Ruled by Tainted Blood

by Michael J Allen

  He raised the pistol with an unsteady hand. “They’re not real. This is a game. This isn’t real.”

  One of the creatures charged him.

  Foxner leapt from where she was, throwing him back and putting two bullets into the charging creature at close range as its hair sliced into her.

  His fall put him in the path of an attack meant for the detective. He reacted, firing seven times even though the last two clicked against already discharged shells.

  “I-I got one.” Dylan said.

  “More incoming,” Foxner snapped.

  Hadley returned to the book, flipping pages as respectfully as her hurried search allowed.

  Foxner fired over a kneeling Dylan as he slid shells into his pistol’s cylinders.

  Three more heads reinforced the initial wave.

  She flipped more pages. Something green caught her eye. She turned pages the other way in a hurry, drawing a finger down the cant under a picture of their attackers.

  Scribbles in the margin drew her eye away from her finger. She squinted, forced to fumble her glasses out of the bag and squint at Nana’s horrid penmanship.

  A chuckle escaped her lips.

  Oxen plops! Ain’t nothing better for sorting Jenny Greenteeth than a cast iron walloping ‘til she gets the point.

  Hadley was tempted to keep reading the rest of the passage, but Nana’s notes had never proved wrong.

  Besides, this sounds like fun.

  She dug into the bag looking for her heavy Sunday Fried Chicken pan, grabbing onto a thick line of dark brown above her in the tree trunk. The handhold helped her regain her feet. She picked up the bag with one hand without letting go of the pan in her other.

  She picked her steps across the treacherous drawn landscape as Foxner and Quayla’s Dylan fired their guns. To either side, the nasty green heads spread out trying to circle around them. One of the nasty green heads eyed Hadley a moment before rushing by on a headlong dash toward Quayla’s Dylan.

  Hadley brought out the pan in a smooth overhead swing.

  Cast iron splattered the head against the drawn water, evergreen ick dripping down between the lines.

  All of the Jennys froze, turning their attention toward Hadley.

  Foxner gave her an incredulous look before shooting the still faeries.

  “They sell single person versions at Bed, Bath, & Beyond,” Hadley stalked toward the next nearest Jenny. “Not sure they’d be quite as effective as this old hand-me-down though.”

  “No, sh—shoot,” Foxner said.

  Hadley’s cast iron pan smashed another Jenny like a week-old jack-o-lantern.

  Foxner barked instructions and both of them rushed around behind Hadley, taking up protective positions to either side as she strode to each Jenny in turn. When only one remained, it retreated back into the water.

  Hadley stopped short at the water’s edge.

  Dylan turned away from them, dropped to his knees and sprayed the squiggles with vomit.

  “He’ll be fine,” Foxner said. “Please tell me that book has something that can help us with this.”

  “No,” Hadley dug a small oxygen tank with a breathing mask from her bag. “This isn’t a SCUBA tank and won’t last three of us long, but it might serve long enough.”

  Dylan wiped his mouth and reached for the tank. “I’ll go down there. You two—”

  “Can you believe these two aren’t married yet?” Hadley asked.

  “They’re not even the same species,” Foxner said. “If anyone’s going down there alone, it’s me.”

  Hadley rolled her eyes, set the bag to one side, took a deep breath and descended the stairs. A line of pain lashed across her calf. Red blossomed in the water at her side. Hadley slammed the water near her leg with the pan.

  “Let me by,” Foxner said.

  Instead, Hadley took several hurried steps downward, squatting a little once the water buoyed her weight. Pain flashed across her arm. She flinched, nearly dropping the oxygen tank into the water. She two more hurried steps, submerged her head and blinked rapidly until she could see.

  A blob of green rushed toward her through the water.

  Hadley extended the pan, her voice coming out strange to her ears. “Back off, missy, or you’ll regret it.”

  Foxner shot downward in a line of bubbles, twisting in the water with flashlight and gun pointing wildly. She’d only gone a few feet below Hadley before bubbles erupted from the detective’s lips like she’d been punched.

