Keys and Curses (Shadow Book 2) (12 page)

“Madam?”

“A little fetch bite never killed anyone,” she said. “Did send young Mudface a bit crooked. She stayed under a turnip dead for a week. Came back, started wearing all black clothes and wanting to be alone all the time. Next thing we know she moves into her own pumpkin and instead of carving nice square doors and windows like a civilised Bloomin Fairy, what does she do? She puts in creepy eyes and a big jagged mouth for a doorway!” The Lord of the Gourd’s face went bright red and her lower lip quavered.

“But that’s hideous!” Nikifor boomed. He sighed, lowered his voice and continued. “What happened to her?”

The Lord of the Gourd shrugged. “Nothing. She just lives in that pumpkin and draws pictures or some such rubbish. Silliest Bloomin Fairy of the lot, if you ask me.”

The noise of the returning fairies saved Nikifor from having to think up a reply. They poured back into the room, bringing with them a cloaked man who towered over them all and had to stoop to get through the doorway.

He wasn’t as tall as a muse by any means, but he was definitely no fairy. When he was inside he removed his hood to reveal a head of tightly curled hair with generous grey streaks in it. Black and grey mixed in fascinating patterns through a full beard and moustache that flowed from under pointed cheekbones.

He looked Nikifor over, gave him a curt nod and then smiled at the fairies. The smile changed his whole visage from forbidding to friendly. “I may need some things,” he said. “Boiling water. Potatoes, turnips, carrots, cauliflower and parsley. Off you go. Mudface, you stay here.”

Excited chatter burst out. Within moments the fairies had exited, all except one girl whose baggy tunic was stitched together out of countless black patches. She slunk over to a wall, crouched down and stayed there, watching them all with suspicious eyes.

The Great Clip Clop breathed a sigh that could have been relief, then returned his attention to Nikifor. The friendliness fled. He gave the Lord of the Gourd a low, grave bow. “At your service.”

When he walked toward them, his footsteps rang on the hard earth in a rhythmic way that could only mean he had hooves instead of feet, and was therefore one of the reclusive forest people. Nikifor tried not to stare. He wished Flower would wake up and explain how a forest person could be living in a fairy village. The two tribes didn’t mix. Ever.

The Lord of the Gourd drew herself up. “This don’t mean we changed our minds,” she said.

“Of course not.”

“Just so it’s clear.” She jerked her head at Flower. “Can you help this giant freakin muse? She’s been bit by a stinky.”

“I can help.” The man knelt by Flower, but turned his attention to Nikifor. His first question was abrupt. “Who are you?”

“Niki-” Nikifor cleared his suddenly dry throat. The Great Clip Clop made him nervous. Flower would laugh if she knew. “Nikifor.”

The name sparked some interest in the man’s eyes. He studied Nikifor intently. “Prove it.”

“How can I prove it?” The intensity in the man’s eyes held him in place.

The man gave a thin smile, then grabbed him with one hand around the throat. “Vanish in a puff of smoke before I have a chance to kill you.”

Nikifor wrapped his fingers around the man’s wrist and pulled. The man was strong, but Nikifor stronger. He slowly, surely removed the hand from his throat. “I’m not one of them.”

The man nodded, apparently satisfied. “So it would seem.” He glanced down at Nikifor’s hand, still pushing away his own, and grasped his wrist. “What’s this?”

The Great Clip Clop’s fingers rested on the brand on his wrist. Nikifor couldn’t breathe. He looked about wildly, but the Tormentor was not there. He knew he had to keep it together, because Flower couldn’t do it for him right now. He drew his hand back and pressed it to his side. “Nothing.”

The man inclined his head to the Lord of the Gourd. “With your permission I will take these two to the dwelling you have graciously given me, and help them.”

The Lord of the Gourd scowled. “I can’t watch?”

“You honour my humble efforts, but I fear there is not much to observe.”

“Go on then. Get on with it.” The Lord of the Gourd waved them out.

“We’ll have to carry her between us,” the man said.

