“
But you’re made out of
smoke, you little kir.” Luca flicked his broad sword menacingly at
the cat. “You could just float out there and we’d be none the
wiser!”
A pulse of Summer heat radiated out
from the dagger and into Min’s hand, and with it an
idea.
Min walked over to the cat and reached
out, taking a tuft of its shadowy form into her hand. It turned
solid the instant she grasped it, and the cat moaned in what could
have been pain or ecstasy. The cat peered up at her. He looked
surprised.
“
Now you’ll fall just like
one of us.” She leered over the cat and showed him her teeth. The
power of Summer burned in her veins, yet she could tell she was in
full control. “So is there still an invisible bridge out
there?”
The cat’s moon-glow eyes widened, but
his gaze did not falter. “Yes, my lady. The bridge is there, and
will take us to where you want to be.”
~*~
The first step should have been the
hardest. Min held a death-grip on both Luca’s hand and the soft fur
of the shadow cat. To her extreme displeasure, each step on the
solid, though alarmingly invisible bridge was just as hard as the
one before it. She didn’t look down…much. But even without seeing
it, she couldn’t just ignore that she was walking over a thousand
feet up—or that she had no idea how wide the bridge was, where it
stopped, or how close she was from the edge.
Min shook her head and pulled her
imagination back in check. All she needed to know was she was
walking across a solid bridge, and that Luca was with her. Maybe
that was why she wasn’t huddled in a little ball, shivering with
her eyes clenched shut. Maybe it was his touch.
Though she knew the wind was blowing as
hard as it had been on the mountain, since they had stepped foot on
the invisible bridge she hadn’t felt the slightest
breeze.
Guess the fae don’t like
being blown off invisible bridges either.
Her heart was pounding excessively hard
at the halfway mark, and only every ounce of will she had, kept her
from running the last hundred feet to the dark mount of Winter’s
Keep. But once there, she felt a little differently.
She’d thought her legs might give out,
and she’d fall to the ground and hug and kiss it in the greatest
relief of her life. But the instant her feet touched the terra
firma of Winter’s Keep, the most profound sense of being in danger
engulfed her. Her pounding heart sped up, her breathing came in
gasping rasps, and she looked around her with such force she was
sure her head would snap off.
But as the shadow cat had said, they
were utterly alone, and it seemed that nothing and no one was able
to see them. But still…
The shadow cat made a pained growl, and
Min realized she had tightened her grip considerably. To elicit
such a sound from a fae meant she was using some of the Summer
Queens power. She let go of the cat’s hide, because she hadn’t
meant to cause it pain, and because she certainly didn’t want to be
using the Summer Queen’s powers for no good reason.
The shadow cat shook itself, as if it
was wet, and then made a somewhat agonized sound. Again, Min could
not tell if it was pleasure or pain. It prowled forward and swiped
an insubstantial, though sharp looking, claw over the stone side of
the mountain. Immediately the darker-than-night stone split open,
and though there wasn’t any light emitted from inside of the crag,
there were eerie green and red lights, almost like the veins of
color in marble, and they throbbed, gently moved, and even changed
shapes.
“
My lady,” the cat
pronounced, and looked over its shoulder to her, “here is the way
you seek. This passage will lead us to the great hall. There you
will find your sister, and the Queen.” The cat glided into the
fissure.
Min wondered only for a moment why her
sister would be held captive so close to the Queen, but the pulsing
heat of Summer told her the answer.
She will keep her prize in
sight of her own eyes; at least until she has taken what she wants
from it.
Min shivered at the words that had
floated through her mind. The Queen thought of her sister as
nothing more than an object of power, something to own, to
devour.
Luca gripped her hand all the harder,
and then pulled away, taking both the shotgun and the sword in
alternate hands, ready to fight.
Min gritted her
teeth.
Over my dead body.
Her grip of the silver faerie blade
hardened, and she plunged into the dark fissure with sure, urgent
strides.
~*~
The fissure didn’t lead in a straight
shot. It curved and jutted from side to side, but Min got the
definite feeling they were heading deeper and deeper into the
mountain. The walls throbbed all the more brightly, so she could
make out the shadow cat’s shape as it slithered before her. Luca
moved backward and watched the way they’d come.
Then, with a jarring abruptness, they
came upon a dead end. The wall before them was huge and solid, and
carved with glyphs and runes—all symbols alien to Min. But one rune
did come across to her loud and clear. It practically glowed as she
stepped closer to it.
Summer shall not
pass
, it read.
Min shivered as the words passed
through her mind and caused cold tingles of fear through her. Did
this mean the power of Summer couldn’t come with her? Would she
have to face the Winter Queen and her minions without any help at
all?
The warmth of Summer flowed
into her, at first pleasant, and then red hot. The weight of the
dagger evaporated in her hand, scalding as its metal melted into
her flesh. She looked down to her outstretched palm and a silver
rune glowed in answer. It read,
Go with
thou, shall I.
Okay, that was weird. But as Min’s mind
tried to wrap itself around what she was looking at, the power of
Summer enveloped her, and she knew. The runes warding the Winter
Queen’s center of power would keep out Summer’s eternal power, but
it wasn’t designed to keep out a mortal. And even though Summer’s
power flowed through her like water, she was still only a
mortal.
“
Open it,
Graysyn.”
Luca changed his stance, so to see the
way they were heading, his sword held to strike before them, the
Bellini pointed to the rear. The shadow cat looked up with his
smoky, moonlit eyes, and with a swipe of his claws the wall started
to open.