  Hadley hurried down the spiral stair. She got as close as she could to the detective and extended the frying pan. “Grab on.”

  Foxner dropped her flashlight and grabbed the pan.

  Hadley dragged her back onto the stairs and pushed the tank toward the detective.

  She had to holster her gun to turn the tank on and fortunately had enough air left in her lungs to expel water from inside the mouthpiece.

  She took a few deep breaths before handing it back. “Thanks.”

  Hadley pressed the breathing mask to her face, tipping it a bit to leave the bottom of the seal loose and exhaled the used air from her lungs. She pressed it tight against her face and took a long breath before handing it up to Dylan.

  SCUBA mouthpiece would’ve been easier.

  She turned her attention back to a rapid descent, but Foxner refused to surrender the lead. Luckily, the detective didn’t dally, even while drawing her weapon.

  Can that thing even fire under water?

  Hadley kept an eye out for Jenny as they continued trading the tank all the way down to the bottom. About one flight up, she caught sight of some kind of grotto in a bubble.

  She pointed.

  Foxner leapt off the last few steps, careless that the pressure off the stairs had been so much greater when she’d jumped before.

  Maybe she braced herself better this time.

  It took only a moment to see Foxner was in distress. Cries bubbled from her mouth.

  Hadley rushed the last few steps, then hesitated. She turned back, gesturing for Dylan to take the oxygen to the detective. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, she had to let Dylan take the risk. If the pressure was too bad, her older bones wouldn’t take as much beating as his would. As long as she stayed on the stair, she could drag him back on and hopefully Foxner if he grabbed the detective.

  Dylan fared no better than Foxner, losing the tank when the pressure hit him.

  “Grab her and grab my hand,” Hadley shouted into the water.

  Quayla’s Dylan clawed at his throat.

  Hadley reached out, trying to hook him with her pan. He slipped off the rounded cast iron.

  A flash of blinding blue light exploded through the water. Hadley nearly gasped as a majestic bird rocketed through the water like a water-spout-driven manta ray. It grabbed Foxner and Dylan in its talons, shoved them into the grotto and circled back to grab Hadley.

  Despite being made of water, the talons pinching Hadley could’ve shredded or broken her like a titmouse. A shroud of darkness swallowed Hadley as Quayla jerked her off the stairs. It departed just as suddenly as Quayla set her down on soft sand. Foxner and Dylan choked on hands and knees to either side.

  Woman Quayla bent next to Dylan, face taught with worry and eyes filled with daggers for the other woman present.

  Hadley knelt next to Foxner, thankful for soft sand to cushion her knees. “Are you all right, dear?”

  Foxner choked and nodded.

  Hadley rose to face the other woman, extending her cast iron pan. “You’re going to let Quayla go or there will be trouble, missy.”

  The Lady laughed.

  Hadley shook the pan. “I mean it.”

  “I have no intention of surrendering my prize, Hadley Sage Cox—at least not to you,” the Lady said

  Hadley thumbed her shawl’s coins. “It’s a bargain then is it?”

  The Lady laughed again. “I am not frightened by your forbear’s bride coins or cast iron. You haven’t anything worth
the trade.”

  “My life,” Hadley said.

  “Mrs. Cox, no!” Quayla objected.

  “Too old.”

  Dylan struggled to his feet, voice croaking. “Then take me.”

  In the blink of an eye, sweet Quayla became something dangerous. A harsh growl rasped from her throat. “Absolutely not. You shouldn’t have come.”

  The Lady tilted her head to one side, a brow arched high on her pale forehead.

  Foxner shot her.

  The Lady reeled, blood bubbling from the chest wound. She tumbled on the edge of the clam’s shell.

  Foxner leapt to her feet and charged, training the gun on the prone woman. Before she took a second shot, water rushed into the grotto. The clam closed around the bleeding Lady a moment before Quayla wrapped around Hadley once more.

  Darkness and motion delivered her, Dylan and Foxner to the top of the spiral stair, vanishing as Quayla dove back down to the grotto.

  Dylan tried to force his way past them and back down the stairs, but Hadley grabbed him. Foxner muscled him above the water by his other arm.

