Authors: Joe Ducie
“Yes.” Annie smiled. “My fiancé,
Brian.”
“Brian. He a policeman, too?”
“A paramedic, actually. Drives an
ambulance for St. John’s.”
I nodded—a fine job. Men like
Annie’s Brian cleaned up the awful messes I made.
“How about you, Mr. Hale? A
girlfriend?” She eyed my waistcoat. “Or boyfriend?”
I chuckled and swirled my scotch
around in the glass, rattling the ice. The new girl on the bar didn’t know I
took it neat, when I took it at all... “Neither, but I do tend toward women
when the mood takes me. So yes, single—not really looking.”
“Afraid someone’s going to take a
shot at her?”
Now that hit close to home. The
last, and only, two women I’d ever been involved with had both died in my
place: Tal Levy, Sophie’s sister, to the Everlasting Oblivion five years ago,
on the eve of the Degradation; and Clare Valentine just a few short months
past, to a horde of undead on the Plains of Perdition.
“Let’s not talk about that nasty
business,” I said.
“If you don’t tell us what trouble you’re
in, we can’t help you.” Annie leaned in close across the table. The precious
stone in her engagement ring sparkled as she pressed her fingertips against the
back of my hand. “Declan, you can trust me—and the police. We can protect you.”
I stared into her kind, jade-green
eyes and sighed. “You got it backward, sweet thing. I’m protecting you.”
“From what?”
“Emily,” I said and almost choked on
a sip of scotch.
Annie frowned. “Who’s Emily, and why
do I need protection—?”
“Sorry, no.” I was gazing across the
restaurant at a woman standing near the specials board—steak and nine-dollar
pie and pint night—looking fine and smiling a smile just for me. She had caught
my eye and took that as invitation to join us.
“Emily,” I said, as she drew level with
our table. Memories of this woman dressed in red, her lips pressed against mine
as she slipped a dagger between my ribs, harvesting my blood to traverse the
path to Atlantis, danced through my mind. “Oh, Emily.”
“My, my,
my,
Declan Hale, at
a loss for words? Come now, you’re far more charming than this.”
“You look well.” Emily wore a
devastatingly gorgeous dress, cut off just above the knee and strapless,
exposing a soft canyon of cleavage. Her auburn hair hung in gentle waves down
over her shoulders. She was glowing, of course, and the bump in her belly was
the reason for that. She was pregnant—heavily so. “Radiant, gorgeous,
beautiful. Graceful. Like a fine wine, you just keep getting sweeter.”
The Immortal Queen of the Renegades
laughed—an honest laugh, happy and true. “Oh, much better. Who’s your friend,
Declan?” She smiled at Annie, her eyes alight and teeth oh-so white. “I love
your hair. So dark and straight.”
“Thank you.” Oblivious to the truth,
my young detective fell that much closer to Forget. “I’m Annie. Congratulations
on your pregnancy.”
Emily wrapped her arms around her
baby bump. “Thank you, Annie.”
“How far along are you?”
“Close to six months.”
I edged the steak knife off the
table and closed my fist around it. Emily Grace had good reason to hate me—I
had killed her husband, King Morpheus Renegade. She had returned the favor and
killed me, as well, but I hadn’t had the good grace to stay dead.
“So, are you two here together on a
date?” Emily asked. That friendly glint in her eye turned sharp. “You’re
wearing a lovely ring, Annie. Don’t tell me you managed to make Declan commit.
From what I know of him, he’s a hard man to tie down.”
I laughed. “Depends who’s doing the
tying, I suppose.”
“No, no. Declan and I have only just
met this morning. I’m a detective with the WA Police and he’s... he’s
consulting on a case for us.”
Emily looked positively chuffed. “Is
he now? Always such a helpful boy. Not in any trouble, are you, Declan?”
“No more than usual, ma’am.” I
shrugged. Annie was watching me carefully. “So how long are you back in town
for, Em? I’d heard work was keeping you quite busy. Didn’t you recently get
promoted?”