Nikifor was relieved to hear it, since his arms still ached. They hoisted Flower up, draping her arms over their shoulders, and left the giant pumpkin. The Great Clip Clop nodded at Mudface on the way out, who trudged after them.

They went quickly though the campsite, where the fairies were scurrying around busily preparing dinner in a huge pot.

“Mudface, get me some boiling water,” the Great Clip Clop said. “And some of those little pink flowers that grow out behind the cauliflower patch.”

Mudface trudged away.

He didn’t speak again until they’d cleared the fairies and were nearing a pumpkin house perched some way from the edge of the village. “My name is Fitz Falls,” he said.

“But that is magnificent!” Nikifor boomed, then silently chastised himself when Fitz looked at him like he might be a madman. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I can’t control the shouting. I was cursed by a Freakin Fairy. I only meant that we were told to seek you out.”

“I see.” Fitz pushed open the rickety wooden door to the pumpkin house with a foot, and they both stooped to bring Flower inside. There Fitz laid her on a bed so short her legs hung off the end.

Nikifor knelt by Flower and smoothed the hair out of her face, a gesture he’d never have dared to make were she awake. “Can you help her?”

Fitz busied himself stirring up a fire in a low stove built of mismatched mud bricks. “Fetch bites are not lethal, although they can knock a fairy out cold for a good week or two. I don’t know about muses, I’ve haven’t dealt with you people in a long time.”

“What are you saying? She’s just asleep?”

Fitz nodded. “They’re not there to kill. They’re there to stun. I’ve seen whole villages of Bloomin Fairies unconscious, and then you know the Moon Troopers are on their way to take the victims.”

“But that’s dastardly!” Nikifor clapped a hand over his mouth, and continued in a much lower tone. “Sorry. I mean, that’s terrible. What do they want with the Bloomin Fairies?”

Fitz gave a philosophical shrug. “No doubt the same thing the Guild wants with all the missing fairies, but I’ve yet to discover just what that is.”

Mudface came through the door at that moment, carrying a pot of steaming water in one hand and a basket of flowers in the other. She scowled at Fitz when she passed him by. “Pink,” she said, as though it were a bad, bad word. She put the pot on the fire and the basket next to it, then slammed back through the door and disappeared.

Fitz chuckled and put some flowers in the hot water to steep. “Young Mudface is not a big fan of pink. She’d much rather gather black flowers.” He took up a wooden spoon and began to stir. “Pumpkinhead told me he found you two fighting seven million fetches.”

Nikifor smiled. “He gravely overestimates my valour. It was perhaps five hundred.”

“I heard Nikifor the Muse Champion killed thousands of vampires every night of the Vampire Wars.”

The smile dropped away. Nikifor looked at Flower’s hand lying across her stomach and wished she were awake to do the talking. He remembered those battles well enough. Perhaps, if it had not been for them, he might have resisted the vibe. Or perhaps the vibe had taken him back to that space, that nothingness, that perfect, terrible stillness he only ever found on a battlefield when pitched against a thousand foes. But even that was a lie.

“Did he not?”

Nikifor looked up to find Fitz watching him from by the stove. He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You find no pleasure in your own deeds?”

Nikifor looked at his own hands this time. Sometimes, in the depths of the vibe madness, he would find them covered in blood. “I frighten myself.”

Fitz took a wooden cup from a shelf and carefully ladled steaming liquid into it. “The mark on your wrist,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

Weakness is disloyalty.

Nikifor instinctively covered his wrist with one hand. He looked about quickly for the Tormentor, but the room was empty of shadows. “I don’t know.”

Fitz crossed the room. He knelt by Flower, put his arm under her shoulders, lifted her and tipped the cup to her lips.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Flower coughed and spluttered when liquid hit her throat and went down the wrong way. She choked, hacked, sat bolt upright and slapped away the hands attempting to support her. When she was quite sure she could breathe again, she glared at the bearded man leaning over her. “Well thank you very much. I was just starting to get somewhere!”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re welcome.”

“Who are you? Where’s Nikifor?”