  “What are you doing,” Dylan asked. “She needs us.”

  “We don’t have any air,” Foxner shot back.

  “Out of the water, children,” Hadley stepped out onto the blue squiggles. She checked her bag unpilfered, relief flooding as the Book she hadn’t dared take underwater came into view.

  Foxner fought Dylan onto what served as ground. She was smaller, but exploited the benefits of police training to get her way. Dylan relented, rubbing his shoulder after she released the arm lock she had him in.

  Quayla walked out of the water a moment later, Judith’s body cradled in her arms.

  “Oh, no,” Hadley said.

  Terrance

  Terrance jerked his truck’s steering wheel, and shot into his driveway. He’d slammed through the roof of the elevator where emergency brakes had stopped it in the shaft. The car had been empty, Oshyn, his brownies and the stolen nests gone through an Arch into Faery.

  He’d left no traffic law unbroken in his rush to reach his Dallas home. He barely avoided ripping the door off of his truck in his haste. Taint slammed into him the moment the door open.

  He summoned his cestus, rushing through the security system so fast he had to do so twice. He hurried into his trashed living room, eyes fixed on cracked and violet smeared atrium glass.

  He charged up the hallway, ignoring ripped open doors and trashed contents. The security door into the atrium had been ripped off its hinges by something enormous. The atrium itself was strewn with body after bloody, Unseelie body.

  Under shredded edderkopp web, Yarque lay in the place where Terrance’s nest belonged. The kobold’s tracht was ripped and bloodied, golden blood staining white shirt and evergreen vest a similar brown.

  Golden blood?

  Terrance pushed the thought away and dropped next to Yarque. The old kobolds eyes flickered open, malicious delight sparkling.

  “You’re going to owe me big for this, boy.”

  “You want to tell me for what before I agree to an unbalanced payment?”

  “They smashed my hat and ruined my clothes. You’re going to offer me recompense, boy, and make no mistake, when you find the nasty scunners, you’ll call Yarque for a reckoning,” A coughing fit overtook Yarque. “They’ll show a soldier of the Most High proper respect or by all that’s precious I’ll rip their legs off, shove them high and make them hop on their asses.”

  Terrance couldn’t help a laugh. “Rest up, old man. You’ll get your chance. Did they take my nest?”

  “That they did, boy. Couldn’t stop them.”

  Brows shifted up Terrance’s forehead. “You couldn’t stop them?”

  Yarque shook his head, helped to a sitting position. “Three old nasty trolls, almost my age if you can believe it, and dozens of Unseelie whelps I broke in your honor.”

  “Why so many just for my nest?” Terrance asked.

  “Take it as the compliment it is, boy. They came looking to war with you, and they did not spare the troops,” Yarque laughed. “They didn’t count on you honoring a truly old Power with a place in your garden.”

  “It’s you who honor me, Yarque.” Terrance brought him a wooden cup of spring water. “If you’re well enough, I must step outside and contact my Shield.”

  Yarque took the cup, nodding as he drank so fast that water spilled out the corners of his mouth.

  17: Facing the Music

  Quayla

  I stepped back into Creation with Judith still cradled in my arms. The space between crayon palm trees had seemed empty, but sweet Mrs. Cox shook her book at us and insisted the portal worked both ways if we could believe past the glamour.

  Dylan and Foxner might’ve had a harder time with their weaker human wills, but Mrs. Cox disappearing through the empty space had made them believers too.

  I assessed the tableau waiting for me.

  Dylan stood in the open room, gills a little green, jaw tight in that line it got when he was working out a hard problem. His hand shook almost imperceptibly around the revolver he’d used to kill faeries while charging to my rescue. If it hadn’t been for Judith’s corpse in my arms, his masculinity might’ve stirred up desire.

  Foxner stood guard near the doorframe, gun ready for trouble. Dirty and disheveled, she remained a solid warrior. A modern-day paladin—fierce, forbidding and hot in a way that gentle Dylan couldn’t quite mimic even after his heroics.