It slid open silently, and the room it
led to wasn’t so much lit as it glowed with moonlight. It was huge,
with vaulted ceilings, and grand sculptures adorned its walls. Some
were carved murals of battles past. Some were of goblins holding
actual gems the size of human skulls in their grasps. Some were
life-sized mermaids, parts of their bodies reaching out, beckoning.
Sirens.
But the room was empty, and there
wasn’t a door of exit anywhere in sight.
The shadow cat’s eyes flicked left and
right, and it growled out a confused sound. And just as it started
to fade and disappear, a net of silvery light lashed up out of the
stone floor and caught it whole, wrapping around it and holding it
painfully flat to the ground. The cat hissed and cried as the
silver treads of the net dug into its form and seared its shadowy
flesh.
Without any more warning, twenty shapes
appeared around them as if they’d always been there. They’d been
veiled so well, even the shadow cat hadn’t been able to
tell.
Luca reached out and pulled Min back
toward him, both the sword and the shotgun facing the sudden cadre
of faeries.
“
Betray our Queen, you
have,” a tall, beautiful Sidhe man said, his long hair the white of
snow, his eyes glowing golden. In his hands he held a long,
menacing silver trident. His voice was deep and metallic, utterly
inhuman. “For that, you shall pay for an eternity.”
He turned his cruel golden eyes upon
Min and Luca, and the smile that formed on his face was not his
own. Min knew this smile, and the voice that came next from the
male’s lips was smooth and feminine, and absolutely crazed. The
voice of the Winter Queen. “But you two, I think, will die now.”
And she laughed, the sound like the tinkling of tiny bells,
beautiful and painful all at once.
The assembled fae gave a cackle of glee
and all of them surged forward at once.
Chapter 29
A goblin reached out for Min, but his
lumpy knuckled claw fell off at the wrist as Luca severed it with a
flick of his sword. The wound burned a hot green, and the creature
shrieked in agony.
But that didn’t deter any of the
others. The faeries moved on them like a tidal wave, and though
Luca slew three more of their number before she could even breathe,
Min knew he was sorely out matched. But then she took a breath—and
the room stood still for a quivering moment. And without even
thinking about it she took hold of the ogre closest to her, a huge
beast probably twenty times her size, and smashed the creature into
the wall to her left. It hit the great stone with a dull, wet thud,
and she heard its thick bones crunch from the blow.
She spun back to the oncoming fae and
they had barely even moved. Either time had slowed down or she was
moving far faster than her usual. She backhanded a slimy creature
with what looked like spider web encrusted antlers. It hit the
floor like a load of bricks. And then there were six fae charging
her all at once. Both her palms burned with fierce heat, and she
lifted them as she moved forward. Flames so great it could have
been the very fires of hell, erupted from her hands and leveled the
charging fae. No, they weren’t knocked down by the magick fire,
they were incinerated by it.
Luca at her back, Min moved forward
with quick, clicking strides, blasting any creature that dared get
in her way with the white-hot fire of Summer. Her blood blazed with
the glory and power of it. It was nice to for once be the more
powerful. Hell, the power she was wielding was more than anything
she could imagine. It made her heart pound with unbidden longing.
Somehow, deep inside, she wanted even more power.
Her steps faltered for only a moment,
but she shook the greedy hunger from her like a watershed. This
power wasn’t hers. If she started thinking it was hers to keep,
then she would find herself owned body and soul by the devious
faerie Queen who had started this whole mess.
And the bitch had, hadn’t she? Min made
a note to take that up with her royal highness the very next time
they met…if they ever met again. For with all the power surging
through her at the moment, just looking at the far wall, and the
double doors that were suddenly materializing before her, she knew
without a doubt that power wouldn’t make a bit of
difference.
She still hadn’t a chance in hell
against the Queen of Winter on her home turf. Nobody
did.
But she pushed through the gilded door
all the same, making the not-quite-formed entrance crack as she
pitted her new strength against it. The doors swung open, overly
dramatic as the hinges whined their displeasure, and Min saw a room
ten times the size of the previous chamber, ceiling rising out of
sight, walls an icy black, yet sparkling with their own kind of fae
light.
The room was filled not only with a
ghastly assortment of many different, and rather nauseatingly
gruesome faeries, but also some of the most beautiful men and women
Min had ever laid eyes on. And they were all looking at her, all
calm, all absolutely certain of what was going to happen
next.
Min looked forward to the front of the
great room. There, on a raised altar, was an enormous throne. It
sparkled like diamonds, but was most certainly ice, and the
cascades of ice rose up and up and up, as far as the eye could see.
A chilling, beautiful thing. But as Min looked harder, the ice had
shapes in it; bodies, nude and held in the throes of ecstasy and
agony. Some human, many obviously not. All, Min just seemed to
know, were not just sculptures. They had been real, alive…and even
now, they still were.
She saw a woman, by far the most
beautiful creature in the room, standing over the kneeling,
shuddering form of her sister. Andy was held to the spot by long
silver shackles, and she was sickly pale and crying.
The Queen turned and a brilliant smile
parted her lovely, blue lips. Her teeth were stark white, and as
her mouth opened more, her red, red tongue curled with
pleasure.
“
Oh look, my little star,
your sister comes to the rescue.” She turned back to Andy and
grabbed a handful of her hair, jerking her face to see Min. Her
eyes were swollen and red, and she was obviously scared out of her
mind. But the moment she laid eyes on her sister, a surge of hope,
of utter love and gratefulness filled them. And then very
distinctly, the glow of defiance.
~*~
Andy could not believe her
eyes.
I’m not alone…
Min was there. Min had come for her.
Min was aglow with fae power, and as pissed off and dangerous
looking as Andy had ever seen her. The vampire was behind her, his
back pressed against Min’s, a broad sword in one hand, and the
family Bellini in the other.