bedeviled & beyond 07 - beset & bewildered (20 page)

I frowned. “Dark fairies? Can they even access the forest? I thought dark worlders were rejected from it.”

Caninra glanced at me. Her gaze was dark against her pale skin, the very center of each eye flaring with red. The look she gave me was hostile, her posture stiff. As I had every other time I’d come face to face with the Hellhound keeper, I wondered why she disliked me so much. Maybe it was a bitch thing.

Caninra shrugged. “They smell like light fairies, but I’m sensing dark magic in them.”

“How is that possible?” I asked no one in particular.

Caninra shrugged.

“They’ve taken refuge in the royal court,” Slayer responded. “Maybe they’re succumbing to their darker natures.”

“Or their madness has finally taken them over,” Caninra added.

King Aelfric’s light fairies had chosen to disregard the celestial admonition not to live among humans and, as a result had lost Heaven as a protector and had cut a deal with Dialle the First—the current Dialle’s father—for protection. Unfortunately, their determination to live among humans had been more damaging to their minds than anyone could have imagined. Madness was a serious and growing problem for King Aelfric’s people. In fact, rumors had started to fly that even the good king’s mind was starting to twist.

Slayer moved up next to Caninra. “Where are they?”

The hound keeper pointed toward a spot in the distance, near the base of the mountain range. A soft glow shimmered behind the vegetation, dancing as the wide, green leaves swayed in a sultry breeze.

I moved in for a better look. “Maybe they can’t come inside after all. It looks like they’re hovering at the edge of the forest.”

Caninra shook her head. “They’re in. I felt the change in the magic when they breeched the perimeter.”

Slayer frowned. “Then what are they doing?”

Caninra lifted her inscrutable gaze to his. “If I had to guess I’d say they’re waiting for something...or someone.”

A horrible thought occurred. “Could they somehow create a barrier that would allow Morta to breech the perimeter?”

“That’s what I’ve been worrying about since I spotted them,” Caninra said. “I don’t know that it’s ever been done, but it is theoretically possible.”

Silence throbbed between us while we all digested the horrific possibilities. Then Slayer turned to Caninra. “How long until the others return?”

“An hour at most,” she responded, her eyes flashing the color of flame. “My people are closer.”

Slayer nodded. “Then let’s go see what we’re dealing with here. Whatever the fairies are planning to do, it’s clear they haven’t done it yet. Maybe we can speak to their better natures.”

~SC~

Unfortunately, it turned out that the better natures of the fairies in the forest had long ago stopped being better. In fact, I would say they tended toward worse.

As we approached, the court rose up in a cloud of buzzing wings and fairy dust with swords drawn. The three inch tall fairy at the front of the court slouched arrogantly against his sword, his wings flapping so quickly they were a blur on the air. His tiny face was a mask of arrogance. He tossed his head as we approached, flinging a thick mop of bright red hair away from his face, and lifted his sword. “Stop. We have not given you permission to approach.”

Caninra growled low in her slender throat and the fairies became more agitated. Their leader slid a haughty gaze over her. “Who let the dogs in?”

The growl got louder as the herd of fairies tittered, the sound like a thousand bugs rubbing their wings together.

I stepped up to Caninra, placing a restraining hand on her arm. She shook me off with a glare.

“Who am I addressing?” I asked their leader

The man-shaped bug’s chin rose another notch. “I do not gift you with my name, halfling.”

Slayer’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword. “We wish no trouble with the fairies. But we took refuge in this forest first. You’re the ones who are intruding on us,” he told them very reasonably. “We have no choice but to assume you are enemies.”

Laughter rippled through the herd again.

I slid Slayer a look, dipping into our shared mental channel.
They’re way too cocky. They must have someone really powerful in their corner.

Slayer inclined his chin and turned back to the lead insect. “Does your king know you’re here?”

The flame-haired leader dropped an inch on the air, his arrogance slipping just enough to be noticeable.

We had our answer.

“Maybe we should tell him,” I suggested. “I’m sure King Aelfric will be happy to come fetch you back before you break the imperatives of the Primordial Forest.”