  Mrs. Cox sat atop an old box with a garish carpetbag on her lap. Her eyes examined the room in much the same way as I did. A warry, piercing look spoke of a mortal that saw more than the others.

  Too much more.

  A muffled voice reached me from beneath my blouse. “Shield Quayla? I see you. Are you well? What has transpired?”

  “Not now, Ani. I’m fine, and I’ll report soon.”

  “Your nest has been stolen,” Anima said.

  The world wobbled on its axis. Before I knew it, Foxner was there catching Judith and reaching out a steadying hand.

  “Did Anima say your nest was stolen?” Dylan’s voice sounded too high in the empty ruin of an apartment. “But without an egg and a nest—”

  “Not now, Dylan,” I snapped.

  Mrs. Cox got off her seat and sidled to his side. She drew him away, speaking to him in low tones.

  I didn’t have time for him at the moment. I could apologize later. The Lady had claimed my nest lost, but I hadn’t fully believed the powerful faerie. I’d snapped at Dylan because he’d voiced my rising terror before it could solidify enough for me to get a grip on it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to the room in general. “Just give me a minute.”

  Only moments before, I had been on the precipice of several horrible choices. The three mortals in the room had gone where they shouldn’t, seen what they were forbidden to see, and endured things their brains weren’t meant to contain.

  I needed to call Summus for a rewrite. Only hands filled by Judith’s body had shielded me from making that decision. I looked down at my empty hands and the body Foxner set down in the debris at my feet.

  She’s dead because of me—not because of my choices, I don’t really have any, but because the faeries wanted to attack me.

  My eyes rose to meet Dylan’s concerned gaze. I dropped them to the gun in his fist.

  I love you, Dylan, and I can’t bear to lose you. Rewriting away this incident won’t be enough to protect you. It might stuff Pandora’s shadow back into an amphora, but you’ll still be on the target list.

  If I rewrote him back to before he’d seen the ogre, he’d be the same man I’d fallen in love with, but less armed for dealing with the stress of the world evolving around us. If I rewrote him completely out of my life, he’d be safer—probably—but I wouldn’t have him to bolster my strength and make me feel sane when the world tried to break me.

  The feeling of scrutiny drew my eyes to meet Foxner’s. Shadows watched me
from within the deep blue. I could almost feel the other woman’s understanding, even her pity.

  They all needed rewritten. That was the selfless decision. If their realities had never included the recent madness, they couldn’t become leverage.

  Even if it means surrendering people from my life that in many ways are more in my corner than my fellow shields.

  I looked at Judith once more.

  There was no rewrite for my friend. Her soul had gone to the Creator’s arms. He would not relinquish her.

  “Stay here, I have to talk to headquarters.”

  I strode to the door with all the certainty and purpose I could fake. I had to surrender them for their own protection. It was right, and doing right was why I was created.

  I strode down the hall and into the stairwell. There was no reason to worry about cell signal for the call before me, so I tried to walk off the pain going up and down the stairs.

  I drew the silvered feather from within my blouse and held it up to my mouth. “Summuseraphi. Summuseraphi.”

  “Quayla?” Foxner stood at the top of the stairwell, just above Caelum’s marred painting of an angel. “What’s going on?”

  “Everything’s fine, I jus—”

  “Bullshit,” Foxner marched down the stairs. “You look like you’re about to call IA on your partner.”

  I closed my eyes, but my lids couldn’t hold back the tears. “Judith’s dead just because she worked with me.”

  “Judith’s dead because whoever that bitch was that I killed, she was a sociopathic nutjob.”

  “Technically faeries are amoral rather than sociopathic.”

  “Same difference. What’s going on?”

  “I’m calling for someone to re-write you, essentially—”

  “Erase our memories?” Foxner’s expression shifted into the middle distance and her voice dropped to a mumble. “That’s why Miri didn’t understand what I was talking about.”

  I raised the pendant once more.

  “Fuck that!” Foxner closed the distance and slapped away the feather. “I don’t want you screwing with my brain.”

  “It doesn’t really affect your brain, look it’s complicated and it’s for the best. If you don’t know, then you’ll be—”