixed this time. “Do you know, I think I did. That skin you wear is convincing—and appreciated. Do I want to know what you look like under there?”
“Insolent pup! I could crush you with a thought—”
“Yes, but then who would speak to father on your behalf?”
“He’s not your father—”
“He’s everyone’s father. And I’m more of a son to him than that traitorous dog he sired. Caedmon,” Aeslinn sneered. “‘Great King,’ when there’s nothing great about him—”
“Cease this ridiculous drivel!” the vamp snarled. “We have a problem!”
“No, you have a problem. Explain his disappearance any way you like, but I will have him.”
A long, white hand curled in the mud on Pritkin’s chest, I assumed grabbing onto his tunic or shirt, although it was impossible to tell. Gray gunk squeezed up through the king’s long, white fingers, like writhing worms. It dripped down his hand, and splattered the stones at his feet, but he didn’t seem to notice. His smile turned feral.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he told the vamp. “It took twelve of your kind to find him in the hells and bring him out to me, for which they charged me a fortune—only for him to escape that very night. It’s taken me months to track him down, and in the process, he has killed dozens of my people. But I have him now—”
“You have nothing!” the vamp spat. “He is Rosier’s heir! If you think that slimy bastard won’t tear this world apart to find him—”
“Tear away,” Aeslinn said, glancing about contemptuously. “Who would notice? But I will have him, nonetheless. There aren’t many strong ones left—”
“Then you’ll have to take the weak,” the vamp said, and knocked his hand away.
“Have a care, demon,” Aeslinn hissed, his good humor suddenly gone.
“I am, and it seems that I’m the only one who is. This one goes missing, and you’ll give the whole game away. We’ve worked too hard to risk it all now—”
“We!” Aeslinn roared, the formerly porcelain face suddenly flushed and furious. “I do the work; I take the risks; I suffer the losses! What have you ever done—”
“Keep the demon council off your back? Else you would have been shut down, long ago. And likely skinned and eaten as well, but not like the gods do, elfling, so clean and pure. But raw and red and while you’re still thrashing—”
I never found out what Aeslinn’s reply would have been to that, because he didn’t get a chance to make one. Unless you count the grunt he let out before going to one knee. It took me a second to realize what had happened, to see the blood bloom on the light gray of his tunic, bright and red and surprising, to see his hand go down to the knife that Pritkin had just shoved into his belly.
It looked like the king had some kind of armor on underneath that tunic, which the knife had hit and then slid off. But Pritkin had gotten the weapon below it now, and was trying to slice upward, toward the heart, while the king struggled to hold him off until his dull-witted guards caught on. They did so a second later, belatedly realizing that the stinking mage had somehow grown an extra arm, which he was using to kill their king.
Everything abruptly stopped, as frozen as before. And I turned on the telepath, my heart in my throat. “What happened? Why did you stop it?”
“I didn’t,” she said, and nodded at the scene behind me.
I turned back to see half a dozen vamps emerging from the inner room and crowding around the fey, who remained motionless. Pritkin mostly was as well, only he seemed to have retained a small amount of mobility, and you had to give him credit. He was using it to continue to try to force the knife upward.
Or he was until the big vamp pulled it out and threw it aside. “Heal him,” he told one of the new arrivals, gesturing at Aeslinn. “As for you—” He jerked Pritkin toward him. “Nothing but trouble, just like your father! We should have killed you years ago.”
Pritkin managed a small smile, and then used the rest of his mobility to spit in the creature’s face.
“Sleep!” the vampire snarled, as gray gunk slid down his cheek, because it looked like his captive had swallowed some mud, too.
Pritkin went limp—for real this time—and the fake arm he’d magicked up to fool one of his guards abruptly disappeared. It caused his body to sag to the floor, landing wetly, but the big vamp was taking no chances. He kicked the supine form with his shoe, then gestured for his servants to drag Pritkin back.
They did so, albeit cautiously, and one of them got a knee on his spine, just in case. I took an alarmed step forward, before stopping and feeling like a fool. This had all happened hundreds of years ago.
“What about the others, my lord?” an obsequious looking vamp asked, while practically bent double in a bow. “Should we kill them?”
“No. Put them back where the damned fey found them. We don’t need any more disruptions.”
“Won’t the king object?”
“The king won’t remember,” the big vamp said grimly. “None of them will.”
And they hadn’t, I thought, as the scene finally ended. But an arrow had. Probably because the guards had just seen their king stabbed, and knew they had let it happen. They must have expected to die for that, and quite likely would have—if the big vamp hadn’t made it all go away.
Only no, not a vamp, I thought, staring at the florid face. Something much worse. And, damn, did I feel out of my depth right now.
“Did you understand that?” the telepath demanded. “Do you know what they’re doing?”