A soft buzzing ensued in the court and Red had his tiny little hands full getting his court to quiet again. Once he’d gotten them under control, he turned back to us with a smug smile. “Aelfric cannot stop what has begun. He is of yesterday. We are the fairies of today.”

“So you admit you’ve gone rogue?” Slayer asked.

Red glared smugly at my sexy Slayer. “We have taken back our history, halfling. Fairies were never meant to be of the light. We suppressed our darker natures millennia ago and have suffered for it.”

“Yet you are not averse to using what’s left of your light to break core magic law, are you?” Caninra asked him in a husky, growly tone of voice.

The fairy lifted a few inches on the air, his hand tightening over the hilt of his sword. He looked for a moment like he might take offense to her accusation, but then he laughed. My stomach twisted at the sight of his open-mouthed smile. His teeth were small and jagged, deadly sharp. I felt Slayer stiffen beside me and realized he’d seen the same thing.

The light fairies I’d encountered in the past hadn’t sported such teeth. There was definitely dark magic at play.

“Only a stupid creature would overlook his strengths in the pursuit of power.” Red flashed forward, stopping several feet closer to Caninra. She blinked in surprise at his self-confidence and tried to grab him out of the air. He danced easily away with a laugh that was echoed in the court.

Slayer’s expression seemed to verify what I was thinking. Whatever their purpose for being there, the fairies obviously meant us harm. And we couldn’t let them stay. He drew his sword and I pulled magic from my core. In a flash, Caninra’s shape rippled and she leapt forward in her Hellhound form, fire flaring from between jaws that had opened in an enraged roar.

True to his boast that he wasn’t stupid, Red shot skyward, his sword flashing. He whistled, a high-pitched sound that pierced my eardrums like a blade, and the herd of fairies surged in our direction, their tiny faces dark with rage. 

I felt the first touch of fairy string on my arm and spun to slice it off. I knew from experience that if they could get enough of the nasty stuff wrapped around me I’d have trouble getting free. Even as I cut the first strand, several more found my limbs and pulled taut, slicing into my skin.

As we’d gotten used to doing on the job, Slayer and I went back to back and circled, using blade and magic to keep the nasty bugs at bay.

Pain seared my left shoulder and I yelped, reaching up to swat the female fairy away, she flew backward, my blood dripping down her chin and coating her scary looking teeth.

I didn’t have time to examine my wound because Slayer and I were suddenly inundated with fairies. The nasty little things shot toward us, wrapping their shimmering string around any part of our bodies they could reach and then dodging away before we could retaliate.

Several more fairies landed on my legs, sinking their horrible teeth into my flesh. I reached down without thinking and zapped one of them with a power arrow, screaming in pain as I shot myself in the calf.

Slayer half turned, his blade still flashing through the night. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t...” I ducked a yellow-haired female wielding a blood covered blade and then swung my arm and zapped her as she flew past. Her scream of pain disintegrated along with her nasty little bug body. “...worry about me. Just keep fighting. There are more of these than I thought.”

Several strands of fairy string found my wrist and my arm flew skyward, smacking Slayer in the back of the head.

“Ouch! Hey!”

“Sorry!” I wrenched my arm downward, whiplashing the fairies on the other end into the dirt. As they scrambled to get back up I sent energy into them with a little more enthusiasm than I probably needed, smiling meanly as they disintegrated into fairy dust.

I sneezed as the dust filled my sinuses.

Caninra yelped and I turned to see how she fared.

She was covered, head to toe with bugs. They were biting her and several flew around her legs, binding them with fairy string. She was in trouble.

“I’m going to help her,” I yelled over my shoulder to Slayer. “Hold the fort.”

“My pleasure.” He spun with his blade and dissected a line of fairies, spraying us with sparkling dust as they died.

His hand came up and energy spun over his palm. I didn’t wait to see how he would use it. I threw myself into the air and rolled, shooting energy in a coil of power that the fairies couldn’t quite manage to avoid. When I landed, I knelt beside Caninra and sliced her legs free, then jumped back as she reared up with a roar and spun around, roasting the fairies that had been coating her as they lifted off her broad back.