Movement to her left drew her attention. Flower was relieved to see Nikifor crouching near the bed, quite lucid, if a little pinched and exhausted. She tried to take in the domed hut, the tiny furniture and the dried mud walls. It was all so alien her disoriented mind threatened to plain shut down again. “Where in Shadow are we?”

Nikifor cleared his throat. “Flower, we’re in a Bloomin Fairy village named Pumpkin. This is Fitz Falls.”

Flower had the good grace to blush furiously. She took a deep breath, collected herself and held out her hand. “I apologise Mr Falls, I was startled to awake so suddenly. I am Flower.”

He gave her hand the briefest shake, then returned to the stove. “Flower of the Great North Island Beyond the Night Flickered Sea. I know who you are.”

Flower winced at the repetition of her name, but held herself back from protesting. First impressions went a long way, and she’d already made a terrible one. She threw a questioning look at Nikifor, but he just shrugged. The last vestiges of the fetch poison still fogged her brain. She made to stand up, but the room tilted.

“Don’t get up.” Fitz returned to the bed. “It’ll take some time for you to get back to normal, you took a nasty bite. Drink some more of this.” He handed the mug back to her, filled with a steaming, flowery tea.

Flower sat cross-legged on the bed and sipped the tea. She watched Fitz covertly while he dragged over a stool far too small for him and carefully perched on it. The tea did its work quickly. Her head cleared. Even the pain of the cut on her arm went away. When she checked the wound, the blood had dried and the gash almost sealed over.

Fitz broke the silence with a question that sounded as though he’d carefully weighed it before speaking. “Why do the Muse Champion and the muse king’s favourite seek me out?”

Flower blushed again. She hadn’t heard herself called the favourite in a long time, but coming from him it sounded like an insult. “We need your help.”

“I don’t see what help I could offer the two of you, past what I’ve already done.”

Flower sighed and glanced at Nikifor. “You didn’t explain?”

He shook his head. “You’re much better at that kind of thing.”

“Right.” Flower took another sip of the tea. She hadn’t thought this far ahead. She hadn’t even thought to ask Ishtar who this Fitz Falls was, and the fact he was a forest person wasn’t exactly reassuring. What was she even thinking, taking the advice of a Bloody Fairy?

“Well?” Fitz never took his eyes off her.

“A Bloody Fairy named Ishtar Ishtar told us to seek you out,” she said. “I know it’s highly unusual, but-”

Fitz surprised her by breaking into a grin. “You saw Ishtar?”

“Yes.”

“How is she?”

“Mad as a three piece suit in summer.”

“And what did you do when you saw her? You’re hardly the type to fraternise with outlaws.”

Flower shrugged. “We talked.”

Fitz steepled his fingers in front of his face and rested his forehead on them. “I think there’s much more of a story here than you’re telling me, Flower, but we will discover all in time. Go on.”

Flower scowled. If this forest person thought he was going to muscle in on muse business, he could think again. “Ishtar said you would help us to rescue the eight hundred Freakin Fairies we found trapped inside a quicksilver mine.”

“Eight hundred?” He stared at her with very little evidence of surprise, and gave a sigh. “Are you sure?”

“The entire Silver clan are missing from their village and there are fetches guarding the mine. I’m quite sure, Mr Falls, that I know what I’m talking about.”

“Fitz, please.” He kept up his disconcerting stare. “Why? I know you’ve long been a friend to the fairies, but you’re also renowned for your loyalty to the greatest enemy the fairy clans have.”

“What rubbish are you talking now?” She put aside the empty cup, feeling almost like herself again.

“The muse king. The great pretender. Who else do you think is behind this genocide?”

Flower clenched her fists in her lap. Really, this was too much. First impressions be damned. “I will not sit here and listen to these slurs on my king! I do not know who is behind the disappearances, but there is no way Pierus would plot against his own people, and believe you me Mr Fitz Falls, there are far more muses missing right now than fairies. Nikifor and I are the only ones left, and the king is the only one out there who can help!” Her anger carried her to her feet and this time she stood without the least bit of dizziness. “We’ve obviously come to the wrong place. Come on Nikifor, we’re leaving.” She stormed for the door.