“No,” I told her. “But I know someone who might.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
T he forest was dark and strange calls echoed through the treetops. I couldn’t see a damned thing, even with moonlight shining from above, because only a few spears of light managed to penetrate the heavy tree cover. Just enough to silver some of the big leaves hitting me in the face—right after they’d already done so. The leaves contained some kind of sap that burned like a bitch, even though I wasn’t really here, so that should have been impossible.
But tell that to my skin, I thought, trying to rub off a face full of sticky, itchy stuff.
“Auggghhhh!”
I jumped as a human cry echoed through the trees. It was close and loud and startled a bunch of what I really hoped were birds out of the canopy, sending them flapping and screeching into the night. I clapped a hand over my mouth, to keep my own cry behind my teeth, only to have something come crashing at me through the underbrush and knock it away.
I hit the forest floor, stunned, and not just because of the blow. But because I’d landed on a hard as steel tree root, which as luck would have it, had made a direct impact on my spine. The blow shuddered through me like a hit to my funny bone, only this was a whole-body experience, leaving me gasping and agonized—
And then pissed, when the same damned root tried to wrap around my arm.
I skipped anger and went straight to fury, because I’d been here before. Back when I was a wet behind the ears Pythia, I’d ended up in Faerie with a war mage who had died to protect me. Because every. Goddamned. Thing. In this horrible world wanted to kill me!
Only not this time, I thought, jerking the bastard root out of the soil and beating it with vampire strength. Tearing, ripping, and shredding the hard old bark and the sinewy tissue below it, I kept it up until the stupid thing was little more than a wad of pulp. And then ripped it off and threw it into the trees, hearing it tear through the dense underbrush and then keep on going, because a mas
ter vampire can throw a damned long way!
“You want some more?” I asked the rest of the roots scrawling over the dirt at my feet. “Do you?”
They did not want any more, retreating into the soil like the grasping hands they mimicked. I stomped on a few of the slower ones anyway, just because. And it felt so good that I did it again.
Goddamn, I hated Faerie!
I finally stopped, breathing hard, and then began trying to extricate myself from some brambles. They were not animated, but they’d caught me anyway. Because I was wearing a white lace torture device that caught on every damned—
There was a woman lying on the dirt, staring up at me with huge, frightened eyes.
It took me second to recognize her, because her skin blended in well with the night, giving her a natural camouflage that I really envied right now. But a finger of moonlight gleamed in her eyes and on the expensive brooch she wore. It was the telepath, I realized, still in her stylish houndstooth.
I suddenly wondered if she’d like a change of clothing, too. Then I wondered if that was even possible. I decided to find out.
“Can you do jeans?”
She stared at me some more.
Okay, fair enough. Jeans did exist in her era, but tended to be found more on miners and farm hands, and less in fashionable circles around London. I decided to try again.
“You know, trousers? And maybe a long-sleeved shirt? These brambles are tearing me to—”
I stopped talking, because she wasn’t responding. In fact, she looked almost catatonic. I bent down, intending to wave a hand in front of her face, only to have her scream again and scramble away on hands and knees.
Great.
Just great.
I hiked up my skirts and went after her.
It wasn’t hard to catch up, because part fey or not, she didn’t seem overly familiar with her surroundings. She was weaving wildly, crashing through bushes and bumping into trees, like a human ping pong ball. I felt a little bad, because that was partly my fault. I should have exited one bit of weirdness before getting into another, but all I’d been thinking about was finding Pritkin and maybe getting a few answers for once, assuming that Mircea could jog his memory.
But because I’d gone straight here instead of taking the scenic route through Gertie’s parlor, the telepath had ended up tagging along. It was the Iris situation all over again, only this hitchhiker didn’t seem nearly so enthusiastic. Or, you know, sane.
I finally grabbed her near a massive old oak, mainly because it had grabbed her first. I snapped the spindly branches it was using to drag her toward the churning dirt at the base of its roots, like hungry hands stuffing food into a gaping mouth. And then beat the tree with them until it reared back, like a startled cat getting hit with a newspaper.
Damn, but I loved vampire strength! I was really going to miss it after we broke the spell for good. Assuming that I lived long enough, I thought, because the telepath was screaming again.
“Shut up!” I told her, glancing at the forest. I didn’t think I could be hurt in this form, but then, I shouldn’t have been able to beat up a tree, either. So, I didn’t know.
“Augghhh! Augghhh! Augghhh!”
“Shut up or I’ll slap you!”
That did not improve things, and frankly, I didn’t know what would. I suddenly, fervently, wished I had Rhea here, with her gentle ways and sweet words, to soothe the crazy out of this one before every nasty thing in the forest found us. But I just had me, and I wasn’t even that good at soothing myself, much less—
“Lady?”
The screaming abruptly stopped. “What is she doing here?” the telepath panted, staring behind me.
Well, shit.
“Do you have a name?” I asked her tiredly.
“What?”
“A name. Something I can call you other than ‘the telepath.’ It’s getting old.”
She stared at me some more. She seemed to like doing that. I nudged her gently with my shoe.