I stepped backward, out of the line of her fire, and came up against something tall, dark and deadly.

Unfortunately it wasn’t Slayer.

The curved blade of the ghoul’s scythe slipped around my throat and a grave-like scent washed over me.

Lifting a terrified gaze, I found myself looking into Morta’s ugly face.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A Reluctant Apprentice

A Necromancer’s smorgasbord is no place to be,

Especially when the monster thinks you’d make a tasty main course.

Morta smiled and the contents of my colon liquefied. “We meet again, my dear. And again your friends have deserted you.”

I did a quick scan of the area and saw that she was right. I was alone...except for the ghoul holding me captive and Morta. Fear set my pulse to pounding. What had the Necromancer done to them? “I assume you had something to do with that.”

Her smile widened. “Perhaps.”

A harsh buzzing whizzed past my ear and I swatted at it without thinking. The red-haired fairy just barely dodged out of the way. He hovered on the air in front of Morta, glaring at me. “My liege, the others are nearly here.”

Morta inclined her chin, turning a speculative gaze to me. “Then I guess we best get going.”

The world thinned, tightening around me, and I opened my mouth to scream a warning to Astra and the others, but I never got the chance. I slammed into the shift with the scream still throbbing in my throat, my mind roiling.

I couldn’t go back to that icy cavern that smelled of death. I couldn’t suffer through another round of night visions. I’d kill myself before I allowed that to happen.

In that moment I made a decision. As soon as my feet hit the ground I’d fling myself forward onto the ghoul’s scythe.

My pulse pounded in my ears as the shift stretched around me. But even as my body reacted with fear at the thought of dying, a sense of peace blossomed in my chest. My death would take away Slayer’s need to save me and remove Torre’s link to our ill-fated mark forever.

Astra would mourn. But in the end she’d be safer too.

I readied my mind to do what needed to be done. But when my feet touched the ground again, it wasn’t icy rock. Instead, the surface under my feet was soft and green, the air clean and sweet with the scent of flowers.

My sister’s name tore free of my throat and disrupted the quiet darkness where we’d landed.

The bony hand on my shoulder tightened as I stumbled forward and the blade dropped away.

Blinking in surprise, I looked around at the wide, green expanse of an ancient cemetery, one that even had tombstones on some of the older graves.

A sick feeling tumbled in my belly. Morta hadn’t taken me back to the frozen environs. She’d brought be back to an unsuspecting Earth.

Unleashing the most powerful necromancer in all the dimensions on the human population? Yeah, that wouldn’t end badly.

I swung my gaze to Morta, finding her studying me carefully through her strange eyes. “Yes, halfling. I have brought you home.”

If only. “You don’t belong in this dimension, Necromancer.”

She glanced around. “It’s true I haven’t been here for a thousand years or more.” Morta frowned. “It has changed considerably hasn’t it?”

The ghoul behind me shifted slightly, its robes making a soft swishing sound that was echoed by a soft, warm breeze.

The hairs on my neck stood at attention and I wondered if it was because I had a rancid dead guy with a scythe standing behind me. That would certainly make sense.

But then I caught something out of the corner of my eye and I realized the cold feeling might have more to do with the hundreds of spectral shapes rising from their graves, than the single monster standing directly behind me.

I looked at Morta and her eyes were closed, arms outstretched, as if she were calling them.

Energy sparked on the air near some of the spooks. It was black, edged in blue like the energy I’d consumed in my night visions. I considered again that the visions might not have been as fictional as I’d assumed.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked her.

Morta’s eyes flashed open and I gasped. They swirled black and blue like the energy dancing on the air. She was sucking the spirits in the cemetery dry.

I couldn’t let her consume all of the death energy in that place. She was already too powerful to handle. I had to distract her.

Picking a spot in the cemetery, I sent myself into a shift. Unfortunately, when I landed I was still looking at Morta. But I was happy to see she was no longer eating energy. She wore a smug smile. “You cannot outrun me, my lovely. I have been inside your mind. I have seen everything you are capable of and what you are not. I know more about you than you do, I’m afraid.”