Guardian (6 page)

Ian swore again and resumed pacing. “I don’t see any way around it. If what she says is true I’ll be next to useless. Maybe I can keep her in the deep travel layer so they don’t know she’s there.”

I frowned, not liking that option at all, but I wisely chose to keep my mouth shut. I’d fight that battle later, when I wasn’t outnumbered.

The air before the queen shimmered and her gaze flew to Ian. “The Watcher comes. Go now!”

Suddenly the invisible bands around my body dropped away and I hit the floor, hard, falling to my knees. Ian grabbed my hand and threw faery dust over our heads, and we were off.

~ ~
*
~ ~

He dragged me through Tana’s kingdom and out through the golden gates. The wood was quiet and dark, with the sun fading away overhead so that its essence couldn’t filter through the dense umbrella of tree growth overhead. Using the deep layer, our footsteps moved us through the wood at an impossibly fast rate. Although I knew it would still take us until morning to reach the outer edges.

The sprites appeared to have gone home to dinner, if sprites did such a thing. And in the deep stillness of the prehistoric place, it felt as if Ian and I were the only ones alive. I watched him walking ahead of me and was struck by the grace and confidence with which he moved.

The silence started to weigh on me so my mouth, in its usual fashion, began to move. “So how do you and Tana know each other?”

He glanced at me and shrugged. “Her father and my father were fathers together.”

Alrighty then.
I thought about this for a while then tried again. “So you were friends as children?”

“You could call it that.”

Okay, he was starting to annoy me. I forced my face to remain blank. “I’d heard she spent some time among humans as a child. I hadn’t really believed it though.”

He threw me a strange look but said nothing.

We approached a cave and Ian ducked into it. I frowned, following. “We aren’t stopping for the night already are we? I’d rather keep moving so we can get out of here.” I rubbed my arms. “The wood at night gives me the creeps.”

Ian just stared at me for a moment and then stepped out of the layer. “This is a portal.” He started toward the back of the cave. “If you’re coming with me you’d better hurry up.”

I frowned, wondering at which point I’d lost control of the situation, and stepped out. The cool, dank air hit me first. The smell second. Something had apparently died in the cave. Not all that long ago if the depth of stench was an indicator. Rubbing my arms I started after him.

I heard him cry out and took off running, my weapon in my hand before I took the first step. I found him writhing on the floor a little further into the cave. I took a battle stance, looking around for whatever had attacked him. There was nothing or no one there, other than Ian, thrashing around in apparent pain. Then I realized what it was.

The potion was working.

I knelt down beside him and reached to touch his arm. As soon as our flesh connected he stopped moving and looked up at me with eyes that were still haunted by pain memory. He took a deep breath and closed them. “Remind me not to walk away from you again.”

I grinned. Just like that control returned. I was back. I helped him to his feet and he stood before me for a moment, testing his limbs and shaking slightly. “That really sucked.”

I felt kind of bad about that. But I still believed it had been necessary. If I hadn’t potioned him he’d be long gone and I’d be reduced to tracking him again. He was damn slippery for a human and I was tired of tracking him.

An inhuman shriek came to us from the direction of the cave mouth. Ian’s head came up and he grabbed my hand. “It’s back. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“What is it?”

Ian pulled me more deeply into the cave. “Harpy. A particularly foul one.”

I frowned. “I thought they were extinct.”

“That’s what the fairies wanted you to think. Unfortunately it isn’t true. It’s one of the reasons the Wood gives you the creeps. On some level you must have known they were here.”

“They?”

Behind us, the sound of wings filled the air and another shriek reverberated through the heavy, putrid smelling air. We started to run, stumbling over an assortment of stark white bones and rotting carcasses that were apparently being saved for later.

Another shriek told us the harpy wasn’t all that far away.

“We’re almost there." Ian assured me.

Ahead of us, an answering shriek brought us to a dead stop. “Shit.” Ian muttered.

“That doesn’t
quite
cover it.” I responded.

We stood in a fairly tight passageway. Ahead of us I could see a dim light that told us the cave opened up into some type of cavern. Behind us the light was cut off suddenly, as a large, dark shape eclipsed it.

Another shriek set our feet into motion. Unfortunately we were running away from certain death, and right into the arms of definite demise. But instinct had us by the throat. And it had us running from the devil we could see.

Then the light at the end of the passageway in front of us closed off and we stopped, gasping for air. “Zeus’s eyeballs!” Ian screamed in frustration.

A wild, incoherent warbling entered the passageway from both ends, growing increasingly more intense as the harpies moved in for the kill.

We turned to stand back to back. I heard the thwuck of a sword leaving its scabbard as Ian readied his weapon of choice. I held my electric fork in front of me, wishing I’d thought to bring a sword. Or at least a long knife.

In order for me to use my fork I’d have to get up real close and personal with the harpies. And that probably meant I’d be sliced to ribbons by their twelve inch long talons.

That just sucked.

“Use the dust!” I screamed at Ian.

“It won’t work in here.”

“I don’t have a sword, Ian.”

Without taking his eyes from his own nightmare at the end of the passageway, Ian twisted a hand around my body. “Take this.”

I looked down. His hand held a long knife that looked plenty deadly. Not quite as good as a sword, but used in conjunction with my weapon, it would work. “Thanks.”

The harpies gave off dual shrieks and launched their attack, flying toward us at an impossible speed. I held the long knife in one hand and my weapon in the other and pressed against Ian, more from a need for some sense of security than anything else.