“The sole queen of my own little
kingdom, yes. I’m actually leaving tonight, but I thought I’d see if I could
surprise you first.”
“I am somewhat surprised to see you,
yes.”
Annie’s pocket rang. She pulled out
her phone and frowned at the screen. “It’s work. Excuse me for a minute.”
I made to rise as she left the
table, but she was gone in a flash, outside into the courtyard. Emily trailed
her hand across my shoulder and along my back, before sitting down in Annie’s
chair.
“You like her,” she said, resting
her chin on her palm and smiling. Her lips were full, red, and damnably
inviting.
I sat down, placed the steak knife
back on my plate, and adjusted my waistcoat. “She’s engaged.”
“Even so. I watched you for a good
long while before you noticed me. You smile when she smiles, and I know you
only bring your favorites to this charming place.” Emily reached across the
table and squeezed my hand. “She even looks somewhat like that girl you lost in
Atlantis. What was her name again? I fear you’re setting yourself up for more
heartache, Arbiter.”
“Tal. Her name was Tal.” Her soul and
essence, scattered across the Void, had been ensnared by Lord Oblivion, one of
the fabled Everlasting—old gods and old sods. “Even if I was looking for dating
advice, I don’t think the woman who killed me is a fair and unbiased source.”
“Oh, why do you wound me—”
“Can I have my Roseblade back?”
“—when I’m here to
save
your
life tonight?”
I tossed back the last of my scotch
and swallowed hard. “And why should I believe that, Captain Fantastic?”
For the first time Emily looked
something less than radiant. Her smile faded, and I saw a glimpse through one
of the many masks she wore so well. The Immortal Queen was terrified. “Forget
has changed in the last few months, Declan. You’ve not been back, have you? Jon
Faraday did not rescind your exile for unmaking the Degradation and killing
poor Morpheus.”
“I’m too much of a threat to his
lordship for that. Half of Ascension City, the half that doesn’t want me dead,
wants me on the Dragon Throne.”
“Well, my exiled king, given my late
husband’s betrayal in Atlantis, Faraday and I are currently not on speaking
terms either, which suits me just fine; however, there are rumors… rumors he’s
made an alliance.”
“An alliance? With who? After the
Knights, you and your Renegade armies are one of the greatest threats in all Forget.
Hell, you could
level
Ascension City with the Roseblade.”
“Not a who—a
what
.” Emily
looked out the window and into the night, at Annie in the courtyard. “And
Declan, my dear, your diplomacy skills are sorely lacking. A king should know
better.” She offered me a wicked grin. “It’s an ugly fault of yours. We’re not
at war anymore, thanks to
you
. This is peacetime. Stop thinking in
absolutes of destruction, and perhaps fewer people will die around you.”
“Point.”
I suppose.
“An
alliance with what then?”
“Atlantis’s return has changed
things… so many things. Forget is in flux, and the Story Thread trembles.
Declan, Faraday has forsaken True Earth in exchange for clemency against what
you know was hiding in Atlantis.”
I scoffed, but a sliver of fear
squirmed in my gut.
Tal... you wouldn’t let It.
“That’s absurd.”
“Which is why I’m here telling you.
Why you’re needed once again, to embrace and fight the absurd. The Shadowless
Arbiter, a madness to be reckoned with, yes? All the Knights across this world,
guarding the waypoints through the Void, have been recalled to Ascension City.
Earth has been abandoned to at least one of the Everlasting, and any Knight—or
Renegade, for that matter—will be slaughtered by Emissary. Such is the nature
of King Faraday’s bargain.”
Emissary?
“Good thing I’m not a Knight or a
Renegade then.”
“I think, in your case, Emissary
will not make the distinction.” Emily gazed out of the window again and
shivered. “It’s coming, Declan. If you weren’t so blind, you’d have already seen
the signs. It’s here. I’m leaving True Earth as soon as our conversation is
done. Can’t you feel it? It’s coming for you tonight. Now.” She leaned forward
and cupped my cheek. “Hey, sweet thing, didn’t you used to be someone?”
“How’s it know where to find me?”