“Lady?” Rhea’s soft, if rather worried, tones came from behind me again. I sighed.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I don’t know what I’m doing and I screwed up, okay? I didn’t mean to drag you into this—”
“What is this?” she asked, sounding concerned.
And then the telepath started screaming again. I scowled and crouched down beside her, only to hear my damned skirt rip at the waist. Son of a—
“Why are you screaming?” Rhea asked the woman, looking a bit freaked out, while I examined the damage.
The telepath stopped long enough to glare at her. “I don’t know! I don’t know anything! Leave me alone, the both of you!”
“Then stop making those sounds,” I told her.
“Or what?”
“Or something may come along and try to eat you.”
“It already did!” She looked back at the hungry tree, which was just standing there, looking all innocent and tree-like at the moment. “My God—”
“I thought you were part fey,” I said. “Haven’t you ever been to Faerie before?”
She transferred her stare from the tree to me. “Is—is that where we are?”
How many Earth trees have ever tried to turn you into mulch? I didn’t say, because I didn’t want her to start screaming again. “Yes—”
“Why?”
“Because I need to see a guy and that’s where he is right now,” I said crabbily. “Although he’s not supposed to be.”
I didn’t know why Pritkin and Mircea were hanging around the feys’ merry murder land. Most people who tripped through a fey portal tried to trip back out of one as soon as they possibly could. But it had been half a day since I’d seen them, and since they’d escaped whatever the hell had been going on in those tunnels.
So, why weren’t they home yet?
And why were they hiding? I looked around again, but there was no sign of either of them. Mircea had been right there before, when he’d pulled me into his last escapade, so where was he now?
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I told Rhea.
“You do?” The telepath seemed to have recovered, and was struggling to her feet. “You hijacked my brain!”
“Yes, well, not intentionally.”
“And dragged me into Faerie, of all places!”
“I didn’t drag you, and my God. They say I’m a whiner!”
I got back to my feet, too. Half of my dress stayed behind, sagging from a badly torn waistband. And that was just great. What was I supposed to do now? Flash all of Faerie?
Wouldn’t be the first time, I thought, and then told myself to shut up.
“I am not a whiner,” the telepath said stiffly. She had the gall to look offended.
“Okay, prove it.”
Now she looked confused. “How?”
“Three things: do you have a name?”
“I—of course, I have a name!”
“Can I have it?”
She suddenly looked afraid. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to keep calling you ‘the telepath’? I thought I already said that.”
She swallowed. “You—you’re not going to . . . do . . . anything with it?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know!” She threw out her arms. “I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t trust you!”
“Her name is Guinevere Lacey,” Rhea reminded me quietly. Because I guessed someone had been paying attention to Agnes’ introduction.
I looked at the telepath. “Guinevere? Seriously?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, it’s just . . . kind of medieval. I guess you go by Guinn?”
“No!” And then her eyes started darting around. “It’s not my real name,” she added, loudly. “It’s made up!”
“I don’t care,” I told her. “Number two, can you fix my dress?”
Her eyes came back to mine, and indignation was now mixed with the fear and confusion. “I’m not a seams
tress!”
I thought about banging my head against a tree.
I thought hard.
Rhea put a hand on my arm. “I have a pin.”
She held out a bobby pin, probably from her hair.
“Thanks, but I don’t think that’s going to work,” I said, right before a hand grasped my arm and started shaking me.
It did not belong to Rhea.
“Why are you worried about a dress?” Guinn whispered. “We’re in Faerie.”
“Now she whispers,” I said to Rhea.
The shaking intensified.
“Stop that!” I shook off her grip. “And no, you’re not in Faerie. None of us is in Faerie. We’re in front of the fireplace at Gertie’s and perfectly safe. We just took a little mental detour, that’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, that’s all. Now, can you put me in jeans or not? I don’t know how long we’re going to have to thrash our way through this jungle, and this dress isn’t working.”
“Put yourself in them. What am I, your servant?”
I glared at her. “Fine. You know what? Just go back. I’ll deal with this myself.”
“Fine!”
She stood there. I waited. She crossed her arms.
“Are you leaving?” I finally asked.
“Are you searching for a way to stop Aeslinn?” she shot back.
I spread my arms. “Well, what do you think I’m doing here?”
She scowled some more. But after a moment, the scowl concentrated, focusing on my dress. I waited hopefully.
Nothing changed, except for some sweat trickling down my back, because this part of Faerie was steamy.
I waited a while longer, then wondered if it would help if I pictured a pair of jeans in my mind. “Do you want me to—”
“No! Just stand there!”
I stood there, alongside Rhea, who was looking hopeful, too. Probably because she didn’t want to tromp through a wood in full Edwardian regalia any more than I did. But we were both disappointed.
“I can’t,” Guinn finally said, panting slightly. And resting a hand on a nearby tree until she remembered where we were, and abruptly snatched it back.
“Why not? If we’re just some kind of mental projection—”