With wings that spread sixteen to twenty feet in full flight, I wondered how the harpies could even fly in the small space. As they got close, I realized they weren’t exactly flying, but were using their wings to enhance their speed as they hopped toward us on huge clawed feet with long, knifelike talons.

Ian and I stood back to back and waited. I was having trouble breathing and it wasn’t from running. My heart was pounding at a chest splitting level as I watched the horrible thing of legend descending on me.

She was ten feet tall and a deep, dark, purple…nearly black. She had normal shoulders and upper arms, but where her elbows should have been her arms turned into wings. Her body was smooth, shaped like a human female, and she wore tiny scraps of cloth over the pertinent areas. Her slim legs widened out at the bottom, into heavy, black claws rather than feet. Her head was crowned by a tuft of long, silky purple-black feathers and the face beneath it would have been pretty, except that the wide mouth was open and several rows of jagged, deadly looking teeth gleamed in the low light of the passageway. Her knee-buckling stench preceded her. It was the smell of death and decay, with an earthy bouquet of rotting garbage thrown in for good measure.

“Gods save us.” I murmured as, with a final shriek, the thing attacked.

Chapter Four

Temporary Reprieve

I
t came at me claws first, using its formidable wings to hold it off the ground so it could slash at me with its razor sharp claws. The harpy’s evil face was horribly distorted by the incredible size of its tooth filled maw.

The thing’s claws ripped through my flesh, tearing narrow, bloody slits in my stomach and chest before I managed to swing the long knife, grazing its flat, hairless belly.

The harpy lifted off me with a shriek and flapped its massive wings twice before dropping toward me again.

This time the claws ripped my shoulders in deep furrows. I flicked the long knife across the nearest leg and felt the tough flesh rip under its razor sharp edge. Thick, black blood sprayed my face.

As the harpy screamed in pain I jabbed her in the chest with my electric fork, and gave her an annihilation level of juice. She shimmered before me for a second and then disappeared.

I gave a sigh and closed my eyes in relief.

When I opened them again she was standing in front of me. I screamed as she reached her thick black claws toward me and wrapped them around my throat, squeezing slowly so she could enjoy watching the light fade from my eyes.

I looked into her black gaze as she squeezed the life from my body and saw pleasure there and not much else.

My lips opened as I struggled to breathe and my body went limp. She pulled me off my feet and up hard against her huge body. On some level I recoiled from the stench, but my imminent death took precedence over the list of things to focus on at that moment.

She shuddered against me as my heart fluttered, enjoying my death in an almost erotic way. My gaze never left hers.

She never saw it coming.

Just before I blacked totally out, I lifted the long knife and, with a single, last ditch swipe, severed her nasty head from her nasty body.

She fell backwards, releasing me, and I dropped to the floor. Behind me the sounds of battle continued. I knew I should go help Ian. But I just needed a few seconds to recover my equilibrium. My throat felt as if it had been crushed. I closed my eyes and brought healing energy to the spot. After a moment I could breathe again.

I stood wearily and turned toward Ian, just in time to see him dispatch the harpy with his sword.

His pretty brown face was speckled with ugly black splotches and his chest had long, slimy black smears of harpy blood on it. He swiped the sword over the harpy’s beautiful purple wing to clear most of the blood from it and dropped it back into its scabbard. A faery scabbard, I noticed, made of highly burnished gold with silver accents. It bore Tana’s royal seal.

I lifted an eyebrow but, before I could ask, Ian turned away, toward the back of the cave. “You ready?” He didn’t wait for my response.

We entered a large cavern that was so dark I couldn’t even see Ian a few inches in front of me. I reached out and felt for him. When my fingers touched smooth, warm skin I slid them down until they encountered the rough waist of his faery breeches. I tucked my fingers inside so I wouldn’t lose him.

“This really isn’t the place or time, Monad,” he murmured huskily, “but I’m game if you are.”

“Shut up.”

The air in the cavern was thick with the putrid harpy stench. I slammed my lips shut in regret as soon as I’d spoken. I could almost feel the smell as a coating on my tongue. My gag reflex kicked in but I fought it back.

It’s just odor. I told myself. It can’t really be crawling into my nose, my lips, my eyes. But it was so heavy in the air it felt as if it were alive. I wanted to ask Ian about it, but I was reluctant to open my mouth again.

Ian’s body jerked to a stop suddenly and I slammed into him. It wasn’t an altogether horrible experience.

He cursed softly and began fumbling in his breeches for something. Finally a soft click preceded a small illumination on the ground in front of us. We looked down and saw a huge skull on the ground at our feet. The fangs jutting out from the skull were easily six inches long and curved together at the sides of a wide jaw. It looked like it had been a gargoyle.

Ian stepped over the thing and kept the small, beamstick focused on the ground as we walked. It was a good thing he’d pulled it out. The ground in the cavern was a veritable minefield of bones and rotting parts.

Well, at least that explained the stench.

Finally, I couldn’t help myself. I had to talk. “Did you come in this way?”

Ian’s body swayed as he shook his head. “I came in at the other end of the wood. But this is closer to Tana’s kingdom. I’m getting short on time and decided it was worth the risk.”

I frowned. “Short on time? For what?”

He stopped suddenly. “Did you hear that?”

I listened, casting my eyes blindly around as I strained to hear what he thought he’d heard.

“I don’t hear anything.”

After a few beats he started walking again. I followed in silence for a while and then commented. “This seems like a lot of carnage for two harpies doesn’t it?”

He stiffened and stopped again.

That time I heard it too. It was a small shifting sound. Like claws against rock. A tiny breeze swept over us, thick with the stench of harpy. And a whisper of sound followed it.