Emily almost laughed. “Are you
serious? It’s never lost you. Shadowless as you are, your very existence is a
blight upon the face of the world. Creatures such as Voidlings or Emissary are
drawn
to you. Can’t you
feel
it? Or has that disgusting drink you’re always
sipping dulled what little sense you possess?”
“I—” I could see that Emily believed
every word she was speaking. Every damn word. Either that, or the scotch
had
dulled my senses—mayhap why I drank so much of the stuff—and I was being played.
Perhaps both those options were true. You didn’t rise to the head of one of the
largest armies in existence without thinking a few steps ahead, and Emily, for
as long as I’d known her, had always been more than a few steps ahead of me.
“Why do they call you immortal, Your
Majesty?” I asked, but I was distracted now. A sense of... something, was
pulling at my Will.
I reached out and opened the door in
my mind that let the Will flow free. The ascending oils of creation filled my
body and soul. A rush of heat, of ice, of sharp copper flowed through me, and I
felt, for one moment, that I could do anything. Hop across universes, unmake
the world, and be back in time for
Doctor Who.
I used my Will to touch the living
things around me. A gentle ping resonated in my mind as the invisible wave of
power rippled outward. I could feel the life force in Emily, in her unborn
child, and in all the people at Paddy’s. A dark canvas with dozens of tiny
pinpricks of light, swaying slowly to the music, as if I had an ethereal radar
in the smoke rings of my mind. One of those was Annie, just outside, and if I
concentrated a touch harder I’d be able to discern which one she—
My sensory net struck a wall made of
cascading flame, and I almost lost my dinner. The wall felt a lot like what I
imagine hot, raw sewage would taste like. A point on the canvas that was
neither living nor dead... nor
human
.
“Oh… broken quill!” I cursed and
pressed my fingers against my eyelids, fighting a sudden nausea.
Something wicked was at Paddy’s tonight.
Something…
far
from Irish.
I broke away from the starry canvas
with a thought and looked up and over Emily’s shoulder, across at the bar.
A man stood next to the polished
mahogany and the beer-soaked mats, just before the bridge of frosty taps. He
was dressed in a fine black suit and a matte-purple shirt. A simple bowtie,
untied, hung around his neck. His smile stretched from ear to ear, revealing
rows of pristine white teeth.
He winked at me and his eye—his
whole eye—turned black as coal.
A sense of fear and raw insanity hit
me hard, and it was all I could do not to scream. I was looking at the creature
that had torn apart those poor people and left me messages in their blood and
entrails. If Emily was to be believed, I was looking at a monster of
incalculable strength. A servant of one the Everlasting. The nine fuckin’
Ringwraiths.
Oblivion, Scion…
Emissary. A word for messenger,
envoy, herald—
harbinger
.
“Why tell me all this?” I asked,
never taking my eyes off the thing at the bar. “Why help me?”
“Because I, unlike your older
brother, value this world and its people. You are going to be needed. True
Earth has her part to play in the war to come, and I’d soon as not see it
burned to ash by things older than time.” Emily shook her head. “But never mind
that just now. It’s going to kill everyone here, Declan.”
“He doesn’t look so tough. I can
take him.”
Can I?
“You should go, and go now.”
“Yes, I know. I’m going.” Emily
stood and moved around the table. She leaned in close and gave me a kiss on one
stubbly cheek. “
Immortal
is, perhaps, the wrong word.
Timeless
fits better. I’ll miss you if you die and stay dead.”
“Hey, haven’t you heard? I’m the
Immortal King, sweet thing.”
“Goodnight, Declan.”
Emily left through the back door,
stepping out into the beer garden across the restaurant area behind me, but I
didn’t watch her leave. The thing at the bar hadn’t blinked yet, and neither
had I.
My hands were under the table, and I
pooled a reserve of raw, smoky, luminescent Will into my palms. I didn’t know
what this creature was capable of, but it felt like nothing I’d encountered
before. So I’d have to hit it hard and fast, and never mind who saw me shooting
beams of fire from my palms—